Tuesday, November 26, 2002

California Supreme Court Rejects Movie Group's Suit Against Former Purdue U. Student By ANDREA L. FOSTER The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a movie-industry group could not bring a lawsuit in the state's courts against Matthew Pavlovich, a former computer-engineering student who published online a code to unscramble encrypted DVD's. The court's 4-to-3 decision held that California does not have jurisdiction over the case because Mr. Pavlovich is not a resident of the state and because his postings did not specifically seek to harm California businesses. The decision was hailed by the Student Press Law Center, which defends students' free-speech rights and which had filed a brief in support of Mr. Pavlovich. Officials of the organization had worried that if the movie industry won the case, students everywhere would be reluctant to publish on the Internet because they could be sued by companies or organizations in distant states. "For college students, it's especially important," said Mark Goodman, executive director of the center. "They don't have the resources to defend themselves thousands of miles away." But the court's ruling was tempered by the justices' statement that the movie-industry group probably could pursue a lawsuit against Mr. Pavlovich in Texas or Indiana. Mr. Pavlovich lives in Texas, and at the time of his Web postings, in October 1999, he was a student at Purdue University. "Mr. Pavlovich may still face the music -- just not in California," wrote Associate Justice Janice R. Brown for the majority. Supporting her decision were Associate Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn M. Werdegar, and Carlos R. Moreno. The full text of the decision in the case, Pavlovich v. Superior Court, is available online. It can be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free. The court's ruling overturns a decision by the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District, in San Jose, which had held in August 2001 that California had jurisdiction over the case. That earlier ruling was a victory for the DVD Copy Control Association, the movie industry group that sued Mr. Pavlovich and dozens of others in December 1999. The original lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Santa Clara County, accused the defendants of harming the movie, computer, and electronic industries in California in violation of copyright and trade-secret laws because the Web sites the defendants operated had posted or linked to the code, which deciphers the DVD "content-scrambling system," or CSS. The encryption system is designed to limit the copying of DVD's. Mr. Pavlovich, however, countered that the state courts could not try the case because he didn't live in California and had no commercial interest in the state. The trial court and the Court of Appeal rejected that argument, but the Supreme Court narrowly agreed with Mr. Pavlovich. In the majority opinion, Justice Brown wrote that the evidence failed to show that Mr. Pavlovich "intentionally targeted California." She also noted that Mr. Pavlovich "never worked in California" and that he "owned no property in California, maintained no bank accounts in California, and had no telephone listings in California." In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter said that it would be "constitutionally fair and reasonable" for California to assert jurisdiction over the case. Joining Justice Baxter's dissent were Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Associate Justice Ming W. Chin. Robert G. Sugarman, a lawyer for the DVD Copy Control Association, said on Monday afternoon that the association was considering appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court or filing separate lawsuits in the states where the defendants live. Allonn E. Levy, a San Jose lawyer representing Mr. Pavlovich, praised the court's decision. "The Supreme Court's ruling will ensure that the existence of innovation, Web-based technical dialogue, and open-source development will not be stifled by mass-litigation efforts brought by international conglomerates." Background articles from The Chronicle: Web-Filtering Company Seeks to Block Lawsuit Filed by Law Student (10/18/2002) Free-Speech Group Backs Former Student in DVD-Decoding Case With Movie Industry (5/17/2002) Princeton Computer Scientist Sues for Right to Speak at a Conference (6/22/2001) Scholars Rally to Online Magazine's Defense Over Publishing Software Code (2/16/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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