Supremes Grant Stay in Pavlovich DVD CCA Case

endall writes "Sandra Day O'Connor granted a stay last week for DVD Copy Control Association so that the court could gather more information. She requested filings by later this week. I'm guessing that this delays implimentation of the California Supreme court decision on the matter."

Comments

Consumer rights!?

[tanveer1979]

Consumers' rights are pitted against industry copyright protection, with billions of dollars at stake, said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc., a Silicon Valley consulting firm.

Now that we have our rights equated with money, it will all come down to who has more money, and no prizes for guessing who.

And the question is......

[www.sorehands.com]

if there is jurisdiction in California.

I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to answer the question on the legality of the DMCA or the issue of consumer rights versus the right of the MPAA to screw us.

by RIAA math

[SHEENmaster]

Consumers' rights are pitted against industry copyright protection, with trillions of dollars at stake, said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc., a Silicon Valley consulting firm.

You seem to forget that corporate money is worth more in this instance because they are more likely to "donate it to particular political groups."

Being a minor, my "comsumer rights" are worth less than $0. Those of you whose opinions are affected by this probably vote Libertarian anyways.

That recurring straw man

[hysterion]

``The future of digital delivery has been on hold ever since this case first came," said Doherty, head of The Envisioneering Group. ``They need to know it's going to be protected, it's not going to be ripped off seven seconds after being put on the Internet."

Then don't put it on the Internet. I'm perfectly happy getting my (non region-encoded) DVDs at $5.95 from oldies.com -- who I surmise, are perfectly happy selling them to me. And believe it or not, at that price the idea of going to the trouble of copying them doesn't even cross my mind.

Why should we change the Internet so you can better peddle your wares on it, Mr Doherty? It wasn't meant for this. And please, stop this straw man that your fight is to enable the "future of digital delivery". It's not, for it's obviously independant of any plans in that direction.

Re:Half-assed reporting

[Lonath]

It's also about whether or not we can record our own things onto our own wafers without some giant corporation having a say.

This kind of reminds me of the whole problem a few years back when some pirate and thief invented something called a "printing press" that disrupted the information flow and control of the current powers and let people create their own independent information. The creation of the "stationers Guild" controlled use of the printing press so the powers that be (Church) didn't lose control of content creation and distribution.

I believe this is why the "freedom of the press" clause exists in the Bill of Rights. (Search for "licensing act" and "freedom of the press".) Not only can you "speak" with your voice, but you're allowed to use mechanical means to speak, as well. This is the same battle that was fought a few hundred years ago... :P

Jurisdiction

[MacAndrew]

What is at stake here is not international jurisdiction as raised in the Australia libel case, but domestic personal jurisdiction over the defendant. They're going after an American BBS operator, not the Norwegien programmer. The California court did not believe the defendant met the "minimum contacts" test of Due Process to be sued in California.

The comment of Pavlovich's attorney is misleading (quoted who knows how far out of context): the question is not whether California might be an inconvenient forum, but whether the federal Constitution even allows it to be the forum, as Justice O'Connor perhaps suspects it might.

I'm surprised that this is being handled as an emergency stay instead of the ordinary certiorari route, which is slow but the routine. Usually this emergency one-Justice power only gets mentioned when executions are imminent.

The California Supreme Court ruled in November that the former webmaster, Matthew Pavlovich, cannot be sued for trade secret infringement in California. Justices said he could be sued in his home state of Texas, or in Indiana, where he was a college student when codes that allowed people to copy DVDs were posted on his Web site in 1999.

The program was written by a teenager in Norway and is just one of many easily available programs that can break DVD security codes.

The ruling by a divided California court makes it harder for the industry to pursue people who use the Internet to share copyrighted material.

Pavlovich's attorney, Allonn Levy, said Monday that a group should not be allowed to ``drag a student who's involved with a Web site into a forum that's halfway across the country." He said the case affects all people who use the Internet and businesses with sites on the Internet.

Re:Potential Cert Petition

[MacAndrew]

There is an element weighing towards CA juris. beyong "mere posting," and that is the California location of the plaintiffs, which the CA SC dissent at least felt was known by the defendant and persuasive evidence of minimum contacts. So there are ways to find jurisdiction without going to the max.

If the California court was wrong and mere posting (publication) is enough, then the DVD case becomes essentially a speech case. A question: If "purposeful availment" or any standard more than "mere posting" carries the day, does that mean different rules for the electronic and print versions of the New York Times? (Or any other publisher.) Would editors say, "Well, that story's a little hot, put it in only the web edition"? Perversely the more international of the two versions would get the greater protection. What if they post on the web to avoid the law of a particular country where the print edition is not sold, while also providing translation into that hypothetical country's unique language?

I'm sure these and other Q's have already been played with, and perhaps soon will in the SC. Should be fun, from a distance.