[ Thanks to Ken
Jaeger for this link. ]
“This afternoon, Robin Gross from the EFF called…with some
disturbing new information for anyone interested in DVD litigation.
The MPAA has filed two lawsuits against three defendants in two
separate states for the “illegal hacking of the DVD encryption
system ‘CSS’.” The plaintiffs in the case are Buena Vista
Pictures Distribution, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, 20th Century
Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros….”
“Robin offered her comments on this new litigation:”
“Clearly, this is how they’re trying to portray this. Piracy is
their story, and they’re sticking to it. Of course, this is a
sneaky underhanded attempt to undermine the litigation that they’ve
already filed in California, most likely because they lost at the
temporary restraining order hearing. They realize the weaknesses in
their trade secrets claim, an so they’ve decided to file under
federal copyright, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This is
also an inappropriate harassing lawsuit, because although the DMCA
does provide for a general ban on circumventing technological
protection, there are explicit exceptions to that general
prohibition for the purposes of facilitating interoperability and
computer security, among other exceptions. They’ve realized that
their trade secret claim is not going to prevail, so this in Plan
B. Quite frankly, this is what we were anticipating the first time
around. We were not anticipating a trade secret claim, because it
was so weak.”