IP: FREE SPEECH WILL BE FOCUS OF DVD BATTLE: Edupage, April 30, 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> This week, a federal appeals court will hear the film industry's
> case against 2600 magazine, which published an article that
> included links to DeCSS, a computer code that can descramble the
> encryption on DVDs. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last
> year that the publication of the DeCSS code was illegal by the
> terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) and
> ordered 2600 to remove its links. In its appeal, sponsored by
> the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2600 argues that publishing
> the DeCSS code is, by itself, not an act of piracy, but rather
> free speech. Furthermore, 2600 argues that the DMCA does not
> allow for traditional "fair use" of copyrighted materials and is,
> therefore, unconstitutional. The appeal is backed by the ACLU,
> over 70 law professors, the American Library Association, and
> others. The film industry and its supporters, which include the
> Justice Department and the National Football League, maintain
> that DeCSS is a tool that will be used primarily for the pirating
> and subsequent online distribution of movies.
> (USA Today, 30 April 2001)



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