Washington Post: DVD Code-Breakers Dealt Court Setbacks

“Users of the Linux operating system who are anxious to
watch DVD movies on their computers lost on two fronts this
week.”

“In New York, a district judge sided with the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) on Thursday, granting a preliminary
injunction against three defendants–programmers who posted a DVD
descrambling program, DeCSS, to their World Wide Web sites, as well
as the owner of an Internet provider whose customer had made DeCSS
available online. And in a separate case brought by the DVD Copy
Control Association (CCA), a California state court granted a
similar injunction yesterday afternoon.”

“Under both injunctions, the defendants have to yank any
downloadable copies of DeCSS, which unlocks security codes that
prevent DVD movies from being copied. With this deadbolt removed, a
user can watch a DVD on a computer even if a licensed player
program for it isn’t available, as is the case with Linux. One also
can make perfect digital copies of the video, albeit only at
considerable expense.”

Complete Story.