Aclu Loses Digital Copyright Battle

Nina 04-10-2003

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday lost its first attempt to challenge a controversial 1998 copyright law.

In a strongly worded decision, a federal judge in Boston dismissed a lawsuit aimed at defanging part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The ACLU's suit, filed against filtering-software company N2H2 last July, claims the law unconstitutionally interferes with researchers' ability to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of Internet filtering software.

"There is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that...outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted property from an invasive and destructive trespass," U.S. District Judge Richard Sterns wrote.