“Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge William Elfving issued
a preliminary injunction Friday barring the sites from offering
DeCSS to users. He had refused last month to grant a temporary
restraining order pending hearings on the trade group’s
lawsuit.”
“His ruling follows a similar decision Thursday by a federal
judge in New York, who ruled that three Web sites posting DeCSS had
violated the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”
“Internet activists said Elfving’s decision abridged the Web
site operators’ free speech rights, but he disagreed.”
“If the court does not immediately enjoin the posting of
this proprietary information, the (industry’s) right to protect
this information as a secret will surely be lost,” Elfving
wrote.“