New York -- A federal appeals court in New York heard arguments on Tuesday in a case that pits the Motion Picture Association of America against a journalist who published computer code and also linked to the code that can crack the encryption security on DVDs. The MPAA won an injunction against the hacker magazine 2600, barring it from publishing the code, called DeCSS. Free speech and technology advocates the Electronic Frontier Foundation took up the appeal on behalf of the journalist, Eric Corley, and Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan argued for him in court on Tuesday. The MPAA's supporters in the case include the NFL, Screen Actors Guild and the U.S. government, which exercised its ability to intervene on an appeal of a federal court ruling. The case is the first challenge to a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes it illegal to circumvent encryption technology on copyrighted works, and will also test the broader issue of whether or not people can be prohibited from hyperlinking to Web pages that contain "illegal" content. CNET provides coverage of today's testimony. The two sides have until May 10 to submit answers to questions posed to them by the court during today's testimony.

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