DVD copy news

Diverse Groups Unite to Defend Freedom of Expression Against DMCA
EFF/2600 Magazine Receive Wide Public Support in DeCSS Appeal
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Robin Gross, EFF Staff Attorney for Intellectual Property
+1 415 863 5459
robin@eff.org

NEW YORK: Eight Amici or "friend of the court" briefs were filed today in support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's appeal of an injunction against 2600 Magazine, which banned the media site from publishing and linking to information under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) last August.

Warning the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals of the danger to free expression posed by the DMCA, diverse groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Association for Computing Machinery Law Committee, American Library Association and others asked the appellate court to overturn a lower court's ruling. Last year, a district court in New York barred 2600 Magazine from publishing or linking to DeCSS, the computer code that was at the heart of a controversy the magazine was covering. Other groups filing briefs with the appellate court include journalists, law professors, educators, cryptographers, computer programmers and academics -- all warning the appellate court of the impingement upon First Amendment freedoms that result from the lower court's dangerous interpretation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and broad elimination of fair use rights.

Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, who co-sponsored an amicus brief with NYU's Yochai Benkler, explained the harm to freedom of expression posed by the lower court's broad granting of rights to the movie studios under the DMCA. "The First Amendment limits the scope of copyright. It should also limit the scope of code that protects copyright. That is the core issue in this case," Lessig said.

A sponsor of the computer programmers' brief, noted Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten, stated, "the lower court's interpretation of the DMCA would effectively shut down research in some areas of computer security, by banning the publication of research results in those areas. Ironically, it has already prevented me from publishing research results that could be used to strengthen the protection of copyrighted works," explained the scientist who recently cracked RIAA's encryption scheme for music, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).

Speaking on behalf of the nation's librarians, Miriam Nisbet of the American Library Association stated, "the lower court's decision seriously harms the public's ability to make legitimate, fair use of digital works. As the founders of our country and Constitution recognized, free speech and fair use are critical components of a democracy."

According to EFF's Legal Director Cindy Cohn, "the combination of a broad alliance of amici briefs, each targeting a specific issue and pointing out the dangers and flaws in the lower court's ruling, presents a powerful argument that the public's rights have been trampled in a variety of ways by the lower court's careless handling of civil liberties under the DMCA."

On January 19, 2001 EFF and 2600 Magazine filed their appeal brief with the 2nd Circuit, requesting the lower court's ban be lifted and the DMCAs anti-circumvention provisions be overturned on First Amendment grounds. The movie studios must file their reply brief by February 19th, and oral arguments are expected before the 2nd Circuit in April.

EFF is defending individual rights in the DVD cases as part of our Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression (CAFE). CAFE was launched in June 1999 to address complex social and legal issues raised by new technological measures for protecting intellectual property.