There's a war raging in cyberspace, and this time it is the movie industry that's feeling the heat. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed an emergency stay on a case involving DVD descrambling Jan. 3.
In so doing, the high court affirmed a decision of the California Supreme Court, which had ruled that the entertainment industry could not force a Texas resident who had published DVD descrambling software on the Internet to stand trial in California.
This means that the defendant, Matthew Pavlovich, who posted the software called DeCSS, is able to distribute the program online.
In the latest ruling, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lifted the injunction, saying there was no need to keep DeCSS a secret. "The Supreme Court wisely recognized that there is no need for an emergency stay to prevent Mr. Pavlovich from publishing DeCSS," Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, adds.
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