Calif law applies everywhere; DeCSS

Alfred Qaeda alqaeda at hq.org
Wed Aug 8 10:43:16 PDT 2001


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20010807/tc/out-of-state_resident_can_be_sued_in_dvd_case_1.html

Out-of-state resident can be sued in DVD
        case

        By Jim Hu CNET News.com

        An out-of-state resident who allegedly posted computer code that

        circumvents DVD encryption measures can be sued under California
law,
        a California appeals court ruled Tuesday.

                          The Sixth Appellate Court of California
decided that
                          Matthew Pavlovich, who is not a California
resident,
                          could be tried for violating the state's trade
secrets
                          law.

                          "The reach of the Internet is also the reach
of the
                          extension of the poster's presence," the
ruling stated.

                          The decision follows what appeared to have
been a
                          small victory for Pavlovich in December 2000,
when
                          the California Supreme Court ordered a lower
court
        to show he should remain in the case even though he is not a
California
        resident.

        Because of the ruling, others involved in the case living
outside California
        will remain under the state's jurisdiction. The ruling could
show that the
        Internet is not immune to California's long-arm statutes even
when the
        publisher of the site is located outside the state.

        The DVD Copy Control Association originally filed a complaint in

        December 1999 against Pavlovich for allegedly posting the DeCSS
(news
        - web sites) code on his Web site. The suit was meant to prevent
the
        dissemination of DeCSS, a code whose original intent was to let
        programmers create a DVD player for Linux (news - web sites)
machines.

        The movie industry and DVD CCA argued that DeCSS could be used
to
        illegally copy DVDs and have taken legal action against people
posting the
        code on their sites. In a federal case filed in New York, for
example, the
        Motion Picture Association of America is suing 2600, a site that

        published and linked to the DeCSS code.

        Allon Levy, the attorney representing Pavlovich, could not be
reached for
        comment.

        "The very significance in it has held that persons like
Pavlovich in various
        parts of the country are subject to jurisdiction in a California
court if they
        did what Pavlovich did," said Robert Sugarman, an attorney at
Weil,
        Gotshal & Manges and a legal counsel for the DVD CCA.





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