Pavlovich Jurisdictional Challenge Denied

The Sixth District Court of Appeals has denied Matt Pavlovich's challenge to being sued in California for the act of posting DeCSS on an internet web site. CNet has a blurb about it, or go straight to the ruling. The Court apparently believes that "open source" is shorthand for "pirate ring", as evidenced by their description: "At the time Pavlovich posted DeCSS on the Internet, he was a leader in the "open source" movement, the purpose of which was to make as much material as possible available over the Internet." Blatantly false statements like "Further; Pavlovich knew that his Web site allowed the illegal publishing and distribution of DVDs." do nothing to make me think the Court even understands what is alleged to have occurred. And since the Court describes Pavlovich's activities as "illegal", it appears to have already decided the main issue of the case itself (which has not yet been tried). Not good omens for the California DeCSS case. Below we have commentary from the attorney representing Pavlovich.

Appellate Court Issues Precedent Setting Ruling in Cyber-Jurisdiction ruling

The Sixth District Court of Appeals has issued its ruling in the jurisdictional case filed by Indiana student Matt Pavlovich, a foreign defendant in the California DVD case. You may recall that Pavlovich had moved the trial court to dismiss him from the main DVD action due to lack of jurisdiction. When the trial court denied his motion, Pavlovich filed a petition for Writ of Mandate with the Court of Appeals - that court summarily denied his petition. Pavlovich then turned to the Supreme Court for relief by way of a Petition for Review. In a rare move, all seven justices of the Supreme Court unanimously granted review and sent the matter back to the Court of Appeals with instructions that they re-consider the case. Following additional filings and oral arguments, today the Court of Appeals issued a published, written opinion again denying Pavlovich's petition. The Court's order will be available on our web site at www.legal.wao.com shortly, and is also accessible through the Court of Appeal's site.

Today's opinion dramatically increases the jurisdictional reach of California's court system, creating nearly limitless jurisdiction over internet disputes involving the motion picture industry, the technology industry, and any other industry reputed to exist in California. Because the exercise of jurisdiction is fundamentally a question of state power, we contend that this type of hyper-extension of California's long-arm statute violates the Constitutional safeguards found within the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Because the decision affects the Constitutional Rights of U.S. Citizens everywhere, we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will again grant review of the Appellate Court's decision.

The underlying California Case:

Pavlovich, along with Andrew Bunner and some 500 other individual defendants, have been targeted by the Motion Picture Industry trade group DVD CCA in the California case. DVD CCA alleges that the defendants, who allegedly found the DeCSS information on the World Wide Web and then republished it, may not continue to publish the information based on California's Uniform Trade Secret's Act. Bunner claims that, like any other innocent republisher of information, he has a constitutionally protected right to publish this particular information and is not liable under the UTSA. Bunner, along with Amicus briefs from the prestigious IEEE and ACIS groups, also argues that the information he republished was properly and permissibly reverse-engineered and as such cannot be enjoined under the UTSA. In his papers, Bunner explains that Reverse-Engineering, along with the publication of technical discoveries, has long been a mainstay of innovation and evolution in the field of high-technology. Enjoining the publication of technical information, and stopping permissible reverse-engineering, would necessarily empower entities to use technologies like CSS to manipulate markets and bar consumer protections.

NEW YORK CASE:

The New York case continues through the appellate process. Appellants presented oral arguments before the appeals court and have recently responded to a number of written questions posed by the court. Additional resources are available at www.eff.org.

Resources:

HS Law Group's web site with information about the DeCSS cases:www.legal.wao.com

http://www.cryptome.org- tends to get the most recent filings fairly quickly

EFF Archive for DVD-CCA Cal. trade secret case: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/

EFF's DVD Archive: http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/DVD/

Allonn E. Levy, Esq.

HS LAW GROUP a.p.c.
210 N. Fourth St. Fourth Fl.
San Jose, CA 95112

Comments

Big Duh

[small_dick]

Corporations elect Politicians;
Politicians appoint Judges.
Judges favor corporate issues.

We've got two parties, two tribes, good and evil, black and white, left and right, conservative and liberal, republican and democrat, penis and vagina.

We fight, The Man relaxes in the big chair. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

This is false?

[dirk]

Blatantly false statements like "Further; Pavlovich knew that his Web site allowed the illegal publishing and distribution of DVDs." do nothing to make me think the Court even understands what is alleged to have occurred.

Whether or not you agree ro disagree with what is going on, statements like this are ridiculous. Of course he knew that DeCSS could be used to pirate DVDs. That has been the arguement from the very begining, and to claim he had no idea that DeCSS could be used for something like that just makes you (and him) look foolish. If you want to argue that he was not posting DeCSS for that primary purpose, that is a legitimate arguement. But to claim he had no idea you could use DeCSS that way is just plain stupid.

Well..

[BilldaCat]

Play with fire, you get burned.

Anyone who made this available to the public had to know they were taking a risk. Whether it is right or not, they should've known they stood the chance to be dragged to court for this. If he's not prepared to fight that battle, he shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place.

Re:Well..

[BilldaCat]

I'd convict you just because you're a damn texan.

And screw you, I'm not capitalizing the 't' in texan, you guys have big enough heads already. Punks.

oh please

[chuck33]

I'm surprised at all of you. Do you think we are really free to do whatever we please online? How can you POSSIBLY put decss code to any good use? THE ONLY THING IT CAN BE USED FOR IS TO DECODE DVDS! Though that may sound like a good use to a lot of you, in terms of free crap, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD THAT IT JUST ISN'T GOING TO FLY.
If you break open someone else's software, they will get a little pissed at you. How many of you are actually surprised that the MPAA is getting mad? This subverts their entire effort to protect movies, and No, MOVIES SHOULDN'T BE FREE! And by the way, I don't work for the MPAA or any other organization in any way affiliated with movies.
How can you possibly justify the fight against this? Free software may be good (i'm not an advocate for or against it), but you have to admit that there are some places that you must draw the line! Trying to expand the software available to people...please, this case is so justified. This code will literally destroy the dvd format as soon as dvd recorders are available to everyone. It already messes it up with regular cd's and reduced quality mpeg. If he is lucky, he won't end up owing the mpaa money for the rest of his life.