2600 was sued by nine major movies studios, which were trying to stop the distribution of DeCSS, a code that breaks the copy protection, known as CSS, used in DVDs. DeCSS was developed by a teenage programmer who wanted to be able to play DVDs on his Linux-based computer. The fear of movie studios was that it would be used to copy and distribute their DVDs.
In the legal battle, which lasted for more than two years, the studios claimed that 2600 was infringing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects intellectual property from digital piracy. 2600 claimed that the code was a form of speech and therefore it should qualify for free-speech protection.
The federal court accepted that the code is a form of speech. However, it ruled that the code was content-neutral and not “expressive”, so it was not protected by the First Amendment. The appeals court refused to reconsider the decision.
2600 had initially decided to appeal to the US Supreme Court, however yesterday it announced that it has dropped the case. In a statement on 2600.com, the publisher said:
“Our chances of the case being taken up by the Supreme Court were very slim. And it was the nearly unanimous opinion of all of the legal experts we consulted that the current Supreme Court wouldn't take our side. Either of these results could have caused a setback to the overall fight that we're engaged in.
“While it's tempting to think of this as a defeat, we must look at the good that has come out of it. People the world over know all about the DMCA and are committed to overturning it. The amount of education that has occurred in the last two and a half years is simply phenomenal. There are many other combatants now in the fight and we have never been more convinced that we will ultimately prevail.”