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.

Comments

Re:Hip Hip Horay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can all say goodbye to the pending DeCss cases and litigation. Now is it possible to counter sue for all the money spent defending ourselves against DeCSS or is that just a lost cause?

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.

Yes, *but*

[jonabbey]

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.