Norwegian DVD Hacker Acquitted on Piracy Charges

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB107210905212179600,00.html>

The Wall Street Journal

      December 22, 2003 11:25 a.m. EST


Norwegian DVD Hacker
Acquitted on Piracy Charges

Associated Press



OSLO, Norway -- Dealing another blow to the entertainment industry, an
appeals court on Monday upheld the acquittal of a Norwegian man charged
with piracy for releasing a program that could crack DVD security codes.

Prosecutors had appealed Jon Lech Johansen's January acquittal of charges
he violated Norway's data break-in laws with his DeCSS program. The
prosecution wanted a 90-day suspended jail sentence, confiscation of
computer equipment and a $2,940 fine.

In her 30-minute ruling Monday, Judge Wenche Skjeggestad said Mr. Johansen
could freely copy DVDs he bought and hadn't violated laws protecting
intellectual property.

Mr. Johansen, now 20, was 15 when he developed the program to watch movies
on a Linux-based computer without DVD-viewing software. He posted it on the
Internet in 1999 and became a hacker folk hero.

The case was widely seen as a test of the country's computer-protection
laws. Because the case is the first of its kind in Norway, prosecutors may
decide to appeal to the country's supreme court.

Prosecutor Inge Marie Sunde said it was too early to decide, but said "it's
a matter worth evaluating."

Mr. Johansen's lawyer, Halvor Manshaus, said two acquittals within a year
ought to be proof enough the case should be dropped.

Mr. Johansen was in France for the Christmas holiday when the verdict was
announced and was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutors charged Mr. Johansen after receiving a complaint from the
Motion Picture Association of America and the DVD Copy Control Association,
which licenses the film industry's Content Scrambling System, or CSS.

Mr. Johansen's program is just one of many that can break the CSS, which
prevents illegal copying and blocks the use of legitimate copies on
unauthorized equipment.

U.S. courts have generally favored Hollywood in cases involving DVD
cracking programs. In August, the California Supreme Court held that courts
may block Internet users from posting such programs on grounds it could
violate trade-secret rights, though it ordered an appeals court to
determine whether the code is still a protected trade secret given its
widespread exposure.

In 2001, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said postings of
the encryption program violated the 1998 federal Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumvention of copy controls along
with discussions on how to do so.


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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