I happened across this story on the CMU website and thought that folks on this list who are interested in intellectual property and free speech issues would want to take a look. The press release is at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/hot/2001/05/gallery.html Here are a few quotes: The question of whether computer code can be defined as speech is at the heart of a debate brewing in U.S. Courts, as well as in academic and research institutions. A computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon is helping to make U.S. legal history by presenting a compelling argument to the courts and to the public at large. The backdrop for this legal drama began in January, 2000, when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed a lawsuit against the hacker magazine 2600, charging that the online publication had violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by posting code for decrypting DVDs.... Carnegie Mellon Principal Research Computer Scientist David Touretzky testified as an expert witness for the defense. At the trial, Touretzky argued that computer code has expressive content that conveys ideas just like other forms of speech... The Carnegie Mellon computer science faculty member is now presenting his argument to the public on the World Wide Web with his "Gallery of CSS Descramblers," a scholarly publication that demonstrates there is no difference between ideas expressed in a computer language or in the English language. Touretzky created the site to raise important questions about legal opinions on whether or not source code is subject to First Amendment protection against prior restraint of speech. The Gallery of CSS Descramblers is at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/index.html You can even get a t-shirt with one of the descrambling algorithms printed on it, but be careful: the t-shirt vendor is being sued... Cheers, Sherri --- Sherri L. Condon, Ph.D. The MITRE Corporation 7515 Colshire Dr. McClean, Virginia 22102-7508 Phone: 703-883-5522 E-mail: scondon@mitre.org NOTE: Fortunately, my words and actions are entirely my own and do not reflect the views or endorsement of The MITRE Corporation.