FC: DeCSS ruling in DVD case must be reversed, eight amicus briefs say

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Eight different coalitions -- from cryptographers to journalist groups -- 
are filing amicus briefs in the DVD/DeCSS case. The briefs -- an unusually 
high number -- urge that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturn the 
district court's ruling of last August.

Wired News article on the briefs being filed today:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41441,00.html

The journalist/media brief, which focuses on the right to link:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/linking-amicus.012601.html
The computer scientists' brief (the only one filed earlier in the week):
http://cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-bac.htm

Photos from trial, protests, anti-DMCA march:
http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/dvd-2600-trial.html
http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/2600.html
http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/dmca-protest.html
http://www.mccullagh.org/image/950-5/tshirt-cssscramble.html

Other briefs include one by the ACLU, one by the ACM, one by law 
professors, and one by Ernest Miller, Siva Vaidhyanathan et al. that says 
"to be governed by the District Court's version of the DMCA is to be 
stripped of the right to make the valuable fair uses of copyrighted 
materials upon which new contributions to the field are so often based."

Judge Lewis Kaplan's ruling last August:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38287,00.html

EFF is funding 2600 magazine's defense and appeal. The appeal brief to the 
circuit court, filed last Friday, is here:
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/20010119_ny_eff_appeal_pressrel.html
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/20010119_ny_eff_appeal_brief.html

Brief of MPAA member companies is due February 19. Their amici must file a 
week later.

Some of the briefs, including ones I've perused, are still in draft form. 
EFF promises to have all of them online shortly. ACLU says their brief -- 
still in draft form -- will be up on their site by noon.

-Declan




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