French pulls DVD from shelves

A French court has ordered DVD vendors to pull copies of the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive off store shelves in France as part of an unprecedented ruling against copy protection techniques.

The appeals court ruled that copy prevention software on the DVD violated privacy rights in the case of one consumer who had tried to transfer the film on to a video cassette for personal use.

The ruling could be a serious setback for the DVD industry, which places lock software on disks as part of its battle against illegal copying.