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Jon Johansen Indicted by the MPA (A)
Jon Lech Johansen (jlj) writes "The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway raided my home today and seized my Linux box, FreeBSD/Win2k box and Nokia cellphone. Not only I, but also my father has been indicted, since he owns the mmadb.no domain (webhotel) where my homepage(s) have been located. They also took me in for questioning which lasted 6-7 hours. It's 2 am CET now (I just got back), I haven't eaten, and someone's definitely going to pay for this. I have shut down my old e-mail account, and I'm now using linuxdvd@mmadb.no - More information coming tomorrow, once I've talked to my lawyer. Did someone whisper countersuit?" Jon Johansen is the young man from Norway who reverse-engineered DeCSS.
Just a technical detail:
He has been indicted by his government. Criminal charges are generally filed by governments, civil charges may be filed by anyone. Of course, the government is undoubtedly acting at the prompting of the DVD CCA or some similar organization.
So while the government may call DVD CCA people as expert witnesses and consult with them on the case, it is ultimately the government's case. This means a government prosecutor, not a DVD CCA lawyer.
Of course, I might have it totally wrong, as I'm not a legal expert in Norway (or anywhere else, fo r that matter), but I'm pretty sure that's how it works in most western countries.
Didn't he repeat over and over that he was not the one who did the reverse engineering (those people rightly stayed silent) but just was the first to publically distribute it? Or am I thinking of someone else?
I'm sorry if I'm being a wet blanket here, but do we even know this is real? It's not that hard to fake an e-mail, and as has been proven before, the /. posters are not the most vigilent bunch of people on the planet.
Mirror the source. Nobody's knocked on my door yet, and I've made a dozen offers for people to mirror from my site. The RIAA does not read slashdot. =)
Join the EFF and pay attention to the action alerts.
Alert the press! Get our side out there! They think we're pirates - this isn't about piracy, it's about interoperability.
Start a legal defense fund for *all* DeCSS victims.
That being said, here's why they're doing it: Scare tactic. They want to "get tough" on the "pirates" and scare people into submission. Ain't gonna happen - don't let them. Fight back - we're talking about something central to the open source community: the right to reverse-engineer to promote interoperability and open standards. This just reeks of proprietary do-it-our-way-or-the-highway. Fight back! I know alot of us aren't political enough - but consider donating a few bucks and also mirroring the source. Post to slashdot. Sign up to become a DOE for the case. But do something - get involved.. or we may wind up with another kevin mitnick - en masse.
This is a full-fledged war now against the open source movement: they're trying to stop reverse-engineering and black-box everything. They can justify and rationalize all they want - but it's really about them trying to gain/maintain their monopoly on distribution. It's high-time we kicked our ass into gear and get people like Ralph Nader on board. This is about consumer rights - something any average joe on the street should understand. WRITE TO THE PRESS NOW. Give a counter-point, make it so your mom can understand the key points.
Alas, common sense like this just doesn't come into it.
A very huge and powerful industry has just realised that somebody has swept the control of their product right out from under their feet.
As soon as they release a DVD copy of something, people who want it at high quality, for free, can get it.
Our arguments about the obsolesence of this kind of Intellectual Property, and the fact that they're still going to be making more money than they were from video, don't really matter. What's at stake here is vast amounts of power and money, and big corporate machines don't react well (or rationaly) to losing it.
I would expect that the Norweigan Government came under vast amounts of pressure to take this action.
Well - for those that doubted it - the war is on now. Without without intending to sound absurdely melodramatic, the stakes are what kind of future this planet is going to have...
Fixing copyright
General Norwegian Laws: http://www.law.emory.edu/LAW/refdesk/country/forei gn/norway.html
The relevant Articles of the constitution:
Article 96
No one may be convicted except according to law, or be punished except after a court judgment. Interrogation by torture must not take place.
Article 99
No one may be taken into custody except in the cases determined by law and in the manner prescribed by law. For unwarranted arrest, or illegal detention, the officer concerned is accountable to the person imprisoned.
