10 September 2000
Judge Kaplan revised his order on August 30, 2000:http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/00-08592.PDFAnother revision was made on September 8, 2000:
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/00-08996.PDFThis latest revision refers to attached revised pages 6, 58-62, which were are not provided with the online order.
18 August 2000
Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Southern District of New York finds for MPAA in 93-page decision:
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/00-08117.PDF (superceded)
p. 89
VI. ConclusionIn the final analysis, the dispute between these parties is simply put if not necessarily simply resolved.
Plaintiffs have invested huge sums over the years in producing motion pictures in reliance upon a legal framework that, through the law of copyright, has ensured that they will have the exclusive right to copy and distribute those motion pictures for economic gain. They contend that the advent of new technology should not alter this long established structure.
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era.
Each side is entitled to its views. In our society, however, clashes of competing interests like this are resolved by Congress. For now, at least, Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in plaintiffs’ favor. Given the peculiar characteristics of computer programs for circumventing encryption and other access control measures, the DMCA as applied to posting and linking here does not contravene the First Amendment. Accordingly, plaintiffs are entitled to appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: August 17, 2000
_______________________________________
Lewis A. Kaplan
United States District Judge
Cryptome:
Judge Kaplan's overt prejudice from day one surely diminished respect for federal justice. I had not seen such behavior before in New York. And when the prejudice was flaunted increasingly during trial it occurred to me that he was diabolically aiming to show just how biased the DMCA is toward the copyright industry. A kind of reverse or rather perverse judgmentalism to send a message to Congress and its lobbyists that they could not get away with racketeer influenced organized crime, not on his watch.
But perhaps, I now think, I was being too understanding of Kaplan, too forgiving of his one-sided behavior. For it is possible, I tell myself, that Kaplan was showing a modern face of old time corrupt justice, that the fix was in from day one. That would also account for his implacable opposition to the defense, the lackadaisical presentations of the plaintiffs, his repeated rulings in favor of the plaintiffs, the personal attacks on Garbus by Kaplan during trial, Kaplan's rudeness toward Robin Gross and Allonn Levy at the PI hearing, and the contempt he displays in his decision for the defendants and his disparagement of supporters.
Kaplan blatantly uses the DMCA to cloak his foregone conclusions as in days of old judges quoted the law to justify criminality of those in power to maintain their power.
Running a court across the street from Little Italy may not be grounds for associating Kaplan with organized crime, but his decision speaks to me for such a tie with the copyright industry and its Congressional supporters being foregone.
Yes, hatred of prejudice in such corrupt judges, and contempt for their courts, is right and just.
From list Cyberia-L:
>I hate Judge Kaplan.
>
>Eric Grimm