Jon Johansen DVD Trial Date Set

mpawlo writes: "As reported by Greplaw, the Norweigan 'Byrett' (district court) will try the Jon Johansen DVD case on December 9, 2002. The trial was supposed to take place this summer, but the court decided to postpone the trial to find a technology savvy judge. The case will be tried by one judge and a panel of two lay assessors. Jon Johansen is being prosecuted by the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (OKOKRIM) under Norwegian Criminal Code 145(2). Johansen created DeCSS software that can enable DVD playback on Linux. It is argued that the DeCSS software is a piracy tool." Here is the Greplaw story with more links.

Comments

Links

[SkipToMyLou]

EEF information on the Jon Johansen case.

Read the indictment. in Norwegian.

Linux World interview with Johansen.

Swedish coverage of the case.

EEF campaign to free Johansen.

Old slashdot article about original indictment.

DeCSS was THREE people

[Anonymous Coward]

Taken from the Greplaw link, copy pasted and formatted. Originally by "Seth Finkelstein".

As Jon Johansen put it himself in an old interview:

Jon Johansen: I'm 16 now, I was 15 when it happened ... and the encryption code wasn't in fact written by me, but written by the German member. There seems to be a bit of confusion about that part.

LinuxWorld: The other two people that you had worked with to make the player are remaining anonymous -- is that right?

Jon Johansen: Yes, that is correct.

...

LinuxWorld: Do you know why they want to remain anonymous?

Jon Johansen: They are both a lot older than me, and they are employed. So I guess they just didn't want the publicity, and they were perhaps afraid of getting fired.

Re:wow, irony is heavy in here...

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

*sigh* DeCSS is /only/ to deencrypt the movie. DeCSS has nothing to do with regions. You can need DeCSS to watch a region "0" movie. You don't need DeCSS to watch an unencrypted region 2 movie.

Re:Legitimate Usage

[ShadowDrake]

If it's supposed to limit distribution, it's a remarkably ineffective way to go about it.

First, aren't there a relatively small number of regions? (8?) That doesn't make for very fine-grained control, plus, once the regions are set, you're stuck with them, so it can't be used to say "This release goes to countries A, B, and C, but this one goes to A and C and perhaps D but not B." Unless the industry knew exactly what regions would be needed for all time, this will not be a suitable solution.

Second, the region control ties it not to a specific country (could we have that technology-- perhaps, by putting a GPS in every player), but a specific set of players. If you're desperate enough to watch a Region X disc in Region Y, what stops you from importing a Region X player (and, if necessary, a compatible TV?) I believe this has been done occasionally to bridge the TV standard barrier with video tape.

Third, I may be mistaken, but isn't the region code not honoured by all players? I'm thinking some older players didn't handle it.

I feel like these people are trying to say "We locked the bank vault" when they applied duct tape and a shrinkwrap licence to the door.

Re: Legitimate ? No second sale here

[out_to_lunch]

Bzzzt, sorry, thanks for playing. Once I've purchased a piece of copyrighted material (be it a book, cd, dvd, or something else), I'm free to distribute the one, original, legal copy I have where I like. I can send it off to my friend in Europe.

[ or ] but once sold, the person can resell it or use it anywhere in the world that they like. When I buy a paperback book in europe, and fly home with it, customs doesn't wrestle me to the ground for distribution infringment

Er - no, incorrect. USA First Sale rights only apply in the USA, unfortunately.

Levi recently took the major UK supermarket to court in the UK to prevent them buying jeans legitimately in the USA and importing them, on copyright grounds. Levi won.

The reason individuals are not prosecuted, let alone wrestled to the ground, is simply that it is uneconomic. Sad but true.

This case may well end up illuminating Norwegian law only. The access was illegal because the DVD-movies were sold with the resctrictment that the user used only autorised playback equipment. The terms visible to a consumer at the time of purchase on my region 2 copy of Lord of the Rings does not contain such a clause, even in the bit you need a magnifying glass to read.

At least the publicity should move along the process of getting Hollywood back in their pram.