Mercury News: Movie industry dealt DVD-cracking blow. Ruling that free speech deserves more protection than trade secrets in cyberspace, a state appeals court dealt a blow Thursday to the DVD industry in its legal fight to prevent Web sites from posting software to unscramble the encryption on DVDs.
This decision is one of the most important victories for free speech in years. The appeals said, qiute simply, that code is speech.
The idea that merely linking to another Web site could somehow violate the law has always been offensive. That hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry, and at least one judge, from spitting on the First Amendment by ordering people to stop linking.
The appeals court’s ruling is nothing more than common sense. In these times, common sense is depressingly rare.