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DeCSS Trade Secret Case Comes to an End - Again
Andrew Bunner writes "We asked the courts to rule on our appeal of the DeCSS preliminary injunction (even though the DVD CCA dropped the case) and... we won! No more preliminary injunction. Here's the official ruling (pdf)." This is the last gasp of this case, which we've been following for some years now. This ruling goes into some depth analyzing the trade secret claim, gets the ruling "right", and should be helpful in future cases on similar topics.
http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/002154. html
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Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
its the Shift dummy =)
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
The preliminary injuction fell out of force when the original case that caused the injunction to be issued got dismissed. Afterall, a preliminary injution is a request for the court to implement some of the relief that is going to be the result of winning the trial because its needed right away and can't wait that long. In order to get one, the court has to be convinced that it's pretty likely that the plantiff is going to win. If the case is dismissed, there's no chance left the plantiff can win that case, so the injunction goes away.
But, this issue over whether the injunction should have been granted in the first place got appealed and hadn't been decided yet. Well, actually, it had been already decided that this violated the free speach protections in the US Constitution by the appeals court, but the CA Supreme Court overturned that ruling. However, the CA Supreme Court returned the case to the appeals court to let them rule on the argument that the injunction was an improper use of the CA trade secret laws.
That's where the appeals case was when the DVD CCA abaondoned the original case that generated the injunction and the appeal. Now, normally, such an appeal automatically dies as a moot point when that kind of thing happens, but the appeals court rejected the DVD CCA's request to dismiss because this was such a novel argument, it really needs an appeals ruling to guide future cases.
And here comes that ruling... that the injunction shouldn't have been granted in the first place. That's now on the record as an appeals ruling and can be cited in other future cases.
The DVD CCA balled out of the original lawsuit fearing that they were going to lose, and furthermore lose in a way that'd get them in trouble in future cases. Well, guess what, their worst nightmare came true. A declarative ruling that the preemptive injunction that they got was one they shouldn't have, so that set of legal paper goes in the "Don't try that again" pile. The key arguement to their case has basically been shot down... CSS doesn't appear to be a trade secret anymore in CA.
"It is important to stress that our conclusion is based upon the appellate record filed in this court. It is not a final adjudication on the merits. The ultimate determination of trade secret status and misappropriation would be subject to proof to be presented at trial." So how does this mean the case is over? It just means the injunction before trial is over, doesn't it?
What makes you think that being against bad law is anti-capitalist? Freedom isn't anti-capitalist, protectionism is. Using bad law to shore up weak enterprise weakens the capitalist experiment.
Pierre
Did nobody read the comments the last time this story was announced (I mean the good comments not the ones saying this meant they could distribute DeCSS). This just clears it from trade secret problems, not DMCA problems or (possibly) patent problems.
The DMCA is still in effect people!
To Debian's credit, OpenBSD is based in Canada, but SPI is based in the U.S.
You cant use CSS on your product without a license and more then I can use the contents of your videos in mine. If you are making a DVD you do not need DVD X Copy to make copies of it. Period.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Lesson: next time this happens, *everyone* post the code on their website
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
At current, the DMCA takes precedence. It is an all inclusive law that supersedes prior copyright law. However, it should also be noted that our current idea of fair use only goes back to the late 70s. Check out the 1976 amendments to title 17 of the use copyright act.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Under the DMCA you are not allowed to make a backup of a DVD you bought if that DVD is CSS or otherwise encrypted to prevent copying. Sucks but its true.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
(IANAL but)
As stated at the end of the PDF:
It is not a final adjudication on the merits
As far as I understand, this decision doesn't mean anything about DeCSS being legal or not, it is just about the fact that the injuction for stopping publication on Bunner's site was an abuse of the trial's court discretion.
It doesn't even say that distributing it is legal. As I understand, it does just say "Bunner distributed that when it was already public knowledge, so an injunction against that was innapropriate".
Now, he could be sued for distributing it, no?
-- No signature yet.
Probably not.
Though the appellate court found that the CSS is not really a trade secret anymore, that doesn't have very much to do with the issue of why DVDXCOPY exists - to make copies of CSS encrypted media.
The DMCA prohibits the distribution of a means to circumvent a method used to restrict access to copyrighted material. This issue remains regardless of the trade secret status of the algorithm.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
This DeCSS case is a trade secret case. The court said that no trade secrets were illegally obtained.
Go back and read it again. He said no such thing. He said that once it was out, and all over the internet, it may have ceased to be a trade secret. Since this is the standard, a trade secret that becomes common knowledge is no longer a trade secret, the ruling restored the status quo before Kaplin turned activist.
The entire ruling is about how once a trade secret is no longer a trade secret, it is basically in the public domain. You can hold the individual/company/etc liable for the release, but not the people who distribute something that is no longer a trade secret. The appeal was about the injunction, and the harm that could be done if an injunction was not granted. IE: since it was no longer a trade secret, the judge (Kaplin) overstepped his boundries by issuing an injunction because the case didn't meet both standards required to do so. 1. Harm if the injunction was not issued, 2. Likelyhood that they would win the case. They had to succeed on both counts, and they succeeded in none.
Keep in mind, you can't patent a trade secret, and you can't claim a patent IS a trade secret. You can only choose one method: Patent it, sharing how you did it with everyone but they can't profit from it without your permission, or: Make it a trade secret, and protect that secret. The differences are that patents expire after a fixed term of years and trade secrets expire once they are no longer a secret. Their only recourse is to sue the original party that caused the secret to get out, maybe Xing.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
That case wasn't about trade secrets, it was about DMCA takedown notices and a little bit about DMCA circumvention devices. So this case has little or no effect on the case law that was created in the 2600 case. And they certainly aren't going to go back and change it. At best the EFF might want to take it to the Supreme Court but it's probably too late to appeal.
The 200-or-so companies that produce DVD players can be kept under control. There were individual trade secret contracts (with different decoding keys) for each company. There was a huge penalty in the contract if a particular key was leaked.
At current, the DMCA takes precedence. It is an all inclusive law that supersedes prior copyright law.
USC Title 17 section 1201 "Circumvention of copyright protection systems", 1201(c)(1): "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."