THE U.S. SUPREME Court last week indicated its interest in a case involving a Texas citizen who was sued in California courts for posting software that can be used to illegally copy DVDs.
On December 26, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor issued a stay on a California Supreme Court ruling in a 1999 case brought by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) against Texas resident Matthew Pavlovich.
O'Connor's stay was issued in response to an application filed by the DVD CCA and will remain in effect pending a response from the defendant, due by the end of the day on Thursday, and further action by O'Connor.
After reviewing the response from Pavlovich's attorneys, Justice O'Connor can make the stay permanent, giving the DVD CCA time to draft further petitions asking the Supreme Court to take a look at the California case.
In the case in question, the DVD CCA charged that Pavlovich and other defendants violated California's law governing trade secrets by posting a copy of the DeCSS (De-Content Scramble System) software on a Web site that Pavlovich maintained while a student at Purdue University in Indiana.
The DVD CCA argued that Pavlovich's action was intended to harm the computer hardware industry involved in producing CSS-encrypted DVD players -- an industry that Pavlovich knew was centered in California.
In November, however, the California Supreme Court ruled that Pavlovich could not be sued in California court, saying that "the mere posting of information on a passive Internet Web site, which is accessible from anywhere but is directed at no particular audience, cannot be an action targeted at a particular [state]."
"Otherwise," the California court said in its opinion, "[the] mere use of the Internet would subject the user to personal jurisdiction in any forum where the site was accessible."
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Source:DriverHeaven
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