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.