Update To Pavlovich DeCSS case; Stay Lifted

MeanMF writes "Update to this article:Infoworld reports that the Justice O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court has lifted the temporary stay on the California Supreme Court's ruling that Pavlovich can not be tried in California courts. That ruling can now take effect. More from the EFF."

Comments

There's hope yet

[Ninja Master Gara]

Hopefully DeCSS will be one more in a series of flops that will lead the media industries to more reasonable, consumer based, less technologically heavy handed solutions. I wonder how much marketing all these court cases from the MPAA and the RIAA could have bought, how much talent could have been found and promoted.

I think this sums it up nicely

[captainclever]

"I think its time for this witch hunt to stop. DeCSS is available all over the world. The only people benefiting from this are the trial lawyers being paid tremendous amounts of money by the entertainment companies"

Re:It's not clear by the report...

[aufait]

It's not clear by the report what the Stay that was vacated actually restricted or allowed.

The DVD CCA obtained a preliminary injuction aginst all defendents that prohibited them from posting DeCSS on their web sites. The CA Supreme Court ruled that CA did not have jurisdiction over Pavlovich. This means that Pavolich can post DeCSS without violating any court orders. O'Conner's stay basically put the CA decision on "temporary hold". Which meant that the CA preliminary injuction still applied to Pavolich until the SCOTUS sorted it out. By lifting the stay, it means that Pavlovich can once again put DeCSS on his web site without violating any court orders.

if the people in question are not earning money as a result of making avaialable information on CSS, they may not be subject to trade secret violations

Not necessarily true. There is another recent case, although under a different statute, that ruled that although the person who violated the law did not receive direct compensation, he was still subject to the law since people who received the information would economically benifit.

unless you are legally involved with the company holding the trade secret, (via NDA, ...the fact that you are publicising what that company considers to be a trade secret is an indication that it is not a secret in any sense of the word.

Not quite true. If it becomes public knowledge through illegal means, you can be barred from using the information. Let's say an employee violates their NDA and posts Coke's "secret formula" on their web site. Pepsi could be legally barred from using the formula even though they violated no laws when they obtained it. The rational for this is that Pepsi would be profing from an illegal act even though they did not commit it themselves.

Which brings up the validity of the EULAs. (An issue that even the courts are divided on.) The CCA DVD's position is that the defendents knew or should have known that the only way to create DeCSS was to violate the EULA's prohibition against reverse engineering. If EULAs are not valid contracts, then the CCA DVD's case evoperates.