Hollywood has abandoned its attempt to stifle publication of DVD decryption code, by dropping its lawsuit against a Californian publisher. The DVD CCA (Copy Control Association) filed a trade secrets lawsuit against Andrew Bunner (and others) for disclosing details of the DeCSS, which circumvents the CSS encryption scheme used on DVD discs.

Three years to day after the courts issued a preliminary injunction against Bunner et al, the DVD CCA yesterday filed a motion to dismiss its case, noting that "this court should not be reviewing this case on the basis of a less than fully developed record." It had become impossible to argue that Bunner was publishing a trade secret: CSS simply wasn't a secret any more.

You can read the final ruling here (http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/20040121_dismissal.pdf) [PDF, 1MB]. John Gilmore's lucid testimony giving background to the case can be found here (http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DVDCCA_case/20000107-pi-motion-gilmoredec.html).

The Norwegian programmer who published DeCSS was acquitted on retrial earlier this month.

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