'DVD Jon' scores huge legal victory

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Frode E. Nyboe <frodeen () eunet no>

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=466519

Kjetil Kolsrud 
07 January, 2003

A Norwegian teenager who helped crack a code meant to protect the 
content of DVDs won full backing from an Oslo court on Tuesday. The 
court acquitted him on all charges, a ruling that comes as a crushing 
blow to public prosecutors and entertainment giants.

The case had been widely described as a "David vs Goliath" battle, 
pitting 16-year-old Jon Lech Johansen from a small town south of Oslo 
against huge corporations and organizations including the Motion 
Picture Association of America. 

"David" clearly won.

Norwegian prosecutors, acting largely on a complaint from the powerful 
American entertainment industry, had maintained that Johansen acted 
illegally when he shared his DVD decryption code with others by 
putting it out on the Internet.

Prosecutors, who indicted Johansen after a raid on his bedroom three 
years ago, also had claimed the decryption code could enable pirate 
copying of DVDs. They seemed mostly interested in achieving victory in 
principle, rather than tough punishment for Johansen, and sought a 
sentence equivalent to three months on probation.

Instead, they lost badly. Johansen and his defense attorney Halvor 
Manshaus won on all counts, with the Oslo court ruling that Johansen 
did nothing wrong when he helped cracked the code on a DVD that was 
his own personal property.

The court ruled there was "no evidence" that either Johansen or others 
had used the decryption code (called DeCSS) for illegal purposes. 
Johansen therefore couldn't be convicted on such grounds, nor for 
acting as an accessory to other alleged illegal activity, wrote judge 
Irene Sogn in the court's ruling.

Nor, wrote Sogn, was there any evidence that Johansen intended to 
contribute to illegal copying.

The court determined that it is not illegal to use the DeCSS code to 
watch DVD films obtained by legal means.

Johansen, who was just 16 when the fuss around him started, maintained 
all along that pirate copying was never his intention. Rather, he 
claimed, he was merely trying to avoid buying an expensive DVD player 
to view DVDs that he had bought.

Johansen felt strongly that since he owned the DVDs, he should be able 
to view them as he liked, preferably right on his own computer. He 
needed to break the code on them in order to do so.

The court, citing Norwegian laws that protect what a consumer can do 
with his or her own property, agreed.

The decision had been eagerly awaited, with some legal experts 
contending it will have ramifications for Internet use as well as 
content property.



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