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DeCSS Injunction Reversed In CA Case
kinesis writes: "For those of you following the California DeCSS case, a court of appeal just ruled in our favor, overturning the injunction imposed by a lower court. The court's opinion is available in DOC and PDF versions.
It's a great read for those who want to really understand the case. The conclusion is nicely summarized with this quote: 'In the case of a prior restraint on pure speech, the hurdle is substantially higher [than for an ordinary preliminary injunction]: publication must threaten an interest more fundamental than the First Amendment itself. Indeed, the Supreme Court has never upheld a prior restraint, even faced with the competing interest of national security or the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.'
" Or you can go straight to the PDF.
for those who prefer text over .pdf or .doc, try here ....
No, you cannot.
This reversed the preliminary injunction only. That means that DeCSS can be distributed in source code form. If you read the PDF carefully (hint, hint) the appeals court says that, indeed, the trial court might decide to assess financial penalties for the improper disclosure, if any is found to exist. The case is still headed to trial--just without the odious preliminary injunction.
The other posters who pointed out how bad a ruling the PI was are right; it was just a matter of time before someone with judicial authority understood the "if it can be put on a T-shirt, it's speech" argument.
There are still a lot of scary, possible outcomes relating to reverse-engineering, jurisdictions which govern license agreements, and other issues. We're NOT out of the woods on this one yet, folks.
Only when a Microsoft Word file isn't the only alternative. Besides, there are non-Adobe .pdf tools
here (PDFZone), here (PDFPlanet)
, and here (SourceForge).
Actually, the court's recognition of source code as expressive speech is a major step in the right direction, if it's upheld by higher courts.
The susequent balance of state (and presumably federal law) against constitutional interests could presumably put an axe in the DMCA's head-- if the code==speech assumption is upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. Don't count on that, of course.
If you read the decision, you'll see that the judges are not establishing that the First Amendment always or typically trumps Copyright, just that the First Amendment trumps prior restraint in the form of preliminary injunctions in a trade secret case of this kind. The appeals court could still conceivaly come back and approve a final judgement against the distribution of DeCSS, and the court will surely uphold actions against individuals distributing copyrighted DVD materials through benefit of DeCSS.
Which puts matters back into the interesting realm of practical enforcement of copyright on an open Internet.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
"Why isn't Johansen's status as a minor the key factor in his inability to agree to the Xing EULA?
Who cares about Norwegian law on this matter, if Johansen lived in CA, he could not be held to such a contract because he is a minor. Can 15 year olds sign binding contracts in Norway?"
It wasn't dealt with because the issue of whether Johansen did anything wrong was too difficult to decide without more facts, and because the court was able to decide the matter of the preliminary injunction without dealing with Johansen at all. If this case gets to a trial, even after both the trial and appellate courts have pointed out the huge holes in the plaintiff's case, then perhaps the rest of the issues will get hashed out.
I think it's infinitely better that the court ruled on the constitutional issue rather than ducking that issue and resting the decision on Johansen being a minor.