Judge Says New DeCSS Case Must Go On

from the pointless-waste-of-time dept

As Hollywood and 321 Studios are arguing their case it appears that yet another case about the famous DeCSS code is moving forward. The California Supreme Court rejected a request to throw out the case of a guy who linked to the DeCSS code from his website. In requesting that the case get thrown out they didn't rely on the fact that a link isn't the content itself, but rather suggested that the entire case was moot, because the DeCSS code was so widely available it could hardly be considered a "trade secret" any more. The code is available on thousands of websites, printed on t-shirts, and has even been turned into a song - so it's difficult to believe that anyone who simply links to the code from their website is guilty of doing any damage. Unfortunately, the justices didn't see it that way, and the case will now move on to a full trial.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2003 @ 11:57am

    No Subject Given

    It's really time for judges to stop being wimps and take positions on the issues. It sounds like no judge is willing to make any type of interpretation that's not obvious; they leave that to the US Supreme Court, as if they are the only ones who were supposed to set precedent. This is NOT the way our legal system was supposed to be.
    Most of these cases belong in the trashcan, not the courtroom, wasting my tax dollars.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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