Pavlovich v. Superior Court

109 Cal. Rptr. 2d 909, 91 Cal. App. 4th 409
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedAugust 31, 2002
DocketH021961
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 109 Cal. Rptr. 2d 909 (Pavlovich v. Superior Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pavlovich v. Superior Court, 109 Cal. Rptr. 2d 909, 91 Cal. App. 4th 409 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

109 Cal.Rptr.2d 909 (2001)
91 Cal.App.4th 409

Matthew PAVLOVICH, Petitioner,
v.
The SUPERIOR COURT of Santa Clara County, Respondent; DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Real Party in Interest.

No. H021961.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

August 7, 2001.
As Modified August 31, 2002.
Review Granted December 12, 2001.

*910 HS Law Group, San Jose, Allonn E. Levy, Attorneys for Petitioner.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Jared Ben Bobrow, Christopher J. Cox, Robert G. Sugarman, Jeffrey L. Kessler, Geoffrey D. *911 Berman, Menlo Park, Attorneys for Real Party in Interest.

No attorneys representing Respondent.

PREMO, Acting P.J.

Petitioner Matthew Pavlovich petitions for a writ of mandate to compel the trial court to quash service of process.

We deny the petition.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On December 27, 1999, real party in interest DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. (DVD CCA) filed a complaint in the superior court against petitioner and other defendants for misappropriation of trade secrets. The complaint alleged that petitioner had repeatedly republished DVD CCA's trade secrets and copyrighted material throughout the Internet.

On June 6, 2000, petitioner filed a motion to quash service of summons on the ground that the superior court lacked jurisdiction over his person. Petitioner was a student at Purdue University in Indiana at the time of the filing of the complaint, and now resides in Texas. In his motion to quash, petitioner claims to have no contacts with the State of California sufficient to warrant the exercise of jurisdiction by the State over his person.

On August 30, 2000, the superior court denied petitioner's motion to quash.

On September 11, 2000, petitioner filed with this court a petition for a writ of mandate to compel the trial court to quash the service of process.

On October 11, 2000, this court summarily denied petitioner's writ petition.

On October 23, 2000, petitioner filed with the California Supreme Court a petition for review.

On December 19, 2000, the California Supreme Court granted review, and transferred back the matter to this court "with directions to vacate its order denying mandate and to issue an order directing respondent superior court to show cause why the relief sought in the petition should not be granted."

On January 16, 2001, this court, pursuant to the Supreme Court order, vacated its order denying mandate and ordered the superior court to show cause why the relief sought in the petition should not be granted. On its own motion, this court issued a temporary stay order, which stayed trial court proceedings during the pendency of the petition.

On February 15, 2001, DVD CCA, as the real party in interest, filed its return in opposition to the petition for a writ of mandate.

On March 7, 2001, petitioner filed his reply to the return.

FACTS

Pavlovich is the president of a start-up technology company. He was, "[f]or the most part of ... four years," a computer engineering student at Purdue University, and had worked as a computer technician for Best Buy and Pingtek Corporation. The discovery materials on record indicate that Pavlovich and the other defendants developed and/or posted computer programs on the Internet, including a program called DeCSS, that misappropriate DVD CCA's trade secrets. Such computer programs have been designed to defeat DVD CCA's encryption-based copy protection system, known as the Content Scramble System, or CSS, which is employed to encrypt and protect the copyrighted motion pictures contained on digital versatile discs, or DVDs. At the time Pavlovich posted DeCSS on the Internet, he was a leader in the "open source" movement, the purpose of which was to make as much material as possible available over the Internet. Deposition materials further indicate that Pavlovich founded and operated *912 the LiVid video project, whose purpose was to aid in the development of an unlicensed system for DVD playback and copying. Pavlovich owned and operated the Web site called "livid.on.openprojects.net," where he posted the DeCSS program.

Pavlovich knew that DVDs deliver motion picture content to their purchasers. He testified in his deposition that DVDs are "a large storage medium" that can be used for "a lot of different things," one of which, "holding motion pictures," is "probably the most well known."

Pavlovich admitted in his deposition that "there was an organization which you had to file for or apply for a license or whatever" to use certain DVD technology, and that he knew about this because "[i]n the course of the development of the project, the Linux video and DVD project, there was a lot of discussion regarding the decryption piece of the full length of decoding of DVD and, you know, there were individuals making statements on the mailing list as to—to that effect." Pressed for the kind of statements he had heard, Pavlovich answered it was "[s]omething along the lines of you've got to apply for a license and whatnot."

Nonetheless, Pavlovich never sought or obtained a license to use DVD technology for his LiVid project. Pavlovich admitted that his LiVid project utilized DVD CCA's trade secrets, including those contained in DeCSS. Pavlovich further admitted that through the LiVid project he aimed to develop an unlicensed DVD player that would use DeCSS to decrypt DVD data. Pavlovich knew that DeCSS was developed by reverse engineering, which he knew was unauthorized. Pavlovich stated in his deposition that he believed that "DeCSS was reverse engineered from another player like a Windows player." Asked if DeCSS was derived from CSS algorithms, Pavlovich responded: "Yes. They had to reverse engineer those algorithms in order to mimic them. Like just kind of quick once over, when you are reverse engineering something, you see what goes in and what comes out, and if you don't have access to that information, what one would do is try to mimic those, so they wouldn't necessarily be the exact algorithms, but if you can get as close or if you can get the correct results, then the engineering—reverse engineering process can be deemed a success."

Despite his knowledge of how DeCSS obtained and misappropriated DVD CCA's trade secrets, Pavlovich sought to and actually disseminated those trade secrets.

Pavlovich further admitted that it was common knowledge that the motion picture industry was centered in California, and that the computer technology industry has a dominant presence in California. Of the more than 400 companies nationwide that are licensed to make computer hardware and software which allow consumers to view digital images on DVDs (CSS licensees), 73 are located in California. Pavlovich knew that pirating DVDs is illegal, and that DeCSS facilitates pirating of DVDs.

DISCUSSION

The Internet is new technology that allows instant access to information published at a Web site jurisdictions away. The question in this case is whether California's long-arm statute reaches owners, publishers, and operators of those Web sites when, in violation of California law, they make available for copying or distribution trade secrets or copyrighted material of California companies. We hold it does.

The Internet, as a mode of communication and a system of information delivery *913 is new, but the rules governing the protection of property rights, and how that protection may be enforced under the new technology, need not be.

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Bluebook (online)
109 Cal. Rptr. 2d 909, 91 Cal. App. 4th 409, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pavlovich-v-superior-court-calctapp-2002.