bad news - California Court Rules for DVD Industry

[sparkman]

I just saw this on the internet http://www.comcast.net/News/TECHNOLOGY//XML/1700_High_Tech/37ab9981-72aa-4f3f-bdb6-d638b7d6353d.html


Please use a subject that describes the news!!! I addded one this time. /Baldrick

[andkiich]

The linky no worky

I copy!

California Court Rules for DVD Industry

27 minutes ago

By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts may block Internet users from posting codes that could be used to illegally copy DVD movies, in a case that pitted trade secret rights against free speech.

The justices did not resolve whether the code was in fact a trade secret, leaving that for a lower court to determine. They did rule, however, that they would not tolerate the posting of legitimate trade secrets online and reversed a lower court that said disseminating trade secrets was protected free speech.

The case centered on San Francisco computer programmer Andrew Bunner, who in 1999 posted the code to crack the encryption technology and, according to the movie industry, helped users replicate thousands of copyright movies per day.

The DVD Copy Control Association, an arm of Hollywood studios, said it controls the encryption system, which scrambles data to prevent unauthorized copying of a movie sold in the DVD format. The association sued Bunner and others under California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

A San Jose judge ordered Bunner to remove the encryption-cracking code from the Internet. But the 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose lifted that injunction, a move the DVD Copy Control Association said was akin to giving crooks the technology to reproduce protected material such as movies on a large scale.

The court of appeal ruled that protecting trade secrets is not as important as "the First Amendment right to freedom of speech."

A unanimous Supreme Court, however, ruled otherwise Monday.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown, in reversing the appeals court on a 7-0 vote, said an order to remove the code "does not violate the free speech clauses of the United States and California constitutions."

The case is not fully resolved, however, because the Supreme Court also ordered the San Jose appeals court to analyze whether the code is still a protected trade secret given its widespread exposure.

The DVD association hailed Monday's decision.

"This opinion has wide applications to trade secret law," said association attorney Robert G. Sugerman. "Owners of trade secrets can now protect those trade secrets through injunctive relief, which is clearly now available."

During oral arguments three months ago, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer joined the group in arguing that industry secrets would be plundered if computer users could post them without court intervention. Companies including Boeing Co., Ford Motor Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc. urged the justices to side with the DVD association, arguing that trade secret protections trump First Amendment speech protections.

Bunner did not devise the decryption code, but instead posted it on one of his Web sites. The Norwegian teen who cracked the code, Jon Johansen, was acquitted in Norway in January of charges he stole trade secrets.

Bunner, 26, said he has removed any reference to it from the Internet and is fighting the case to stand up for free speech rights. He is one of dozens of people throughout the United States that the association is suing for posting the code.

He said Monday he believed his actions were lawful, and said he posted the code to let others play DVDs on their computers.

"The idea was to get it out there for an open-source DVD player," Bunner said.

His attorney, David A. Greene, said the appeals court could still ultimately support Bunner's actions because the code's global dissemination may not grant it status as a trade secret anymore.

[sparkman]

Sorry the link works now

[adam]

Just to put this case in perspective, the California Sup. Ct. is basically a nation-wide joke. They seem to intentionally do the opposite of all other jurisdictions, and for that reason their decisions have very little influence outside of California. Furthermore, this ruling only applies to California.

Also, all this case says is that you can't post trade secrets online in the interest of free speech, again limited to the state of Florida. This does not mean you can't post DeCSS....yet. Whether or not CSS constitutes a trade secret or not is still for the lower California courts to decide, and there are very strong arguements that CSS code is not a trade secret.

[MOVIEGEEK]

adam wrote:"Just to put this case in perspective, the California Sup. Ct. is basically a nation-wide joke"
That's an unfortunate fact.
I have a feeling this will be appealed to the 9th US Circuit Court,it doesn't sound like the US Supreme Court wants to rule on this yet.

[David K]

It's a state court case. The only federal appeal is to the United States Supreme Court on the basis that the state court ruling violates the United States Constitution.

[Bob W]

Yeah California is not happy unless they can pass at least ten new laws a week or increase taxes to fund the massive entitlement programs they offer. Lucy me I still own a house there and soon I get to pay even more property taxes.

[Greenspock]

Its all good... there will be an appeal... and another... and another... and another... and another... and another... and another... and another...

Don't you just love the US court system.

[DeleriumMDK]

Does this mean software using De-CSS can no longer be distributed or updated? This really sucks though, the bad people ruin it for the people who bypass CSS Encryption for legitimate backup purposes.

[adam]

DeleriumMDK reread my post, this case does not mean that at all. First off, whatever its effect it only applies in California. Secondly, it only holds that your free speech rights do not exempt you from being charged with releasing protected trade secrets.

The trial court never even ruled on whether CSS was a trade secret, because it decided that it wouldn't matter, because even if it was, you could still divulge those secrets under free speech rights. The California Sup. Ct. simply said that no, free speech won't protect you here. So now they have remanded the case back to the trial court so they can decide whether CSS is a trade secret or not.

Whatever the trial court decides it really doesn't matter that much to anyone living outside of California. Those laws (case law) won't apply to you and its highly unlikely any other jurisidictions will be influenced by California's decision.

[DeleriumMDK]

thanks for the clarification, good to know there are still some freedoms in the US (for now anyways)

[jdizzy40]

DeleriumMDK..... Did you get enough sleep last night?

[DeleriumMDK]

Nope, as usual I did not get a good nights sleep.

If this was regarding my freedom comments I just meant that it seems like a little freedom is lost every day, not even regarding just DVD's...but thats a whole political discussion this forum won't allow so I'll leave it at that.

