Hacker magazine 2600 has lost its bid for an appeal on the ruling preventing it from linking to the DeCSS DVD descrambling code.

Late last week the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of its own panel of judges, maintaining that publishing and linking to DeCSS was in direct violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

DeCSS is the controversial DVD descrambling tool which has been successfully outlawed by Hollywood over fears that it may be the root cause of DVD piracy.

Because 2600.com was actively linking to sites where DeCSS is available, the magazine was dragged into court by the major motion picture companies two years ago.

But last week's ruling denied the petition of 2600's Eric Corley asking the entire Second Circuit Court to reconsider the ruling by the original panel, for the second time.

In November 2001, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a similar appeal by Corley over the decision of US District Judge Lewis Kaplan that upheld the constitutionality of the DMCA.

Jack Valenti, president and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, said: "Three court rulings in a row [District Court, Court of Appeal and Court of Appeal en banc] have upheld the constitutionality of the DMCA and its application to the defendant's actions.

"The rulings are unambiguous and the message clear: the DMCA is a viable and critical law that protects copyright holders from unauthorised abuse of their works in the digital arena."

2600 is being backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which has previously appealed on the magazine's behalf.

It still has the option of appealing to the US Supreme Court and the EFF said that it is considering this action.