The case was brought by the California-based DVD Copy Control Association (CCA), a group that licenses encryption software for DVDs, against Matthew Pavlovich, now president of a Texas-based IT consultancy.
The group claims that Pavlovich infringed trade secrets by posting on his web site the source code of a program that can be used to decrypt Content Scrambling Code (CSS), a software system that protects copyrighted movies on DVDs.
Pavlovich posted the code, known as DeCSS, in 1999, when he was a college student in Indiana. He claimed that he could not be sued in California because he posted the code "passively" and had no substantial contact with California. He also argued that he had no intention to harm the state's computer and movie industries.
The DVD CCA, on the other hand, claimed that he should be sued in California, since the movie industry – the party most harmed by DVD copying – was based there. The US Supreme Court in November 2002 rejected this argument, ruling that there was no evidence suggesting Pavlovich specifically targeted California and therefore he could not be sued there.
In December 2002 the US Supreme Court issued an emergency stay, an order placing the ruling on hold and temporarily barring Pavlovich from posting the code in dispute on the internet, in order to allow the submission of further evidence.
The emergency stay was granted at the request of the DVD CCA. On Friday, however, the stay was apparently lifted and therefore the November decision applies.
The DVD CCA has said it is now considering whether to sue Pavlovich in Texas.