In what we see as an important show of support from a major force in journalism, the New York Times has linked directly to our list of sites which currently house the DeCSS code.

The links have been a source of contention in recent weeks, as the MPAA and eight Hollywood film studios have sought to force us to remove them, claiming the links are the same as having the code published on our own site. We see it differently - while they may have been able to get a federal court to order the material off of our site, forbidding us from telling the world what other sites still have it would be a very ominous precedent to set.

The action by the Times comes in an article in today's electronic edition. What makes it particularly significant is this paragraph in which our attorney, Martin Garbus, is quoted:

"Take a hypothetical case, he said: If a major newspaper that operated an online news site wrote an article saying that somebody had broken the DVD encryption code, and it linked to a site that had the code on it, 'I think they'd have absolutely every right to do that.'"

At the bottom of the page, they do precisely that, linking not only to 2600, but to "2600's catalog of DeCSS mirror sites"