Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes

• Decision Date: 17 August 2000
• Docket Number: No. 00 Civ. 0277 (LAK).,00 Civ. 0277 (LAK).
• Citation: 111 F.Supp.2d 294
• Parties: UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. Shawn C. REIMERDES, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

111 F.Supp.2d 294

UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. Shawn C. REIMERDES, et al., Defendants.

No. 00 Civ. 0277 (LAK).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

August 17, 2000.

As Amended September 6, 2000.

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Leon P. Gold, Jon A. Baumgarten, Charles S. Sims, Scott P. Cooper, William M. Hart, Michael M. Mervis, Carla M. Miller, Proskauer Rose LLP, New York City, for Plaintiffs.

Martin Garbus, George E. Singleton, David Y. Atlas, Edward Hernstadt, Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein & Selz, P.C., New York City, for Defendants.

OPINION

KAPLAN, District Judge.

                                                      Contents
                  I.  The Genesis of the Controversy ................................................ 305
                      A.  The Vocabulary of this Case ............................................... 305
                          1.  Computers and Operating Systems ....................................... 305
                

                          2.  Computer Code ......................................................... 305
                          3.  The Internet and the World Wide Web ................................... 306
                          4.  Portable Storage Media ................................................ 307
                          5.  The Technology Here at Issue .......................................... 308
                      B.  Parties ................................................................... 308
                      C.  The Development of DVD and CSS ............................................ 309
                      D.  The Appearance of DeCSS ................................................... 311
                      E.  The Distribution of DeCSS ................................................. 311
                      F.  The Preliminary Injunction and Defendants' Response ....................... 312
                      G.  Effects on Plaintiffs ..................................................... 313
                 II.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act .......................................... 315
                      A.  Background and Structure of the Statute ................................... 315
                      B.  Posting of DeCSS .......................................................... 316
                          1.  Violation of Anti-Trafficking Provision ............................... 316
                              a.  Section 1201(a)(2)(A) ............................................. 317
                                  (1) CSS Effectively Controls Access to Copyrighted Works .......... 317
                                  (2) DeCSS Was Designed Primarily to Circumvent CSS ................ 318
                              b.  Section 1201(a)(2)(B) ............................................. 319
                              c.  The Linux Argument ................................................ 319
                          2.  Statutory Exceptions .................................................. 319
                              a.  Reverse engineering ............................................... 319
                              b.  Encryption research ............................................... 320
                              c.  Security testing .................................................. 321
                              d.  Fair use .......................................................... 321
                      C.  Linking to Sites Offering DeCSS ........................................... 324
                III.  The First Amendment............................................................ 325
                      A.  Computer Code and the First Amendment ..................................... 326
                      B.  The Constitutionality of the DMCA's Anti-Trafficking Provision ............ 327
                          1.  Defendants' Alleged Right to Disseminate DeCSS ........................ 327
                          2.  Prior Restraint ....................................................... 333
                          3.  Overbreadth ........................................................... 336
                          4.  Vagueness ............................................................. 339
                      C.  Linking ................................................................... 339
                 IV.  Relief ........................................................................ 341
                      A.  Injury to Plaintiffs....................................................... 341
                      B.  Permanent Injunction and Declaratory Relief ............................... 342
                  V.  Miscellaneous Contentions ..................................................... 345
                 VI.  Conclusion..................................................................... 345
                

Plaintiffs, eight major United States motion picture studios, distribute many of their copyrighted motion pictures for home use on digital versatile disks ("DVDs"), which contain copies of the motion pictures in digital form. They protect those motion pictures from copying by using an encryption system called CSS. CSS-protected motion pictures on DVDs may be viewed only on players and computer drives equipped with licensed technology that permits the devices to decrypt and play — but not to copy — the films.

Late last year, computer hackers devised a computer program called DeCSS that circumvents the CSS protection system and allows CSS-protected motion pictures to be copied and played on devices that lack the licensed decryption technology. Defendants quickly posted DeCSS on their Internet web site, thus making it readily available to much of the world. Plaintiffs promptly brought this action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA")¹ to enjoin defendants from posting DeCSS and to prevent them from electronically "linking" their site to others that post DeCSS. Defendants responded with what they termed "electronic civil disobedience" — increasing their efforts to link their web site to a large number of others that continue to make DeCSS available.

Defendants contend that their actions do not violate the DMCA and, in any case, that the DMCA, as applied to computer programs, or code, violates the First Amendment.² This is the Court's decision after trial, and the decision may be summarized in a nutshell.

Defendants argue first that the DMCA should not be construed to reach their conduct, principally because the DMCA, so applied, could prevent those who wish to gain access to technologically protected copyrighted works in order to make fair — that is, non-infringing — use of them from doing so. They argue that those who would make fair use of technologically protected copyrighted works need means, such as DeCSS, of circumventing access control measures not for piracy, but to make lawful use of those works.

Technological access control measures have the capacity to prevent fair uses of copyrighted works as well as foul. Hence, there is a potential tension between the use of such access control measures and fair use. Defendants are not the first to recognize that possibility. As the DMCA made its way through the legislative process, Congress was preoccupied with precisely this issue. Proponents of strong restrictions on circumvention of access control measures argued that they were essential if copyright holders were to make their works available in digital form because digital works otherwise could be pirated too easily. Opponents contended that strong anti-circumvention measures would extend the copyright monopoly inappropriately and prevent many fair uses of copyrighted material.

Congress struck a balance. The compromise it reached, depending upon future technological and commercial developments, may or may not prove ideal.³ But the solution it enacted is clear. The potential tension to which defendants point does not absolve them of liability under the statute. There is no serious question that defendants' posting of DeCSS violates the DMCA.

Defendants' constitutional argument ultimately rests on two propositions — that computer code, regardless of its function, is "speech" entitled to maximum constitutional protection and that computer code therefore essentially is exempt from regulation by government. But their argument is baseless.

Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement. Code causes computers to perform desired functions. Its expressive element no more immunizes its functional aspects from regulation than the expressive motives of an assassin immunize the assassin's action.

In an era in which the transmission of computer viruses — which, like DeCSS, are simply computer code and thus to some degree expressive — can disable systems upon which the nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting other harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances. The Constitution, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide pact.

I. The Genesis of the Controversy

As this case involves computers and technology with which many are unfamiliar, it is useful to begin by defining some of the vocabulary.

A. The Vocabulary of this Case

1. Computers and Operating Systems

A computer is "a digital information processing device .... consist[ing] of central processing components . . . and mass data storage .... certain peripheral input/output devices . . ., and an operating system." Personal computers ("PCs") are computers designed for use by one person at a time. "[M]ore powerful, more expensive computer systems known as `servers' . . . are designed to provide data, services, and functionality through a digital network to multiple users."⁴

An operating system is "a software program that controls the allocation and use of computer resources (such as central processing unit time, main memory space, disk space, and input/output channels). The operating system also supports the functions of software programs, called `applications,' that perform specific user-oriented tasks.... Because it...