The American Library Association has joined the effort to overturn a court ruling that prevents people from posting a program that can crack the computer code protecting copyrighted DVDs, or even linking to the program.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief January 26 on behalf of ALA, the Association of Research Libraries, and other groups urging an appeals court to overturn U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan’s August 2000 ruling. Kaplan prohibited the online hacker publication 2600 from publishing DeCSS, which allows DVD movies to be decoded and played on personal computers, calling the claim that computer code is protected by the First Amendment “baseless.”
The ACLU argued that since DeCSS can be used for legal purposes, it should not be banned because of potential misuse, the CNet online news service reported January 26. Calling links “digital footnotes,” the brief maintains that Web publishers should not be responsible for the content on the linked site.
Other amicus briefs against the ruling have been filed by groups representing computer scientists and journalists, with more expected before the plaintiff, the Motion Picture Association of America, submits its reply, due February 19.
Posted February 5, 2001.