Court: DeCSS ban violated free speech

[JohnnyCNote]

This was on ZDNet:

Court: DeCSS ban violated free speech

A California appeals court on Friday reversed a 4-year-old order barring the publication of a DVD-cracking tool on the Internet, finding the injunction violated the defendant's free speech rights.

[fritzi93]

Thanks, good article. Funny that the plaintiffs are complaining about losing their "trade secrets". The phrase makes me think of industrial espionage, not a pimply-faced kid cracking encryption. It'd be laughable if they weren't serious.

What they want would, in effect, make certain areas of knowlege illegal. Remember the "samizdat" underground publishing in the former Soviet Union? Suppression of knowledge didn't work, won't ever work.

Thankfully, one court at least isn't buying the argument. Expect an appeal, however. It kills me they're trying this in the U.S. Americans are as defiant as anyone when they consider a law to be stupid or unfair. As for the rest of the world, I hope they in no way tamely submit to this crap.

[JohnnyCNote]

I think what motivated them to take legal action was that their encryption scheme was cracked by a 14 year old boy in Norway.

Samo-izdatelstvo - that's a good point....

[fritzi93]

Ooh, forgot you speak Russian, sorry if I botched it!

[JohnnyCNote]

No. you got it right! I was just showing off 8)

[indolikaa]

I can't wait until the 9th Circuit Appeals gets this one...