Hollywood loses a ruling in its fight to outlaw DeCSS, an open-source Linux computer code that allows copying of protected DVD disks. The motion picture industry's effort to ban computer code that subverts its DVD encryption scheme has suffered a setback in California, with the state's high court issuing an order that could see many of the defendants dropped from the closely watched case.
The California Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ordered a lower court to show why defendant Matthew Pavlovich should remain in the case even though he is not a California resident.
"This is an important case for free speech on the Internet," he said. "The defendants are not alleged to have created the code but only to have found it and republished it. The standard of how you know it's been misappropriated is very vague."
News: Cryptography
