Universal v. Reimerdes
Encyclopedia
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes was the first test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA), a United States federal law.
The plaintiffs
, 8 movie studios, successfully sought an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS
, a program capable of decrypting content protected using the Content Scramble System
(a DRM
scheme commonly used to protect DVD
s.) It was produced and released without a license from DVD CCA, the trade organization responsible for DVD copy protection. DeCSS was released in October 1999, on LiViD
, a mailing list focused on producing programming tool
s and software libraries relevant to DVD use on Linux. The motion picture industry became aware of the existence of DeCSS later that same month, and began litigation on a number of fronts.
Magazine,) Shawn Reimerdes, Roman Kazan and 2600 Enterprises, Inc. The movie studios claimed that all three defendants, by making available DeCSS, were 'trafficking in circumvention devices
', an illegal act under the DMCA. The studios sought injunctive relief
in the form of a court order preventing the defendants from further publicizing or disseminating the DeCSS program, as well as damages
.
In mid-January, shortly after the suit was filed, the Court granted a preliminary injunction
barring defendants from posting DeCSS. This action allowed the court to prevent the further dissemination of DeCSS until the court could officially decide the legality of disseminating DeCSS. The court felt this precaution was necessary given that the movie studios supplied a reasonable argument that widespread dissemination of DeCSS would cause irreparable harm to their interests.
After the preliminary injunction was issued, Shawn Reimerdes and Roman Kazan both entered in to consent decrees with the plaintiffs, and were subsequently dropped from the suit. The consent decree that Shawn Reimerdes entered into barred him both from posting the code for DeCSS and from linking to other sites that did so. Reimerdes was originally sued because he hosted the source code for DeCSS on dvd-copy.com, a personal website. The consent decree that Kazan entered into was similar to Reimerdes'. Kazan was initially sued because he ran an internet hosting service that hosted websites offering DeCSS.
Eric Corley
removed DeCSS from 2600.com after the preliminary injunction was issued, but did not reach a settlement agreement. 2600 Enterprises Inc. was also added to the lawsuit after the preliminary injunction was issued. Although Corley removed the source code for DeCSS, in what Corley termed an act of "electronic civil disobedience
," 2600.com continued to host links to other websites that hosted the source code for DeCSS. By July of 2000 they had compiled links to nearly 500 such sites.
The defendants sought to invalidate the DMCA itself on constitutional and other grounds. After a three day trial, United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
issued an 89-page ruling on August 17, 2000 upholding the motion picture industry's position and the constitutionality of the DMCA.
Judge Kaplan also spoke to the legality of Corley and 2600.com's continued linking to sites that offered DeCSS for download, saying
In addition to the legal opinion issued by Judge Kaplan affirming the constitutionally of the DMCA and rejecting the defendant's arguments, Judge Kaplan also issued a second document placing a permanently enjoining defendant Eric Corley from engaging in any activities related to the further dissemination of DeCSS or any other content protection schemes developed for DVDs.
briefs. After a hearing on May 1, 2001 a three judge panel (Judges Newman, Cabranes and Thompson) affirmed Judge Kaplan on November 28.
Although Judge Kaplan's opinion was upheld, the appellate court did agree with the view (held by Corley) that computer programs are a form of protected speech regardless of whether they are in source code or object code form, which commentators regarded as significant. They also agreed with Corley that the DMCA was properly subject to intermediate scrutiny
, but said that the specific facts of the suit barred them from considering the question of the constitutionality of the DMCA's effect on fair use, because the defendants had not claimed to be engaging in fair use. (The district court had previously found that the "primary purpose" of the defandants' actions was to promote redistribution of DVD's in violation of copyright laws)
The appellate court's opinion focused on Corley's First Amendment defenses. Citing the precedent set in Hill v. Colorado that law that incidentally restricts speech for reasons that are “justified without reference to the content of regulated speech,” are not unconstitutional, the appellate court found, like the district court had, that even though DeCSS was a form of speech, it was constitutional to limit it because the limitations were related to the functionality of DeCSS, and not the content of the speech.
, as well as other groups such as the American Library Association
, the author of The Boondocks
, and others. Some organizations, such as the NFL, MLB, and others supported the decisions.
Eric Corley initially planned to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but decided not to after consultation with his lawyers. Despite the courts' rulings, DeCSS is still widely available on the Internet.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA), a United States federal law.
