[KLUG Members] DeCSS case reversed!!! (Woooo Hoooooooo!)

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Adam Williams wrote:
> Some good news!  Something that has been in painfully short supply
> lately.  One round of virtual beer for everyone!
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>  A bit of good news for the weekend,  a California court has decided
> that DeCSS is legal under the First Ammendment. "A California court has
> dealt a potentially serious setback to the movie industry's attempt to
> rid the online world of software that can help break through copy
> protections on DVDs.

Not exactly.

The California court said that California Trade Secret Law is not
applicable and cannot be used to grant an injuction barring the
distribution of DeCSS.  When it is ruled against something like
DeCSS, DeCSS is clearly classified under pure speech.

It doesn't mean its legal under the First Amendment for all cases,
it just means it must be considered under the First Amendment for
the purpose of Trade Secret Law.  The previous preliminary
injunction was, therefore, overturned in this appeal as a result.

The case has not gone to trial yet though.

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     chat:thebs413
Engineer   AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.   http://www.linux-wlan.org
President     SmithConcepts, Inc.     http://www.SmithConcepts.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Single Pentium stop, Dual Pentium go, Dual Athlon go ... very fast