RealDVD judge again boots public from courtroom

SAN FRANCISCO--The film industry once again successfully convinced U.S District Marilyn Patel to boot the public from the courtroom during the RealDVD hearing on Wednesday.

Attorneys from the DVD Copy Control Association, the group formed to protect DVDs from piracy, informed Patel that they wanted the courtroom closed during the testimony that would discuss anything the DVD-CCA considered a trade secret.

Roger Myers, representing CNET News, told Patel that he objected to the closing of the court.

Myers told Patel he wanted to propose an alternative. He asked the court to limit testimony in court that didn't include any trade secrets. He then suggested that testimony about the secrets be done on video and submitted under seal. Such a procedure would not hold up the court or reveal trade secrets. Anybody who still wanted to object to the sealed testimony could do so and she could rule on those objections.

"The issue of whether there is a trade secret should have briefed in advanced," said Myers, from the law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen. "They should have filed a motion to close. There may be a trade secret but it also may mean that the court is being closed to protect something that doesn't exist."

On Friday, the DVD-CCA convinced Patel that testimony would include details about the technology used to encrypt DVDs. Patel ordered everyone who wasn't bound by a non-disclosure agreement to leave the courtroom. But before that occurred, Patel asked that as much testimony that didn't include sensitive information be given.

Much of the DVD-CCA's encryption code can easily be found online or even on T-shirts and ties. The DVD-CCA once filed a lawsuit against programmer Jon Johansen, who wrote a DVD-descrambling utility that circumvented CSS--a suit that had the unintended consequence of publicizing the code widely.

But the DVD-CCA's lawyers said much of their code is not publicly available and any disclosure of it would cause economic harm.

"I think it's very clear from the licensing with respect to specifications the indepth nature of those specifications," Patel told Myers. "There are trade secrets and there is economic value to them...I'm not going to stop the court proceedings now, not at this late hour."

Patel once said she would only keep the court sealed for the testimony on what DVD-CCA claimed were trade secrets.

[SIGHUP]

There a good how-to http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/plain-english.html for those who would like to write their own DVD copier program

[Toulinwoek]

*yawn*
The DVD-CCA? Whatever their "secret" is, it obviously ain't working! They don't appear to have anything that needs to be hidden. LOL

[gorgeclimber]

Is judge marilyn patel paid by the DVD industry?

[MickBurke]

No, she's paid by you and I. She just WORKS for the DVD / Media industry.

[grmertz]

Lets rip off the consumer some more. What good is a PC media center if I cannot rip disk to it for the convenice. The movie industry has assumed that I am a thief because I want to rip disks.
Lets see I would call the judge a criminal because she has a car that can break the speed limit. Why are auto makers allowed to make cars and trucks that can break the law. Is it not the choice of the driver if they become a criminal. This is about the $buck pure and simple and how can we suck more from the consumer.

[Altotus]

The Judge has to respect the Jokers ( DVD-CCA) contention that they have any secrets. LOL ROF. So the Judge is essentially clueless so we can anticipate a clueless ruling. Economic value from Idiocy that is you got to be an idiot to pay for this junk to be put on your disks. I don't know if anyone thinks about this but look at it from the Industry perspective of paying for this "protection". The people responsible are somewhat less than brain dead totally out of their element. The Jokers (DVD-CCA) got to act as though there is something to hide or else the brain dead might wake up although that is when they may realize they should cover but so they will blame their Idocy on the Joker crew (probably under the category they sold us a bill of goods) and buy some other crap to prove THEY had the right ideal all along. Not realizing that the concept of protection is totaly flawed a total wack.

[nixermac]

I do not really understand this: I can legally rip music from the CDs that I have purchased legally but I cannot rip a dvd that i purchased. Sometimes I do borrow music from the Library just to listen to some of them as I feel like but I do not rip them. It goes the same for the movies I rent.

Actually I bought BatMan and got digital download for free. I would like to have that facility so that I don't have to worry about encoding and settings etc. But the digital download should not be locked to iTunes.

[Zakney]

You can copy the DVD, you are just not allows to bypass the protection preventing you from copying the DVD.

Yes, really.

[Been_there_Saw_it_before]

This is the same judge involved in the Pacific States Steel of Union City, California, bankrupcy case about ten years ago. She continually ignored the public outcry and friend-of-the-court briefs involving the overt attempt of her appointed master to make himself a millionaire at the expense of the bankrupcy victims. It took months of nearly daily articles in the San Jose Mercury to expose her blind side. Go check it out and make your own decision.