DVD-CCA vs. Bunner brings up the issue of posting DeCSS several years after its original posting. The DVD-CCA at the time of the original ruling in 1999 sent out cease and decist letters forcing web sites to remove any mention or discussion of the algorithm and codes from their web sites. The courts granted injunctions against any sites that posted the algorithm as they were revealing the DVD-CCA's trade secret as well as violating the trafficking provision of the DMCA. However, the court determined that even before the original injunction, the majority of the people who wanted to obtain access to the code got it. So many have access to the code that the court brings into question the protected status of the DeCSS algorithm, and the court determined that the DVD-CCA did not make a strong case to warrant an injunction against Bunner's web site.

The most important result of this case is that the DVD-CCA was unable to demonstrate any harm caused or potentially caused by DeCSS being posted by Bunner. The movie industry still profits massively from DVD sales in spite of the algorithm's release. If the courts determined that it being released out into the open will have little impact on the businesses protected by DeCSS, the original publishing was not as damaging as the DVD-CCA and the industry originally claimed.

Also, at this point any protection granted by using the DMCA to enforce trafficking restrictions on the encryption algorithm has been lost. Open source encryption algorithms have the benefit of being examined by experts to make them the most effective. All the DVD-CCA accomplishes by continuing to close the algorithm off to the community is losing the benefits of the scrutiny that open techniques get. This case is a strong example of what papers such as “DMCA Against the Darknet” propose: that DMCA is not an effective tool for countering piracy and that anti-piracy methods that depend solely on DRM are bound to fail.

Edward Felten, head of the ACM's special interest group on DRM, petitioned the Library of Congress for an exemption in order to circumvent access control mechanisms for research purposes. Felten discusses how the evolution of technology is dependent on past improvements. By restricting researchers from experimenting with copy protection methods, improvement to techniques will be hindered. He demonstrates the negative impact by discussing the paper he wrote comparing different methods of breaking protection and what information is required to crack the protection, something the record companies tried to prevent from being released with the DMCA. Felton also claims that in the field, it is unclear in the early stages of research whether a possible DMCA violation will be incurred or not. Academics are unlikely to engage in research that could potentially lead to violations, hindering not only research directly related to DRM, but tangential applications as well.

The most important thing to come out of the exemption request is the context in which research is given. In describing the valuable research he participated it in before the DMCA was enacted, Felten notes that the SDMI sponsored his acclaimed research paper on breaking access control methods. The SDMI is a group of music distributors, and had something to gain from their studies, and now sought to prevent others from sharing in this knowledge. Clearly, by inhibiting research into access control, the technology of copyright protection and the lessons learned from the research falls solely in the hands of the gatekeepers, the record companies. Without the added input of the academic community, research in the field has been hindered and copyright holders have not been provided the best digital protection methods.

The best example of his hindered research is the Sony Rootkit debacle. He and an associate discovered the vulnerability but had to delay publication and hire a lawyer to make sure that they weren't exposing themselves to DMCA violation. Threats of DMCA violations prevent important studies and important information from reaching the consumer.

The courts' decision in “MPAA vs. 2600” prevented journals from writing articles about Digital Right Management that divulge methodology. After “DVD Jon's” deCSS program (which breaks the encryption on DVDs) began circulation, 2600 had an article in print and online which detailed the algorithm and decryption codes used in breaking the CSS encryption. The MPAA filed suit under the trafficking provision of the DMCA, claiming that 2600 was distributing a program which would contribute to breaking DVD encryption. 2600 claimed that this inhibits free speech. As a technical journal which specializes in computer encryption and decryption algorithms , it needed to be able to provide the details to its readers. The magazine complied with the injunction to remove the algorithm from their site but began to participate in what they referred to as “electronic civil disobedience” by encouraging others to post the algorithm and then provided links to these sites.

The court determined that both posting and linking were not protected by the first amendment. They determined that while there is a part of code which is speech, there is also a non-speech component which can be banned under the anti-circumvention clause. Exemptions are provided for reverse engineering and cryptography. However, these exemptions only extend to the cryptographers and the reverse engineers directly. Publishing their results is not considered an exemption. The consequence of this decision is that to prevent lawsuits, technical journals will likely avoid discussion of Digital Rights Management. For example, discovery of important security flaws would not be published because it might hint as to how to break the encryption. Understanding the flaws of the current generation however is essential to enhancing security for in the future. Development of future security methods have continued to be crippled by the DMCA, due to the limited scope of the exemptions.