The California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that if publishing source code would reveal trade secrets, then it would not be protected by the First Amendment. The case concerned Andrew Bunner's act of posting the code for DeCSS to one web site, after reading it on another web site. DeCSS is software to bypass copy protection on DVD's. The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) claims that the software revealed its trade secrets. The California Supreme Court merely established the legal rule that should govern this case, and asked the trial court to decide whether any trade secrets were actually revealed by Bunner's act. At that stage of the proceeding, it might finally become relevant that Bunner posted already-public information. News coverage.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/26/2003 10:31:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
