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

Re:So are LINKS to child porn legal?

[Raging Idiot]

When you come up with a new position to lay a child in before you fuck her - that's patentable.

The fact that you are fucking her at all - that's a Trade Secret.

When someone else out there discovers the position you used to fuck her, without seeing, hearing about, or witnessing in any way, shape or form, and uses that position to fuck another child - that's reverse engineering.

However, posting pictures and links on the web to any of these things would still be illegal. I don't think it should be, but the US is anti-child.

a new marketing angle?

[Dambiel]

now if we can just teach warez fanboys good programming, maybe we can tap a whole new market of emerging programmers...

dude, wanna join our 1337 open-source group?

Re:a new marketing angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody should tell the Court's admin to stop using a webserver written by these so-called "open source" programmers.

It's bound to happen sooner or later...

[Wire Tap]

In A.D. 2001
DeCSS Case was beginning
Pavlovich: What happen ?
Lawyer: Someone set up you the lawsuit
Balif: We get justice !
Pavlovich: What !
Balif: All rise !
Pavlovich: It's you !
Judge: How are you pirate ring !!
Judge: All your bail are belong to us !
Judge: You are on your way to sentencing !
Pavlovich: What you say !!
Judge: You have no chance for appeal make your plea
Judge: HA HA HA HA ...
Pavlovich: Take off every 'open source'
Pavlovich: You know what you doing
Pavlocich: Move 'open source'
Pavlovich: For great decoding.

Thanks a lot!

[tb3]

Oh, thanks Michael. You coulda warned us that the ruling was a PDF file. Now I've got a virus on my machine!

(Joke)

Help from MS?

[carrier lost]

"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)."

This is basically the substance of Microsoft's appeal to the Supreme Court concerning its monopoly conviction. Perhaps Pavlovich could get some advice from Bill's lawyers?

:)

MjM

Re:This is false?

[7-Vodka]

I'm giving up 4 moderator points for this idiot.

List of things which are used to pirate DVDs:

1. DVD media
2. DVD press

List of things which 'could' be used to pirate DVD's:

1. DVD media
2. DVD press
3. Sony VHS tapes
4. digital tapes
5. DeCSS
6. Paper + Pen
7. Lot's of T-shirts with 1's & 0's
8. Spoken 1's & 0's
9. electron spins
10. collage of peas and corn
11. 10^10 monkeys on 10^10 typewriters
12. peeing on sand
13. if you can think of it...

See the difference?

Globalization

[Havokmon]

Look out United Nations! Here's comes California!

"Today the United States of California declared war on Italy. Last week, California sued Italy for defmation, claiming an Italian government official posted a joke on the internet regarding 'Surfers and Marijuana'."

Re:Big Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see your problem.

I mean you can have all kinds of sex. You can have straight sex with men, straight sex with women, lesbian sex with women and gay sex with men.

Should I be a democrat or a republican?

I doubt it really matters. With your penis and vagina you'll be able to fuck your way to the top.

Re:A leader in the "Open Source" movement, eh?

[PCM2]

Jesus. This may just be the winner for "most operatic comment posted to Slashdot."

You're not secretly Jon Katz, are you?