The plaintiffs
Plaintiff
A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...
, 8 movie studios, successfully sought an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS
DeCSS
DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, there was no way for computers running a Linux-based operating system to play video DVDs....
, a program capable of decrypting content protected using the Content Scramble System
Content Scramble System
Content Scramble System is a Digital Rights Management and encryption system employed on almost all commercially produced DVD-Video discs. CSS utilizes a proprietary 40-bit stream cipher algorithm...
(a DRM
DRM
-Information technology:*Digital rights management, access control technologies that limit the usage of digital content and devices*Data Reference Model, one of the five reference models of the Federal Enterprise Architecture...
scheme commonly used to protect DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s.) It was produced and released without a license from DVD CCA, the trade organization responsible for DVD copy protection. DeCSS was released in October 1999, on LiViD
LiViD
LiViD, short for Linux Video and DVD, was a collection of projects that aim to create program tools and software libraries related to DVD for Linux operating system.The projects included:* OMS* GATOS* mpeg2dec* ac3dec...
, a mailing list focused on producing programming tool
Programming tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a program or application that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications...
s and software libraries relevant to DVD use on Linux. The motion picture industry became aware of the existence of DeCSS later that same month, and began litigation on a number of fronts.
District court
On January 14th, 2000, eight movie studios filed a lawsuit against Eric Corley (publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly2600: The Hacker Quarterly
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American publication that specializes in publishing technical information on a variety of subjects including telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer "underground" and left wing, and sometimes ,...
Magazine,) Shawn Reimerdes, Roman Kazan and 2600 Enterprises, Inc. The movie studios claimed that all three defendants, by making available DeCSS, were 'trafficking in circumvention devices
Anti-circumvention
Anti-circumvention refers to laws which prohibit the circumvention of technological barriers for using a digital good in certain ways which the rightsholders do not wish to allow...
', an illegal act under the DMCA. The studios sought injunctive relief
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
in the form of a court order preventing the defendants from further publicizing or disseminating the DeCSS program, as well as damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
.
In mid-January, shortly after the suit was filed, the Court granted a preliminary injunction
Preliminary injunction
A preliminary injunction, in equity, is an injunction entered by a court prior to a final determination of the merits of a legal case, in order to restrain a party from going forward with a course of conduct or compelling a party to continue with a course of conduct until the case has been decided...
barring defendants from posting DeCSS. This action allowed the court to prevent the further dissemination of DeCSS until the court could officially decide the legality of disseminating DeCSS. The court felt this precaution was necessary given that the movie studios supplied a reasonable argument that widespread dissemination of DeCSS would cause irreparable harm to their interests.
After the preliminary injunction was issued, Shawn Reimerdes and Roman Kazan both entered in to consent decrees with the plaintiffs, and were subsequently dropped from the suit. The consent decree that Shawn Reimerdes entered into barred him both from posting the code for DeCSS and from linking to other sites that did so. Reimerdes was originally sued because he hosted the source code for DeCSS on dvd-copy.com, a personal website. The consent decree that Kazan entered into was similar to Reimerdes'. Kazan was initially sued because he ran an internet hosting service that hosted websites offering DeCSS.
Eric Corley
Eric Corley
Eric Gordon Corley, Born December 16, 1959, also frequently referred to by his pen name of Emmanuel Goldstein, is a figure in the hacker community...
removed DeCSS from 2600.com after the preliminary injunction was issued, but did not reach a settlement agreement. 2600 Enterprises Inc. was also added to the lawsuit after the preliminary injunction was issued. Although Corley removed the source code for DeCSS, in what Corley termed an act of "electronic civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
," 2600.com continued to host links to other websites that hosted the source code for DeCSS. By July of 2000 they had compiled links to nearly 500 such sites.
The defendants sought to invalidate the DMCA itself on constitutional and other grounds. After a three day trial, United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011....
issued an 89-page ruling on August 17, 2000 upholding the motion picture industry's position and the constitutionality of the DMCA.
- In the final analysis, the dispute between these parties is simply put if not necessarily simply resolved. Plaintiffs have invested huge sums over the years in producing motion pictures in reliance upon a legal framework that, through the law of copyright, has ensured that they will have the exclusive right to copy and distribute those motion pictures for economic gain. They contend that the advent of new technology should not alter this long established structure. Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era. Each side is entitled to its views. In our society, however, clashes of competing interests like this are resolved by Congress
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. For now, at least, Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in plaintiffs' favor. Given the peculiar characteristics of computer programs for circumventing encryption and other access control measures, the DMCA as applied to posting and linking here does not contravene the First Amendment.
