Appeal of DVD hacker's acquittal begins

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_story.asp?category=1700&slug=Norway%20DVD%20Kid

OSLO, Norway -- The appeal of a Norwegian acquitted of piracy for making available a program that cracked DVD security codes started Tuesday in a trial observers called a key test of the country's computer protection laws.

Jon Lech Johansen, 20, was acquitted Jan. 7 on charges that he violated Norway's data break-in laws with his DeCSS program for DVDs.

Johansen, also known as DVD Jon, was 15 when he developed the program to watch movies on a Linux-based computer without DVD-viewing software, posting it on the Internet in 1999. The program is just one of many that can break the film industry's Content Scrambling System, which prevents illegal copying and blocks the use of legitimate copies on unauthorized equipment.

Prosecutors charged Johansen last year after a complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America and the DVD Copy Control Association, the group that licenses CSS. The Oslo District Court said Johansen could not be convicted of breaking into DVD films he legally owned, or of providing a tool others might use to copy films illegally. Because the case was the first of its kind in Norway, and key in determining how far existing laws protect copyright holders, prosecutors appealed the verdict.

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What sort of backwoods legal system do they have in Norway? Talk about double jeopardy.

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