The Government is not entitled to employ military force against citizens of the State, except in accordance with the forms prescribed by law, unless any assembly disturbs the public peace and does not immediately disperse after the Articles of the Statute Book relating to riots have been read out clearly three times by the civil authority.
Article 102
Search of private homes shall not be made except in criminal cases.
No, DeCSS makes it no easier to pirate. Right now I can go out rent a DVD download the *encrypted* image to my harddrive. Write the encrypted DVD to my DVD writer. Voila! I have an exact copy of the original DVD which, by virtue of being an exact copy, is playable by the same hardware as the original.
What they hope to gain, by scaring people into not mucking with DVD, is to retain their monopolistic control of DVD decoder technologies.
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
The best scenario I can see is:
At which point I'll think about getting a DVD drive and some DVD movies. However, it won't be a done deal: I want the MPAA to apoligize to all of us.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Well, things are starting to get a bit out of hand. Before I mumble on about real issues I would like to ask a question. What is the best way to protect your personal possessions from theft, 1) Buy good locks for your doors and windows, or 2) Leave the door open and sue anyone who steals anything.
This is no longer about Jon Johansen, or the cracking of DeCSS, this is about Abuse of privilege. In any country the legal system is paid for by the people and is there to protect the people and other legal entities (including corporations). The legal system is not there to replace adequate safe guards, do we complain when prisoners start law suits at the publics expense because they got the wrong kind of peanut butter? Do we complain when able-bodied people call an ambulance to take them for a checkup? The answer to this is yes (I hope) because it's abuse of the system. In the same way we should protest that entities like the MPAA think they can throw their weight around at the public's expense due to little more then their own failings, yes I know they pay for their own lawyers but the courts etc. all come from the taxpayer.
The issues surrounding the right to access legal acquired information etc. have been covered in other posts, but I would like to bring to people's attention another abuse of the CSS system. The CSS system is there to protect against piracy and to enforce the region coding system. I am angered by the abuse of the region coding system, a DVD disk costs about twice as much in the UK as it does in the US, and quite often does not have as many added extras (interviews, clips etc..). The region coding system forces us to buy often inferior products at always exaggerated prices. Naturally a booming market in imported DVD's and 'chipped' players sprung up but the MPAA lobbied the British government into a large scale crackdown of the 'Grey imports'. Once again taxpayer money wasted in support of big business screwing over the overage joe.
For these reasons I will continue to host a mirror at http://www.exaflop.org and urge other mirror owners to email me and pass on their URLs to aid in the construction of a larger list of mirrors. The MPAA and it's members need to learn three lessons, 1) Attempting to control legal use of a legally purchased product is futile, 2) They cannot continue to abuse privilege, 3) There is no putting of the baby back into the womb once it has been born.
...and these were on sale BEFORE DECSS EXISTED!
Someone really needs to make sure EFF and the other defense lawyers know about that - there's a giant REAL piracy operation going on and MPAA is paying no attention to it.
> what does prosecuting him do for these people?
If they win, it affirms their "firm stance" against hackers. It provides an appearance of vigilence in protecting their "trade secret". It promulgates the atmosphere of fear that any reverse enginieer will endure.
One of the things that really disturbs me about all this (and not just this, this has been bugging me about the corporate world for quite a while) is that many people seem to view their jobs as "check you conscience at the door". I've had several people remark to me (in the course of doing something for work) "my job is X", where X often maps very closely to "maximise the profits for the company regardless of method". How many software engineers loathe software patents but churn them out as part of their job? Like situations exist in many places. I though "I was just following orders" was a discredited idea these days. How many companies feel their duty to the stockholders vis a vis sheer profit is the guiding light of their actions? Trademark lore _requires_ trademark owners to pursue any potential infringement with the evils of legal threat lest they lose their trademark. Like provisions exist for trade secrets (hence the DVD CCA's need to display vigilence, however misguided). These provisions are _actively_ bad for polite cooperation and free flow of information and technology.
