The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) has dropped
its case against a California man it accused of misappropriating
trade secrets by posting copies of a program, DeCSS, which
defeated the DVD security technology known as CSS.
The DVD CCA asked the California Superior Court to dismiss its
complaint, citing an "evolving legal strategy", ending a four-year
legal battle that pitted the media industry against technology
companies and intellectual property experts, who worried that a
victory by the DVD CCA would outlaw practices, such as reverse
engineering, that are vital to technological innovation and
competition.
"The dismissal is only the first step in the evolved strategy,
which is being updated to reflect current factors in the rapidly
changing market place," the group said.
The unilateral dismissal will end legal action against Andrew
Bunner and scores of others who were charged with misappropriating
the DVD CCA's trade secret after reposting the code for DeCSS on
their websites.
The DVD CCA is considering further action to protect its CSS
copy protection system from unauthorised use.
The legal decision follows a similar legal victory by Jon Lech
Johansen, the creator of DeCSS. Johansen claimed he originally
created the program so that DVDs could be played on computers using
the Linux operating system.
In January, the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit decided not to
appeal a unanimous decision by the Norwegian Court of Appeals to
uphold an acquittal of criminal charges that Johansen illegally
pirated copyrighted films using DeCSS.
In January, 2003, the US Supreme Court dealt the DVD CCA another
defeat when a judge ended the stay of an earlier California Supreme
Court ruling. The California ruling said another defendant in the
DeCSS case, Matthew Pavlovich of Texas, could not be tried in
California courts for breaking a state law against violating trade
secrets.
The DVD CCA said in its statement that the legal actions have
been successful in maintaining CSS as the standard protection
system for DVDs and in establishing that publishing the CSS code is
not protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment.
Paul Roberts writes for IDG News Service