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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Appeals judges jab at 2600 lawyer during DeCSS oral
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] (Fwd) FC: Appeals judges jab at 2600 lawyer during DeCSS oral
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 10:13:43 +0200
- Comment: This message comes from the debate mailing list.
- Organization: NONE
- Sender: owner-debate@fitug.de
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Tue, 1 May 2001 19:01:13 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@politechbot.com
Subject: FC: Appeals judges jab at 2600 lawyer during DeCSS oral arguments
Send reply to: declan@well.com
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,43470,00.html
DVD Piracy Judges Resolute
By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
2:05 p.m. May. 1, 2001 PDT
NEW YORK -- A trio of federal judges lobbed sharp questions on
Tuesday at a law school dean who argued it should be legal to
distribute a DVD-descrambling utility.
The judges, from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, spent an hour
quizzing attorneys for both sides in Universal Studios v. Remeirdes
et al, a high-profile case that has pitted Hollywood against the
open-source community.
The panel of three judges appeared to be more sympathetic to the
legal arguments raised by the entertainment industry.
Judge Jon Newman predicted the widespread availabity of the DeCSS
descrambling utility would boost piracy of DVDs. "Not a remote
theoretical possibility, but a highly likely virtual certainty,"
Newman said.
Kathleen Sullivan, the dean of Stanford Law School, said the panel
should rule the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- which a
district judge said outlawed DeCSS -- was unconstitutional, or at
least did not apply to her client, hacker-zine 2600 Magazine. Last
year, a coalition of movie studios sued 2600 for distributing a
copy of DeCSS.
Sullivan compared the controversial DMCA to a "kind of digital
straightjacket" that restricts even people who purchase DVDs from
copying them or using them in other ways, such as using digital
excerpts in presentations, that courts have deemed permissible
under U.S. law.
"It's as if the laws, as applied, say you can't print a blueprint
of a copying machine," Sullivan said.
[...]
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