Judge Kaplan also spoke to the legality of Corley and 2600.com's continued linking to sites that offered DeCSS for download, saying
To the extent that defendants have linked to sites that automatically commence the process of downloading DeCSS upon a user being transfered by defendants' hyperlink there, there can be no serious question. Defendants are engaged in the functional equivalent of transferring DeCSS code to the user themselves.
Substantially the same is true of defendants' hyperlinks to web pages that display nothing more than the DeCSS code or present the user only with the choice of commencing a download of DeCSS and no other content...
In addition to the legal opinion issued by Judge Kaplan affirming the constitutionally of the DMCA and rejecting the defendant's arguments, Judge Kaplan also issued a second document placing a permanently enjoining defendant Eric Corley from engaging in any activities related to the further dissemination of DeCSS or any other content protection schemes developed for DVDs.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, attracting fifteen amicus curiaeAmicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
briefs. After a hearing on May 1, 2001 a three judge panel (Judges Newman, Cabranes and Thompson) affirmed Judge Kaplan on November 28.
Although Judge Kaplan's opinion was upheld, the appellate court did agree with the view (held by Corley) that computer programs are a form of protected speech regardless of whether they are in source code or object code form, which commentators regarded as significant. They also agreed with Corley that the DMCA was properly subject to intermediate scrutiny
Intermediate scrutiny
Intermediate scrutiny, in U.S. constitutional law, is the second level of deciding issues using judicial review. The other levels are typically referred to as rational basis review and strict scrutiny ....
, but said that the specific facts of the suit barred them from considering the question of the constitutionality of the DMCA's effect on fair use, because the defendants had not claimed to be engaging in fair use. (The district court had previously found that the "primary purpose" of the defandants' actions was to promote redistribution of DVD's in violation of copyright laws)
The appellate court's opinion focused on Corley's First Amendment defenses. Citing the precedent set in Hill v. Colorado that law that incidentally restricts speech for reasons that are “justified without reference to the content of regulated speech,” are not unconstitutional, the appellate court found, like the district court had, that even though DeCSS was a form of speech, it was constitutional to limit it because the limitations were related to the functionality of DeCSS, and not the content of the speech.
Reception and subsequent developments
Both the district and appellate court rulings were controversial, and have been widely criticized by free speech advocates such as the ACLU and the EFFEFF
EFF may refer to:* The Effective Federal funds rate* Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S. non-profit advocacy group* Elf Fantasy Fair, a fantasy event in the Netherlands* Economic Freedom Fund, a U.S. political organization* Equipped for the Future, a U.S...
, as well as other groups such as the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
, the author of The Boondocks
The Boondocks
The Boondocks was a daily syndicated comic strip written and originally drawn by Aaron McGruder that ran from 1996 to 2006. Created by McGruder in 1996 for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park, the strip moved from the college pages and was printed in...
, and others. Some organizations, such as the NFL, MLB, and others supported the decisions.
Eric Corley initially planned to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but decided not to after consultation with his lawyers. Despite the courts' rulings, DeCSS is still widely available on the Internet.
See also
- Chamberlain v. SkylinkChamberlain v. SkylinkThe Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Skylink Technologies, Inc., 381 F.3d 1178 is a legal case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concerning the anti-trafficking provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , , in the context of two competing universal garage door...
- Prior restraintPrior restraintPrior restraint or prior censorship is censorship in which certain material may not be published or communicated, rather than not prohibiting publication but making the publisher answerable for what is made known...
- libdvdcssLibdvdcsslibdvdcss is a free software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the Content Scramble System...
- HD DVD encryption key controversy
- RealNetworks v. DVD CCARealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc.RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., 641 F. Supp. 2d 913 , is a United States District Court case involving RealNetworks, the movie studios and DVD Copy Control Association regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims on the manufacturing and distribution of RealDVD,...
External links
- Trial: Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d 294 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)
- Appeal: Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001)
- Electronic Frontier Foundation DVD case archive
- http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
- Reimerdes' original protest site: DVD-Copy.com -- archived mirror from Feb-2000.