Court Overturns Ban on Posting DVD Descrambling Code, Finds Free-Speech Violation

* Court Overturns Ban on Posting DVD Descrambling Code, Finds
Free-Speech Violation

No Evidence DeCSS Was a Trade Secret When Bunner Published

San Jose, CA - A California appeals court on Friday overturned as
unconstitutional a 1999 trade secret injunction against Andrew
Bunner that prohibited him from distributing the DeCSS DVD
decryption computer code. The court found there was no evidence
that the Content Scrambling System (CSS) encryption technology
used in DVD movie disks was still a trade secret by the time
that Bunner posted DeCSS code on his website. The Court
therefore held that the injunction violated Bunner's
constitutional free-speech rights.

"We are thrilled that the Appeal Court recognized that the
injunction restricting Andrew Bunner's freedom of speech was
not justified," said EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze. "The
Court's ruling that there was no evidence that CSS was
still a trade secret when Bunner posted DeCSS vindicates
what we have said all along: DeCSS has been available on
thousands of websites around the world for many years."

"This long-delayed but gratifying victory sends a strong
message to those who would try to misuse intellectual property
laws and corporate power to stifle free speech on the Internet,"
said Richard Wiebe, a San Francisco attorney who represents
Bunner along with EFF. "The Court of Appeal correctly
recognized the obvious conclusion that information that is
in the public domain and that has been republished for
years around the world can't be a trade secret."

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