FC: Johansen acquitted on all charges in Norwegian DeCSS case

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Politech archive on Johansen's case:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=johansen

Related photos from 2600 case:
http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/dvd-2600-trial.html

---

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

   Tuesday 07 January 2003 Aftenposten Nettutgaven
   'DVD Jon' scores huge legal victory

   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. [...]

   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.

   [...]




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------