"The DVD CCA [for which read Hollywood] has failed to establish that the information Bunner republished was still secret at the time he republished it on his Web site," says the California Supreme Court in its decision on the DVD Copy Control Association versus Andrew Bunner case.

DeCSS (Content Scramble System) is a computer code able to break the encryption security on DVDs. It was developed by Norway's Jon Johansen in the late 1990s and Bunner (and hundreds of others) published the details online.

This threw the major studios into a blind panic and they turned their DVD Copy Control Association (DVDCCA) onto Bunner. The DVDCCA managed to get a court order forcing Bunner to drop DeCSS and by default, the other DeCSS 'publishers' had to do the same.

An appeals court overturned the injunction in 2000, and Hollywood took it all the way to the top.

However, "Today we resolve an apparent conflict between California’s trade secret law (Civ. Code, § 3426 et seq.) and the free speech clauses of the United States and California Constitutions," says the Supreme Court of California here.

"In sum, the DVD CCA has failed to establish that the information Bunner republished was still secret at the time he republished it on his Web site."

They needn't have bothered, though. In 1999 the CSS source code was broken down to reveal the descrambling algorithm, and published widely online.

Then DVD-CCA president John Hoy Revealed All in the lawsuit against Andrew McLaughlin, Andrew Bunner, John Kew, et al.

In an amazing coincidence, before joining the DVD-CCA, Hoy worked for Toshiba America as director of digital video disc marketing and director of strategic alliances. And by another amazing coincidence, Toshiba was one of the CSS developers.

'Small World,' as Kurt Vonnegut Jnr would say.

oh, this must me the secret that everyone already knew about. those idiots couldnt get water on a fish let alone come up with some earthmoving technology that is going to thwart the public like they pass off in their press releases

Not very up on this issue/factor of things... but I will stick to the "if it ain't open source, it ain't shit" arguement till someone proves me wrong!

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy

Actually, from what ive seen of CPRM and CPPM they seem to be getting better at it But still not nearly good enough

It took how many years and how many millions to finally resolve this case?

More and more I realize that these people need Baghdad Bob as their spokesman "Those infidel file sharers are cowering in fear! Our CSS is too strong for them! We are suing them and the judge has already ruled in our favor without the need for due process. There ARE no civil rights but ours to make money."

Erm...we lost this one actually.

Yes, they ruled that bunner was innocent because the information was no longer secret when he published it, but also considerably weakened the free speech defence, ruleing that trade secret law has priority over the right to free speech. Essentially, the ruleing was that Bunner broke the law but got away on a technicality. Its a bad precident.

goldenpi -- It depends on your perspective. In the Napster case, David Boise's countersuit was that the RIAA was a monopoly using collusion in an attempt to gain market dominance by refusing to negotiate.

The federal court ruled that the RIAA was a monopoly, was guilty of collusion, but they got away with it on a technicality because Napster was bad first.

Otherwise the Napster case would have evolved into antitrust and would never have made it to the "sue everyone" offensive attack.

The legal world is held together by tiny stitches of technicalities.

Anybody interested in DVD copying can go to any Best Buy or Circuit City store and buy a copy of 321 Studios DVD X Copy software. This software program is legal in the US Of A. Of course, software maker Studios 321 is being sued by Hollywood. So far Hollywood is losing this fight.

...I don't get it. Don't you pay a "tax" to the riaa when you buy software, CDR's, cassettes, hardware like Cd burners, etc? So wouldn't it follow that they anticipate you copying "their" music with these devices? Therefore, why are they so p.o.'d when you do exactly that?

Yeah, this article has a lot of weight on the DVD XCopy software. Since 321 studios is in my town of St. Louis, it's been getting a lot of press locally all summer. The president of the company is very confident they'll win the court case. Today's ruling will only add to their confidence.

Unfortunately, the quotes in the article are misrepresentative and misleading. Its quotes do not come from the majority decision, but rather a concurring opinion which dissents from the majority opinion in the area being discussed.

Bunner lost on the preliminary injunction issue. The California Supreme Court remanded the case to the appeals court on the trade secret issue.

Jazzmary - this is a popular oppinion on CD copy-prevention. The RIAA gets money from sales of blank CD-Rs, but if they stop people copying CDs they will still get the money. Awkwardly, its an oppinion that doesn't seem to have much legal power, espicially as the AHRA, the law that allows that assumed-copying fee, also specifies that digital audio recorders must use the SCMS copy prevention system - which allows very limited personal use copying - but computers dont support it. Ok, I think there are two or three sound cards that recognise it.

wait a minute.... there's a free speech clause in the California Constitution?
ttmmm