[dvd-announce] New York amicus brief; California appeal; DMCA protest

[Wendy Seltzer <wendy@seltzer.com>]

 >New York Amicus Brief:
Openlaw participants who choose to sign on will be submitting an amicus 
brief in opposition to plaintiffs' motion to enjoin hyperlinking.  We will 
be arguing that because of the communicative nature of a hyperlink, the 
proposed injunction would be an impermissible prior restraint on speech.

Bryan Taylor has posted a draft brief at
<http://bioinformatics.ucsf.edu/bwtaylor/dvd/amicus/linking.txt>
You are invited to join the dvd-discuss-ion or the Openlaw site
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/>
to add your comments.  We will circulate a call for signatures when the 
brief is in final form.


 >California Appeal:
On the West coast, meanwhile, the EFF and First Amendment Project filed an 
appeal of the California injunction, arguing that the DVD-CCA's claimed 
economic harm cannot outweigh defendants' First Amendment freedoms.

"The trial court blatantly failed to respect the constitutional injury to
Bunner in denying him the right to publish DeCSS.  California courts have
recognized the principle that '[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms for
even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable
injury.'"
<http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/20000515-appeal-brief.html>


 >DMCA Protest:
Also in California, the Silicon Valley LUG, EFF, and 2600 are sponsoring a 
DMCA protest at the Stanford round of hearings in the Copyright Office's 
anticirumvention rulemaking.  Join the protest against the copyright 
industries' power grab; stay for an EFF press conference.

Stanford Law School, Thursday, May 18, from noon-2 p.m.
details: <http://zgp.org/~dmarti/dmca/>


Wendy Seltzer
wendy@seltzer.com
Fellow, Berkman Center  for Internet & Society
Openlaw - DVD: http://openlaw.org/DVD