[freestyler]

keeping fair use rights in mind, there is nothing wrong with such tools. the studios are trying to keep you from doing something you should legally be able to do, albeit circumventing monopolistic elements that lobbied themselves into the DMCA.

if you have any problems with freedoms, blame ashcroft

[mysticgohan17]

The Inquirer[/url]]Another use is to rip DVDs and post them on shadowy Internet sites.

lol, shadowy. they make it sound like its the ******* illuminati.

[BigGoof]

I don't always agree with the CA Supreme Court but in this case they are right. They ruled that if someone steals a trade secret and tries to post it on the internet, they are not protected by free speech. This makes sense. If I stole your social security number and your bank acct numbers and posted them on the internet as free speech would you think that was reasonable?

Free speech allows you to express your opinions/ideas, not publish someone elses private intellectual property. This case has nothing to do with CSS except that is the intellectual property which was stolen.

[The village idiot]

The Inquirer[/url]]Another use is to rip DVDs and post them on shadowy Internet sites.

lol, shadowy. they make it sound like its the ******* illuminati.

We are!

oops, did I say that?

[spiderman2k1]

BigGoof wrote

don't always agree with the CA Supreme Court but in this case they are right. They ruled that if someone steals a trade secret and tries to post it on the internet, they are not protected by free speech. This makes sense. If I stole your social security number and your bank acct numbers and posted them on the internet as free speech would you think that was reasonable?

Free speech allows you to express your opinions/ideas, not publish someone elses private intellectual property. This case has nothing to do with CSS except that is the intellectual property which was stolen.

This is not the same HollyWood put copy protection on DVD so people can not back them up. Many DVD's that people have right now are out of print. I hae DVD's that a friend gave me over sea that he record from TV that are PAL. I had a very hard time back a back of the set he made me. I have no clue why they are so hard to back up had to rip. Had to run DVD2oNE to put it back together when useing DVD2one I ran it from the DVD rom drive.

There are reason for backing up. If HollyWood had there way. There would be no DVD's no VHS. HollyWood is working on a law that you can not record a TV show with your PVR from Cable or satellite. The law is you do not have permission to record this TV show. It's more of a rule they want then a law.

[Nolonemo]

Yeah California is not happy unless they can pass at least ten new laws a week or increase taxes to fund the massive entitlement programs they offer. Lucy me I still own a house there and soon I get to pay even more property taxes

BobW: Oh please. Your property taxes can't go up any appreciable amount because of Prop 13, passed by a pathetic bunch of morons (the citizens of California, of which it appears you are one). That's why your schools are the worst in the nation and services (fire, police, street maintenance) are for shit.

[MOVIEGEEK]

BobW: Oh please. Your property taxes can't go up any appreciable amount because of Prop 13, passed by a pathetic bunch of morons (the citizens of California, of which it appears you are one). That's why your schools are the worst in the nation and services (fire, police, street maintenance) are for shit.

Let's not jump to conclusions we are not all morons.
Don't believe everything you see and hear from the media,CA has produced a few good people...Tiger Woods,the Williams sisters & Pete Sampras(tennis),Jeff Gordon grew up here,Barry Bonds,etc.

[Nolonemo]

Actually, I live in L.A., is MUST be true that all Californians aren't morons Hmm, or is it?

[adam]

I don't always agree with the CA Supreme Court but in this case they are right. They ruled that if someone steals a trade secret and tries to post it on the internet, they are not protected by free speech. This makes sense. If I stole your social security number and your bank acct numbers and posted them on the internet as free speech would you think that was reasonable?

Just to clarify, you are talking about something completely different. Your social security number and your bank acct number are not trade secrets. I'm sure posting a bank acct. number is an invasion of privacy and may possibly constitute as conversion but I don't believe there is anything preventing you from posting a social security number. I could be wrong about that but I know there are credit check companies and private investigators who will sell you information about people, including their social security numbers.

A trade secret is something like the formula for Coca Cola or the recipe to McDonald's secret sauce. Its information that does not even necessarily constitute intellecual property, ie: they don't have to have actually created it they just have to know about it. A trade secret is just a bit of information whose value to that industry is dependant upon it's being kept secret.

So...if you were a chemist and you were able to break down Coca Cola and determine the exact combination of ingredients to make it, under California law you would not be able to tell anyone about it. That's all this court decision really says, as of yet it has absolutely zero implications regarding DVDs. The question is now not whether you have a free speech right to post CSS decryption code, the question is whether CSS even constitutes a trade secret, and considering that ANYONE with an internet connection can access the code to bypass this protection system, I would think that it would be highly unlikely any court would rule that CSS constituted a trade secret. Then again, like I said, the Calfornia court system has always been known for their highly unpredictable, and highly illogical court decisions. I'm not saying anything about Californians when I say that, its just a well known fact that the California courts have a history of deciding cases with opinions which fall under neither the majority nor minority positions. They just have a history of being very different from all other jurisdictions.

[negon]

Seems like every extremely stupid ruling comes from the california supreme court...

[mysticgohan17]

I don't always agree with the CA Supreme Court but in this case they are right. They ruled that if someone steals a trade secret and tries to post it on the internet, they are not protected by free speech. This makes sense. If I stole your social security number and your bank acct numbers and posted them on the internet as free speech would you think that was reasonable?

Free speech allows you to express your opinions/ideas, not publish someone elses private intellectual property. This case has nothing to do with CSS except that is the intellectual property which was stolen.

you wont believe the hollywood trade secret i discovered, they dont make movies to entertain, they make movies to make money
*mysticgohan17 is arrested and sent to chino*