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Jon Johansen Indicted by Norwegian Authorities
phlawed writes: "This story (norwegian) states that the authorities responsible for investigating economic crime in Norway today (after 2 years of "investigation") charged JLJ for violating a law regarding computer "break-ins", commonly known as the "hacker paragraph". This is for distributing the DeCSS sourcecode. The analysis so far (by media) is that the authorities not necessarily thinks JLJ is guilty, but due to unclear wording in the relevant law they seem to think that the courts should have a look at it... It is worth noting that JLJ has *not* been charged for violating any law regarding IP, piracy or such." I've only found one story in English, which is quite vague. Hopefully the above poster is correct in summarizing the situation.
Now that we have these super-encompassing, yet vague laws regarding computers, data, and the Internet, the authorities have to go and arrest (you'd figure after 2 years of investigations they would have a good idea if he was guilty or not!) people just to "try out the ideas in court"!
"Hey you, come over here. I've been watching your for 2 hours, and I'm not sure if picking your nose is illegal, but let's see if the courts think that is obscene" (yeah, bad analogy)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Hopefully the above poster is correct in summarizing the situation.
/.! :)
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The Anti-Blog
I've got fifty karma, let's play devil's advocate and see how many people I can get torqued at me.
When you purchase a DVD, you are paying for the ability to play it on players approved by the people who made the disc. As much as everyone hates to admit it, there is nothing illegal about this. You can buy a DVD without owning a player, and if you do you can't sue about not being able to watch it. Likewise, you can't write a program that lets you watch it on something the makers don't want you to watch it on. Because if they knew you were doing that, they wouldn't sell you the movie.
We have no 'rights' to view any movie, really. If we did, theaters couldn't make a profit off of tickets, and DVDs would only be priced high enough to cover costs.
If you want to watch a movie, get a real DVD player. Don't complain because you can't do it on your Linux box. Don't write software that does something illegal. Just like you shouldn't sell de-scrambler kits for cable TV. Same thing, only software.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
Better yet, just have everyone's pay check automatically deduct 30% and send it to RIAA/MPAA. Since everyone is a crook including every executive at RIAA/MPAA, we should all just give in.
When someone in Norway is indicted he probably is named Jon Johansen...
Nope, can't have that. It would infringe a Metallica copyright.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)