Sklyarov, Bunner (DVD CCA) Hearings Thursday

Seth Schoen writes: "On Thursday, in San Jose, CA, free speech supporters can enjoy a double-header in Federal and State courts. At 9:30 in the morning, Dmitry Sklyarov is expected to be arraigned before a U.S. Magistrate Judge, and there will be a preliminary hearing in U.S. v. Sklyarov. sf.freesklyarov.org has details on the time and location. Thursday afternoon, about a mile away, a California appellate court will hear arguments in DVD Copy Control Assn. v. Andrew Bunner -- Bunner has appealed the trial court's preliminary injunction against him. He's asked the appellate court to overturn the injunction, which forbids him to post DeCSS code pending a trial. (This is the "California trade secret" DVD/DeCSS case, separate from the New York DMCA case.)" Update: 08/21 09:27 PM EDT by michael : According to the EFF, the Sklyarov hearing has been postponed until next week.

"Sklyarov is represented by Joseph Burton; Bunner is represented by the First Amendment Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF Sklyarov/Bunner media release has time and location information for this hearing, too. Both hearings will be open to the public; please dress nicely if you attend. You can probably attend both, because the Sklyarov hearing should be over before the Bunner hearing starts. The Federal court (N.Dist.Cal.), for the Sklyarov case, is on the 5th floor, 280 South 1st Street; the State appellate court (6th App. Dist. Ct.), for the DVD CCA case, is at 333 West Santa Clara Street, Suite 1060."

Interestingly enough, the Washington Post ran an editorial knocking (if not actually blasting) the DMCA, with Sklyarov the example of what's wrong with the thing. Jerry Pournelle's column in Byte takes a slightly different tack, but raises the same troubling questions. (Thanks to fredistheking and SgtChairebourne for the links.)