Universal v. Reimerdes

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 294 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), aff'd, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001), was the first test of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a United States federal law. The plaintiffs sought an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS, a program that reverse engineered the CSS algorithm, thereby allowing decryption of DVDs without paying CSS licensing fees.

In October 1999 the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) became aware of the availability on the Internet of DeCSS, a program that could crack the copy-protection on DVDs. The industry responded by sending out a number of cease and desist letters to web site operators who posted the software, some of which removed it from their sites. In December Weil, Gotshal & Manges, representing DVD Copy Control Association, filed a complaint in Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara requesting a temporary restraining order. [cite web | url = http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/19 | title = DVD Industry takes 2600 to court | date = December 27, 1999 | accessdate = 2007-05-05 | work = ] [ [http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dlip/DVDCCAComp.html Complaint] ; in [http://irgendeinedomain.de/decss/legal/doc00002.doc German] and [http://tux1.aftenposten.no/objekter/dokumenter/lawsuit.html Norwegian] ] The request was . On January 20, 2000, judge William J. Elfving granted a .

In January 2000, the movie studios filed a lawsuit against Eric Corley, publisher of "" Magazine, and two others (including Shawn Reimerdes, who settled, but whose name is immortalized in the caption), based on the recently passed DMCA. After a hearing at which defendants presented no affidavits or evidentiary material, the Court granted a preliminary injunction barring defendants from posting DeCSS. At the conclusion of the hearing, plaintiffs sought also to enjoin defendants from linking to other sites that posted DeCSS, but the Court declined to entertain the application at that time in view of plaintiffs failure to raise the issue in their motion papers.

Following the issuance of the preliminary injunction, defendants removed DeCSS from the 2600.com web site. In what they termed an act of "electronic civil disobedience," however, they continued to support links to other web sites purporting to offer DeCSS for download, a list which had grown to nearly five hundred by July 2000. Indeed, they carried a banner saying "Stop the MPAA" and, in a reference to this lawsuit, proclaimed: "We have to face the possibility that we could be forced into submission. For that reason it's especially important that as many of you as possible, all throughout the world, take a stand and mirror these files."

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.

: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. 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.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, attracting a large number of "amicus curiae" briefs on both sides. After a hearing on May 1, 2001 a three judge panel (Judges Newman, Cabranes and Thompson) upheld Judge Kaplan on November 28. In particular the Second Circuit ruled that linking on the Internet happened so fast that it could be restrained in ways that might not be constitutional for traditional media. The defendants chose not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The particular facts and litigation posture of the defendants was pivotal in this case. The district court found that the "primary purpose" of the defendants' actions was to promote redistribution of DVDs in violation of copyright laws, because the defendants admitted as much. See Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 346 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). The finding was upheld by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on the specific facts of the case, but the appellate court left open the possibility that different facts could change the result. See Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001), at footnotes 5 and 16.

The defendant's strategy narrowed the issues before the judiciary. Although the validity of the statute was upheld, application of the specific provisions of the Act was not squarely addressed. Both courts took pains to consider facts of the specific case as presented. Neither the trial court nor the appellate court considered First Amendment issues relating to potential abuse of the DMCA's anti-dissemination provision to suppress academic research in cryptography. Nor did it consider that the primary threat to DVDs comes from the recording of early showings of movies using digital camcorders.

Despite the courts' rulings, DeCSS is still widely available on the Internet.

ee also

* Chamberlain v. Skylink
* Prior restraint
* libdvdcss
* HD DVD encryption key controversy

References

* Trial: "Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes", 111 F.Supp.2d 294 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). ( [http://mpaa.org/legal_cases/dvddecss/00-08117.pdf PDF from MPAA] )
* Appeal: "Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley", 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001). ( [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/NY/appeals/opinion.html HTML] )
* [http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/ Electronic Frontier Foundation DVD case archive]
* http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
* Reimerdes' original protest site: [http://www.dvd-copy.com/ DVD-Copy.com] -- [http://web.archive.org/web/20000301030428/http://www.dvd-copy.com/ archived mirror from Feb-2000] .