Kyle SGMS used our newssubmit to tell us that DeCSS, a tool that is able to decrypt DVD's, has been declared illegal again by the The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit started when the major movie studios sued the hacker magazine 2600 when it posted the DeCSS decryption software on their site, infringementing and violating the DCMA:
A federal judge agreed and sided with the Motion Picture Association of America. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed the case on 2600's behalf, but an appeals court panel upheld the ruling. 2600 then asked the full panel to reconsider that decision. |
The publication still has the option of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites). The EFF said it is still considering whether to do so.
Attempts to chip away at the DMCA on the grounds that it violates free speech have for the most part failed so far, giving the entertainment industry more ammunition to go after people who post or make public code that could be used to unlock copyright protections, even if such use is only theoretical. So far, digital content companies have wielded the law to crack down on companies, programmers and even professors, fearing their research and programs could lead to widespread piracy.
Altough the hacker magazine 2600 is not allowed to post the code anymore, the code is already out in the wild and putting a ban on it i probably way to late.
At the time DeCSS was made they even sold t-shirts with the code on it and I guess there are people who made a backup of the code on their harddrives.
Source: Yahoo.com
