Score Round One to the motion picture industry - a federal judge has granted the Motion Picture Association of America a preliminary injunction against three defendants the MPAA is suing for offering the DVD descrambling program known as DeCSS over the Internet.
Federal Judge Louis Kaplan rejected every point of the defendants' arguments in favor of the MPAA after three hours of argument Thursday. But the preliminary decision only blocks the defendants from offering DeCSS until a formal trial. Still, Wired says Kaplan's ruling and "wholesale rejection" of the defense arguments - led by Electronic Frontier Foundation legal director Robin Gross - offers "a glimpse into the eventual outcome of the litigation.
In fact, Kaplan said outright he thinks there's no question the plaintiffs have an excellent chance of success.
The MPAA is suing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. EFF co-founder John Gilmore tells Wired Kaplan's reading of the law could make it illegal to build open source products which "can inter-operate and/or compete with proprietary ones for displaying copyrighted content."
The law bans distributing software which circumvents copyright protection technology, but it also makes exceptions in "certain cases" of reverse-engineering software, Wired says. The EFF argues DeCSS is protected under the reverse-engineering clause of the law. That clause makes the MPAA case of special interest to the open source community, Wired says.
The EFF also maintains DeCSS is First Amendment-protected expression. "Computer code may be difficult for most of us to read," argued EFF's Allonn Levy, "but there are individuals who can read it."
Kaplan made a link between this case and a California lawsuit filed by the same plaintiffs. MPAA attorneys argued the federal suit was filed "reluctantly" in response to "widespread, global posting of DeCSS" in response to the California action. Kaplan agreed that backlash was enough to warrant a preliminary injunction to stop "irreparable harm" to DVD copyright holders.
Kaplan offered a speedy trial for the lawsuit - "as early as next Tuesday, if you want it," he told MPAA attorneys. "I offer you a runaway train if that's what you want." But he agreed to a accept a defense application for an alternate date."
He apparently didn't waste time making clear which way he would rule - urging the defense often to get on with their case, lecturing them on the law. Earlier this week, he turned down a defense request to adjourn the hearing to give them more time to prepare.
MPAA chairman Jack Valenti was apparently prepared to win Thursday - he'd prepared a victory statement in advance, calling the ruling a great victory for consumers and creative artists. "I think this serves," Valenti said in the statement, "as a wake-up call to anyone who contemplates stealing intellectual property."
