In a rare retreat, a film industry coalition has dropped its trade secret court battle against a San Francisco computer programmer who in 1999 posted on the Internet code that cracks movie copy-protection technology.

But the coalition promised more battles ahead.

"We are not backing off," Robert Sugarman, an attorney for the DVD Copy Control Association, said Friday. "We are exploring different routes."

The association, an arm of Hollywood studios, sued Andrew Bunner and hundreds of others four years ago, claiming their Web postings of the DVD encryption-cracking code violated the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act and helped users replicate thousands of copyright movies per day.

By the Associated Press at Wired.

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