DeCSS Free Speech Victory

An appeals court in California has overturned a 4-year-old injunction that prevented the publication of information about how to crack DVD encryption, citing that the order violated the defendant's free speech rights. Andrew Bunner was sued for posting DeCSS code, which helps bypass copyright protection for DVDs, to his Web site.

The court decided that the publication of the code didn't violate intellectual property rights because it was published after it was no longer a secret. Norwegian programmer Jon Johansen originally posted DeCSS on the Internet. A criminal suit in Norway against Johansen was thrown out late last year. Bunner's victory is a triumph for free speech on the Web.