Victory for DVD Code Cracking - "A California State Appeals Court ruled on Thursday that computer code used to 'descramble' DVDs is 'pure speech,' and citing the First Amendment, the court reversed a trial court's order to block the code from appearing on the Web." By Farhad Manjoo. [Wired]
DVD Cracking Case, Western Style - "The two-pronged, bi-coastal legal war being waged against individuals who have distributed a code that can circumvent encryption on DVDs now focuses on First Amendment issues being raised in San Jose." By Brad King. [Wired]
A Constitutional Right to Decode? - "To the movies studios trying to rid the Net of a DVD-descrambling program, the 'DeCSS' utility is akin to terrorware that governments have a responsibility to prohibit." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
U.S.: DVD Decoder is Terrorware - "To the U.S. government, a DVD descrambling utility is akin to terrorware that could crash airplanes, disrupt hospital equipment and imperil human lives." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
DVD Piracy Judges Resolute - "A trio of federal judges lobbed sharp questions on Tuesday at a law school dean who argued it should be legal to distribute a DVD-descrambling utility." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
Hackers vs. Hollywood, the Sequel - "Music industry lawyers plan to tell a federal appeals court that a DVD-descrambling program is primarily useful to hackers and should be outlawed." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
Does an Anti-Piracy Plan Quash the First Amendment? - "Does fair use entitle the scholar, reporter or others to gain access to the copyrighted work in the first place? It's at the heart of a closely-watched copyright and First Amendment case winding its way through the federal appeals maze." By Carl S. Kaplan. [New York Times] [Free registration required.]
White House Sides With Studios - "The Bush administration is siding with Hollywood in a federal lawsuit against a DVD-descrambling utility." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
Copyright: Your Right or Theirs? - "The EFF will argue consumer rights are being slowly eroded with the help of a law meant to build up content distribution on the Internet, as the organization hopes to overturn an injunction against 2600 Magazine." By Brad King. [Wired]
DeCSS Down Under - "A U.S. ban on the DVD-decrypting code is only egging on Australian hackers -- and an odd songwriter." By Damien Cave. [Salon]
DeCSS Judge: Code Isn't Free Speech - "MPAA president Jack Valenti cheers the decision. Next stop: Appeals court." By Damien Cave. [Salon]
Can Hyperlinks Be Outlawed? - "Movie studios aim to criminalize links to DeCSS, a banned DVD-decryption program." By Damien Cave. [Salon]
DeCSS Decoy - "A free-software fanatic unleashes a 'useless' program to foil investigators looking for the DeCSS DVD decryption code." By Damien Cave. [Salon]
DeCSS Allies Ganging Up - "A federal court decision that restricted a DVD-descrambling program ignores free speech rights and should be overturned, eight different coalitions claim." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
Movie Industry Frowns on Professor's Software Gallery - "His site is a gallery devoted to representations of a piece of software that has been deemed illegal because it can be used to break through the copy-protection system on DVD movies." By David F. Gallagher. [New York Times] [Free registration required.]
Judges Weigh Copyright Suit on Unlocking DVD Shield - "A lawyer for the Web magazine 2600 urged a federal appeals court in Manhattan yesterday to find unconstitutional a 1998 law that seeks to limit the unauthorized copying of digitized material." By Amy Harmon. [New York Times] [Free registration required.]
Judges Seek Answers on Computer Code as Free Speech - "In what may signal a heightened significance for a case testing the constitutionality of a 1998 digital copyright law, a panel of appeals court judges has asked both sides of a case to answer a list of 11 questions on whether computer code can qualify as free speech." By Amy Harmon. [New York Times] [Free registration required.]
