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.)

Comments

Close the tag.

[Delirium 21]

The whole /. front page is italicized.

Hey, EFF: spelling counts

[jimhill]

That's a well-written and clear brief in the Bunner case -- but the EFF's repeated references to "Proctor & Gamble _v_ Bankers Trust" would be a lot more compelling if they'd bothered to make themselves aware that the company is "Procter & Gamble". One hopes that the appellate panel is less critical than I or Mr. Bunner will certainly lose -- not loose! -- his appeal.

My God respect intellectual property

[Hobobo]

I'm pretty sure this will get modded down as Flaimbait or whatever, but I don't care.

It's stupid that people think they can break copyright laws and be set free by the open source fairy. That's not how it works. The law is there and it is there for you to respect. Copyright laws protect people who need to make a living. You have no right to steal their property or circumvent protection of intellectual property so you can get free stuff. No matter what you package it under, 99% of all so-called "free speech" trials against prominent open sources are about people who want free stuff.

Here's an idea: If you want information/whatever to be free go make something and give it away for free. You can put a Public liscence on whatever you make, and give it away however your heart desires. You cannot give away things that are not your own intellectual property. You are damaging people who need to make a living and those of us who pay for the software.

So in conclusion, if you want information to be free, go make some and make it free. Don't steal others'.