Slashdot Mirror
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."
I didn't know Sandra Day O'Connor was part of the Supremes. Are you sure you're not thinking of Diana Ross?
So it's basically a chance for the US SC to decide whether or not they agree with the Australian SC, which seems to feel that jurisdiction is wherever anything is read, not where it is published or intended to be read.
Or are there other issues I haven't mentioned here?
In related news: Sandra Day O'Connor's son, John O'Conner was nearly killed by a robot from the future beacuse of reasons unbeknownst to us at this time.
Slash-for-Thought
From the article on Salon: "Lawyers for the association told the Supreme Court that the stay was needed to keep Pavlovich from reposting the decryption program on the Internet."
... arrogant enough to thing that US law applies to the world, that the constitution doesn't apply to them, and that their parasitical industry's interests should outweigh those of the computer and electronic industries which dwarf theirs, and the interests of the people, which dwarf all of those interests and which the government had better stop ignoring.
Too bad for them the constitution still provides a modicum of protection of my right to write, and publish if I so wish, a novel that just so happens to contain not one, but TWO encodings of DeCSS (including the inspired haiku you point out).
The entire document is shared freely under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, with paper copies having already travelled throughout the world, and digital dissemination even wider.
Cry me a river for the DVD CSS thugs
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
New York technology analyst Richard Doherty said companies have delayed many new products, services and forms of entertainment because of the DVD industry's problems.
Yeah, they sure did, like, the VCR, the Rio, PVRs, Napster, My.MP3.com, DVD copying software, all that stuff was delayed or killed by entertainment industry bullshit.
Oh wait, I forgot, only the content providers are allowed to come out with new technology, my bad! You know, like DivX.
``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."
First: yes, companies have delayed products and forms of entertainment. Big deal. Companies delay products all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with tech.
Second: If you know your movie is gonna be ripped because you released a DVD, and you don't want that, don't release the movie on DVD. Don't blame someone else for your shortsightedness. There is no law, statute, regulation, or rule in this country entitling the entertainment industry to release XXX on DVD or Britney Spears on CD -- they do it as a calculated business decision. If they choose to release it anyway, they should (and do) expect it to be copied. Yes, it's against the law, but they know it's gonna happen, and so do courts and juries. Once enough people assume copying as a God-given right (and many younger people don't even know ripping nee copyright infringement is illegal), juries will overturn regardless of the law.
Why do they call it 'common sense', when it's so rare these days?
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Would it kill journalists to do a little research before submitting their stories to be run? Any actual examination of both sides of this debate should make it very clear that these court cases are not actually about a program that facilitates copying but about our access to information on the little plastic wafers we own. Outside of one or two pieces in Wired I haven't seen anybody get this right, but one would hope that Salon would be a little more with it than, say, CNN.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
First, the CA case is a trade secret case, not a DMCA case. But it will be lurking in the background.
Second, Justice O'Connor is responsible for granting the stay since the 9th circuit is her "territory" for these matters.
The next step is to see whether four justices want to vote for a grant of certiori to hear the issue of whether the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits this type of "universal jurisdiction."
As to the merits, the law is increasingly on Matt's side. For example, the Fourth Circuit (VA, MD, NC, SC...) recently determined that merely putting information (copyright infringement and libel cases) on the internet does not subject a person to jurisdiction. It requires some real purposeful availment of the forum (i.e. conduct directed towards CA). Pavlovich never availed himself of California law or directed his activities at California, thus under the majority of circuit law, he is not subject to personal jurisdiction in California.
The alternate view, from Australia and a few court decisions pertaining almost entirely to bad-guy cybersquatters, finds universal jurisdiction comporting with due process requirements from mere posting on the internet. Under this theory, you purposefully avail yourself of every forum by merely posting on the internet and assume you can be hauled into court anywhere.
While this may fly in Australia, due process under US law would have to be stretched beyond its limit to allow such jursidiction, and, as more and more of life becomes electronic, it would render the limits on personal jurisdiction in states entirely meaningless. Add to that the fact that the supreme court seems particularly unimpressed by foreign decisions.
The biggest problem for the DVDCCA is that this personal jurisdiction analysis is directed at the defendant, Matt Pavlovich. No matter how great DVDCCA's alleged harm, it is the Defendants' conduct that matters, the plaintiff's conduct is not relevant. He didn't take the information from CA but from third parties, and only has liability if he "should have known" it was a trade secret, had some sort of relationship with the DVDCCA, or actually misappropriated it himself.
Only the "should have known" theory applies here -- and it seems notoriously difficult for the DVDCCA to prove that this amounts to direct conduct aimed at CA.
So, in a nutshell, even if certiori were granted, it seems unlikely that the decision would be reversed, but rather it would be a good opportunity to settle the question that there is no "universal jurisdiction" in US courts over conduct on the internet unless it is aimed at or takes place in a particular state.
Anything in this comment constituting legal advice is false...
Anything in this comment constituting a disclaimer of legal advice is falser.
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.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
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.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
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.