Descramble That DVD in 7 Lines - "A new, slimmed-down version of DVD descrambling now exists: a mere seven lines of Perl code. It's so lean, you too can attach it to your e-mail signature file." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
Hollywood to Home Viewer: We Own You - "Last Thursday, a judge in New York City ruled that an obscure magazine called 2600, based in Middle Island, N.Y., can't post an equally obscure program, DeCSS, on its Web site, or link to other sites that offer it." By Rob Pegoraro. [Washington Post]
Studios Score DeCSS Victory - "A DVD-descrambling program is akin to a virulent Internet epidemic that must be eradicated, a federal judge said Thursday as he agreed with Hollywood that DVDs must be protected from decryption and copying." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
World's First DeCSS Executable Prime Number - "Mathematician Phil Carmody, who in March of this year managed to encode the DeCSS source in a prime number, has upped the ante by producing a prime number which represents an executable version of the banned CSS descrambler." By Thomas C. Greene. [Register]
Movie Industry Wins a Round in DVD Copyright Case - "A federal judge in Manhattan ruled today that a Web site operator cannot distribute a computer program used to crack codes that prevent the piracy of movies." By John Sullivan. [New York Times]
2600 DMCA Appeal Lost - 2600 Magazine announces they lost their appeal to the 2nd Circuit Court. Includes text of decision. [2600]
US Courts Kowtow to Entertainment Industry - News of DeCSS linking case upheld on appeal and the dismissal of Felten v. RIAA. By Thomas C. Greene. [Register]
Copyright Law Foes Lose Big - "On Wednesday, with a pair of federal courts siding with the music and record industry, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lost two of its most important intellectual property cases so far." By Declan McCullagh. [Wired]
SecurityFocus - DeCSS Creator Indicted in Norway - Norwegian prosecutors have indicted Jon Johansen for his role in creating the DeCSS program that unlocked a DVD copy protection system and unleashed a series of lawsuits by the motion picture industry.
DMCA 2, Freedom 0 - "2600 is reporting that they've lost their Appeal in the 2nd Circuit court." News and discussion forum. [Slashdot]
Jon Johansen Indicted by Norwegian Authorities - "The authorities responsible for investigating economic crime in Norway today (after 2 years of 'investigation') charged JLJ for violating a law regarding computer 'break-ins', commonly known as the 'hacker paragraph'. This is for distributing the DeCSS sourcecode." News and forum discussion. [Slashdot]
DVD Hacker to Keep Challenging Ruling - Article about Eric Corley appealing the ruling in the DeCSS linking case. [Reuters]
BBC News - Legal Victory for 'DVD Hacker' - An appeals court clears a Norwegian man of DVD piracy charges brought against him by the US movie industry.
Movie Industry Dealt DVD-cracking Blow - "A California court has dealt a potentially serious setback to the movie industry's attempt to rid the online world of software that can help break through copy protections on DVDs." By John Borland. [ZDNet]
DeCSS Ban Upheld by Court - "A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld an order that prohibits publishing or linking to DVD-cracking code--a decision with sweeping significance for free-speech rights and copyright protection on the Internet." By Evan Hansen. [ZDNet]
Nothing Says Free Speech like Posting DVD-hacking Code - "A diverse group of computer scientists, journalists and librarians is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling that prevents people from posting or linking to the code that can help crack DVD encryption." By Stefanie Olsen. [ZDNet]
Web War Rages Over DVD Cracking Site - "In a move that free-speech activists hope will be trendsetting, Internet service provider Verio is standing up to the movie industry by refusing to remove a Web site the Motion Picture Association of America says is illegal." By Paul Somerson. [ZDNet]
DVD Group: Stop Wearing Our Code! - "A geek-chic retailer who printed the source code for a DVD decryption program on T-shirts is the latest target of a lawsuit claiming defendants co-opted the secrets behind DVD encryption." [ZDNet]
Stop wearing our code - Article in ZDnet about a geek-chic retailer who printed the source code for a DVD decryption program on T-shirts, and resulting lawsuit.
Free Speech Shrinking on the Net? - Article in ZDnet provides information about decisions in two lawsuits that tested controversial copyright legislation.
Hollywood's War on Open Source - "Other News "Matthew Pavlovich arrived home from a Caribbean cruise with his parents and grandparents over the holidays to discover he was a wanted man." By Lisa Bowman. [ZDNet]
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