IP: CALIFORNIA COPYRIGHT LAW CAN APPLY IN INTERNET CASE: Edupage, August 8, 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> On Tuesday, California's Sixth District Court ruled that Indiana
> college student and Texas resident Matthew Pavlovich violated
> California copyright law by posting a program on a Web site that
> cracks the DVD Copy Control Association's encryption. This is
> tantamount to trade-secret theft and copyright infringement, the
> justices declared. "Instant access provided by the Internet is
> the functional equivalent of personal presence of the person
> posting the material on the Web at the place from which the
> posted material is accessed and appropriated," wrote Justice
> Eugene Premo. "It is as if the poster is instantaneously present
> in different places at the same time, and simultaneously
> delivering his material at those different places." Electronic
> Frontier Foundation staff attorney Robin Gross, one of the lawyers
> defending Pavlovich, said that the ruling would make "anyone who
> wants to build a DVD player" for purely competitive purposes
> vulnerable to California law.
> (Recorder Online, 8 August 2001)



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