It depresses the hell out of me.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
Does anyone know how exactly how these events could have transpired, i.e. how law enforcement agents could have been wielded against Jon based on what he did? What did he do that was illegal, or what are the police claiming? Are they answering to a higher power, that is in turn answering to corporate interests, through the WTO or something similar? (I mean officially, we all know they do it under the table anyway....) What is the power/legal structure invoked here?
http://www.joeyskaggs.com/html/dog.html
A wonderful media spoofer who shows how the media, individuals, and even police departments can be fooled or pushed into doing things through outrage...
``In May of 1994, Kim Yung Soo (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), President of Kea So Joo, Inc. sent 1,500 letters to dog shelters around America soliciting all their unwanted dogs for $.10 a pound.......''
You can guess what the reaction was. The rest of the story is there, along with other spoofs and hoaxes by him.. They're very good.
This is just another case of the same thing.. The police being coerced by lots of outraged people calls, in this case its from lawyers representing the MPAA CCA, in that case, by the ``concerned public''.
The Econcomic Crime Departement apprehended and charged computer genius.
16-year old beeing interrogated until midnight.
After a charge from american filmcompanies, ECD yesterday took action against the computer-celebrity Jon Johansen (16) from Steinsholt in Vestfold.
The youths home was ransacked, and the police confiscated two computers, and both the 16-year old and his father was interrogated until midnight.
Both he and his father is charged with breaking the "punish-law" (law of crimes, I guess) and the law of artworks, with two and three years imprisonment, respectively, as possible punishments. The reason for this charge is Jon Johansen's contribution in the development of DeCSS, a program allowing copying of DVD-films.
Father and Son charged.
- We have charged Jon and Per Johansen on behalf of MPA and DVD CCA, affirms lawyer Espen Tøndel at the lawyer firm Simonsen Musæus. MPA (Motion Picture Assosiation) consists of the gigants Walt Disney, Sony Pictures, MGM, Paramount Pictures, 20th Centry Fox, Universal Studio and Warner Bros. That is, the seven biggest movie companies in the USA. DVD CCA (Copyright Control Assosiation) controls and protects the copyright of DVD-products.
In other words, there are powerful forces now attacking the norwegian 16-year old. But Tøndel denies that Jon is made scapegoat to make an example.
- No, it is important to make the point that it is illegal to intrude into these systems and films, says Tøndel.
In almost 8 hours has Jon Johansen been in interrogation. He had to leave his mobile phone, all passwords on his computer, and a number of CD-reckords. But he isn't frightened by the serious charges.
_Not Copyprotected_
- The charge is wrong. The codes on DVD-discs are not copy-protected, but a protection against playing them. We have made it possible to play DVD-films on our computers, he claimed to VG tonight.
- The film companies will try to control who can play what movies on DVD-players they have approved, with their codes and zones. That wish, we do not respect. This is about freedom of speech, says young Johansen.
So far, they are the only ones charged, after MPA last week won a demand in american court, that all links on the Internet refering to DeCSS had to be removed. But he does not regret standing forth with full name after the news about DeCSS got out.
- Somebody has got to fight this battle, he laughs, and prepares for a long night. A full rapport of ECD's actions will be written and put out on the net site www.slashdot.com. From there it will be spread around the world during the night and early morning hours.
_Raised Eyebrows_
Jon Johansen became a computer celebrity in november last year when it became known that he together with two friends in the group MoRE cracked the codes that were to protect the new DVD-movies against copying. The news made big waves in the international computer community - and in the american film industry.
Jon, then 15 years old, was contacted by the lawyer-firm Simonsen Musæus, who told him that Internett-links to DeCSS had to be removed. Simultaneously, the MPA mobilized in the american court system. Their demands of removal of links was first denied. But last week their demands were met in both California and New York.
(C) Copyright VG