[WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key

[Delirium]

David Gerard wrote:
> On 04/05/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>   
>> The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost
>> entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in
>> circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool
>> here!" type of link.  The court took great pains to note that any sort
>> of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be
>> protected.  Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of
>> academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_
>> were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our
>> situation.  In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of
>> people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic
>> and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
>>     
>
>
> None has lost one - has any been put through one?
>   

Not on DMCA grounds, to my knowledge.  The RIAA, MPAA, DVD-CCA, and 
similar groups have been extremely afraid of bringing any more for fear 
of the 2600 case's chilling effects being weakened.  The 2600 case was a 
best-case scenario for them: The party they were suing made no even 
half-assed attempt to be educational, explicitly and openly posted the 
tool *as* a circumvention device, and probably worst of all subtitled 
themselves "The Hacker Quarterly".  Basically the only way to go with a 
follow-up case is down.  The RIAA and SDMI did famously threaten 
[[Edward Felten]] with a lawsuit for publishing details on how to break 
SDMI, but rapidly backtracked so far that they ended up actually arguing 
in court that Felten *wasn't* violating the DMCA, to avoid the 
possibility of the DMCA being litigated.

A few cases on trade-secret grounds have been brought, with the 
defendents prevailing on the defense that something posted a million 
times on the internet cannot be a trade secret.  Andrew Brunner is the 
most notable one of those.

-Mark