Posted 9:44 AM

Speech & Secrets

PCWorld (and others) headlines say California Court Okays DeCSS Ban, but that's not at all what the court ruled. The California state supreme court ruled that the first amendment to the constitution of the United States does not allow someone to publish someone else's trade secrets. That's neither novel nor surprising. The first amendment, primarily, allows you to voice your opinion. It has very little application to proprietary information. The crux of the case is the ability of the CD manufacturers to claim trade secret protection for their security code. That's still to be decided. And, while DeCSS proponents point out to the proliferation of the code (claiming that its no longer "secret"), that also is not germane. If you steal private documents and send them to me, I cannot publish them with impunity. The same goes for DeCSS.