NY Times: Free Speech Rights for Computer Code? Jul 31, 2000, 19 :51 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (2434 reads) (Other stories by Amy Harmon)
"It was perhaps the most arcane
statement in all the hours of
acronym-filled testimony, one
that came on the last day of the
six-day trial. But it may have been a
turning point in an important battle
over the limits of a new copyright
law, a potential landmark case that
ended its trial phase last week in
Manhattan and now awaits a verdict
by the judge...."
"I see this as having a chilling effect
on my ability as a computer scientist
to express myself," Professor
Touretzky said. He was referring to
the court's preliminary injunction that
barred a Web site from posting the
underlying, or source, code for the
cracking program. "If the court
upholds this injunction, what would
happen is that certain uses of
computer language -- my preferred
means of expression -- would be
illegal."
"Until that moment in the trial, United
States District Judge Lewis A.
Kaplan had appeared to have little
doubt about the copyright law's
constitutionality. In ordering the
injunction, he had noted that the
First Amendment does not shield
copyright infringement, and that
computer code was essentially "no
more expressive than an automobile
ignition key."
"But in light of the professor's
testimony, Judge Kaplan said, he
would reconsider his constitutional
analysis. It would be hard to make a
case "that computer code of any
kind has no expressive content," the
judge said. "Which then gets you to
the question of how then do you
deal with it under the First
Amendment?"
