A California Appeals Court ruled today that DeCSS, the code used to descramble a DVD (and hence, theoretically, make duplicates of it, as well as view with an operating system like Linux, which has no official DVD-playing software) is “pure speech,” which will really put a crimp in the prosecution of magazines and Websites that publish the code in defiance of the film and TV industry, who have been dishin’ up anti-DeCSS lawsuits under the foul and filthy DMCA since 1999. Pure speech is protected by the First Amendment, which trumps bad and stupid laws. Memo to the judicial system: More decisions like this, please! LinkDiscuss