of it appeared on tee shirts, and contests were held encouraging people to submit ideas about
how to disseminate the information as widely as possible.^1097
The court stated, “Publication on the Internet does not necessarily destroy the secret if the
publication is sufficiently obscure or transient or otherwise limited so that it does not become
generally known to the relevant people, i.e., potential competitors or other persons to whom the
information would have some economic value.”^1098 However, in the instant case, the court held
that the evidence in the case demonstrated that DeCSS had been published to “a worldwide
audience of millions” and “the initial publication was quickly and widely republished to an eager
audience so that DeCSS and the trade secrets it contained rapidly became available to anyone
interested in obtaining them.”^1099 Accordingly, the plaintiff had not established a likelihood of
success on its trade secret claim because DeCSS had been so widely published that the CSS
technology “may have lost its trade secret status.”^1100
In a related DeCSS case involving jurisdictional issues, defendant Matthew Pavlovich, a
Texas resident who posted DeCSS on the web, was sued by the movie industry in California. A
state judge granted an injunction against his posting of DeCSS on trade secret grounds. The
California Supreme Court ruled that Pavlovich could not be sued in California because he did not
have substantial ties to the state. In January of 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an
emergency stay of the California Supreme Court’s decision and lifted the injunction. Justice
O’Connor noted in the order that there was no need to keep DeCSS a secret.^1101
(v) A Related DVD Case – Norwegian Prosecution of
Jon Johansen
In January 2002, Norwegian prosecutors brought criminal charges against Jon Johansen,
one of the original three authors of the DeCSS program, for violating Norwegian hacking
laws.^1102 On Jan. 11, 2002, the civil rights organization Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN)
issued a press release calling for Johansen’s acquittal and full redress.^1103 After a trial, a three-
judge court in Oslo acquitted Johansen, ruling that consumers have rights to view legally
obtained DVD films “even if the films are played in a different way than the makers had
foreseen.” On appeal, Johansen was again acquitted.^1104
(^1097) Id. at 248-49.
(^1098) Id. at 251.
(^1099) Id. at 252-53.
(^1100) Id. at 255.
(^1101) Samantha Chang, “Supreme Court Unscrambles DVD Decision” (Jan. 17, 2004), available as of Jan. 19, 2004
at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=4152687.
(^1102) Declan McCullagh, “Norway Cracks Down on DVD Hacker” (Jan. 10, 2002), available as of Jan. 19, 2002 at
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49638,00.html.
(^1103) The press release was available as of Jan. 19, 2002 at http://www.efn.no/freejon01-2002.html.
(^1104) “Court Surprised DVD-Jon’s Lawyer” (Dec. 22, 2003), available as of Dec. 22, 2003 at
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=696470.