Andrew Bunner case in California

Andrew Bunner case in California

This result bears on the Andrew Bunner trade-secret case in California. That court found that since the trade secret was (supposedly) illegally obtained, Andrew Bunner and several hundred "John Does" had acted improperly in posting DeCSS, and ordered them not to post it.

At the hearing the question came up whether in fact the reverse engineering involved was legal under Norwegian law. The judge called for opinions from Norwegian lawyers. The plaintiff trotted out a tame Norwegian lawyer who asserted (without support of any kind) that it was not legal. The defendant's lawyer said nothing in Norwegian law or case law supported any opinion one way or the other. The judge took that to mean that in fact it wasn't legal. That meant that the MPAA still had a valid trade secret in CSS.

Now that it's established that in fact the reverse engineering was legal, Bunner et al. should be able to have the decision vacated. (Shame on that judge for his bias.) This should mean that the MPAA's trade secret protection on CSS cannot any longer be enforced.