The President of the DVD CCA, John Hoy, inadvertently made the source code for DeCSS part of the public record on January 18th; doesn that pretty much kill the trade secret case?
On January 18th, 2000, John J. Hoy (President of the DVD Copy Control Association) included the source code to DeCSS 1.2 as Exhibit B to his Reply Declaration to the injunction granted in Santa Clara, California. For two weeks – until the court agreed to seal the records – the “trade secret” was a part of public record and put there by the very man who is fighting to prevent its dissemination. Many people have suggested that this act “puts the last nail in the coffin” of a trade secret case, since it can no longer really be called a secret. This may in fact be the case. However, subsequent consulting with attorneys suggest that this will not have the desired impact in court, and that the court will probably overlook this event as an act of inadvertence. Sources: http://cryptome.org/dvd-hoy-reply.htm http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archive/dvd-discuss/msg00013.
On January 18th, 2000, John J. Hoy (President of the DVD Copy Control Association) included the source code to DeCSS 1.2 as Exhibit B to his Reply Declaration to the injunction granted in Santa Clara, California. For two weeks – until the court agreed to seal the records – the “trade secret” was a part of public record and put there by the very man who is fighting to prevent its dissemination. Many people have suggested that this act “puts the last nail in the coffin” of a trade secret case, since it can no longer really be called a secret. This may in fact be the case. However, subsequent consulting with attorneys suggest that this will not have the desired impact in court, and that the court will probably overlook this event as an act of inadvertence.
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