IP: First Amendment lawyers take on DVD cracking case

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

  http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1635490.html

First Amendment lawyers take on DVD cracking case

By Patricia Jacobus
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 4, 2000, 10:45 a.m. PT

Free speech lawyers have appealed a preliminary injunction granted 
against 72 Web site operators accused of stealing trade secrets by 
circulating a program online that lets people crack the security on 
DVDs.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted its appeal this 
week following the January order issued by a Santa Clara County 
Superior Court judge in California.

The foundation argues that the Web site postings of the program are 
constitutionally protected free speech and do not meet the test of 
trade secret infringement.

"The battleground over the First Amendment is now in cyberspace," Jim 
Wheaton, senior counsel for nonprofit, public-interest law firm the 
First Amendment Project, said in a statement. "Old media is lumbering 
into the new era and wants to knock down our civil liberties in a 
clumsy attempt to maintain the old paradigm."

Wheaton is assisting the EFF in defending the collection of Web 
publishers named in the case.

A group representing the movie industry, called the DVD Copy Control 
Association, filed its lawsuit in late December after a 16-year-old 
Norwegian student posted on the Internet a program that defeats the 
security software on DVD-formatted movies.