SAN FRANCISCO — In a case pitting free speech rights against trade secrets, the California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that courts can prevent computer users from posting codes on the Internet that allow others to illegally copy DVDs.
The state high court held that constitutional free speech rights do not protect a computer user whose posting enables others to unlawfully download and copy movies.
The decision was a victory for the DVD and motion picture industries, which contend that movie companies lose more than $3 billion in annual sales to DVD copying and other forms of piracy. Much of the DVD losses stem from publication of the decryption code, the industry says.
Monday's ruling "gives trade secret holders the capability to resort to the courts to prevent and indeed deter individuals from improperly posting trade secrets," said Robert G. Sugarman, who represented the DVD industry. "If they do, they are violating court orders."
The ruling stemmed from an injunction ordering computer programmer Andrew Bunner, 26, to remove a DVD decryption code from his Web site. The code, which cracks the industry's technological locks, was first posted in 1999 by a 15-year-old in Norway who wanted to download movies at home.
More than 100 other Web sites, including Bunner's, copied the code and posted it on the Internet. Most of the other Web sites either settled the cases or simply removed the code, but free speech activists helped Bunner appeal.
David Greene, who represented Bunner, said his client still may prevail when the case returns to the Court of Appeal and the evidence is examined.
But he added that Monday's ruling was troubling for the 1st Amendment in any case and may be appealed. Greene is executive director of the First Amendment Project, which advocates free speech rights.
Under the state high court's reasoning, according to Greene, a court could order anyone to stop publishing an alleged trade secret as long as the content of the publication was not at issue, or if the publication was of technical information.
Bunner had a Web site for selling nutritional supplements and posted the decryption code because he said he thought people would find the information interesting.
Bunner said he had no idea the code was a trade secret.
"I still don't think it is a trade secret," Bunner said Monday.
