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February 27, 2004 Contact: Robin Gross, IP
Justice Executive Director Court Rules DeCSS Injunction Violated Freedom of Expression
Rights In November of 2001, the 6th Appellate Circuit over-turned the Superior Court's injunction for the first time and DVD-CCA filed an appeal with the California Supreme Court. In August of 2003, the California Supreme Court upheld First Amendment protection of computer code and sent the case back to the appellate court for re-evaluation. On February 27, 2004 the appellate court again upheld the freedom of speech rights of persons who re-publish information onto the Internet that is readily available in the public domain. "A number of court rulings have now clearly established that DeCSS had already lost its trade-secrecy status and entered the public domain when Andrew Bunner and hundreds of others re-published the computer code on web in 1999," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross, who worked on the case as an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Traditional freedom of expression rights may not be sacrificed simply because information that is published on the Internet was once a trade secret." 27 February 2004 California 6th Appellate Court Ruling: http://www.ipjustice.org/H02115A.pdf http://www.ipjustice.org/H021153A.doc 25 August 2004 California Supreme Court Ruling: http://www.ipjustice.org/S102588_bunner_decision.pdf IP Justice Timeline of DeCSS litigation: http://www.ipjustice.org/publications/decsstable.htm EFF DeCSS Case Archive: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/ IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property laws. IP Justice defends consumer rights to use digital media worldwide and is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco. IP Justice was founded in 2002 by Robin Gross, who serves as its Executive Director. To learn more about IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org.
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