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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.
It's just like the idiots who want to outlaw balacavas. Sure, they're 'terrorist masks', but if you've ever been in the cold for long enough, they're simply a necessary fact of life.
For a good deal of fair-use DVD software, DeCSS was a necessary step.
Case in point: Circumventing region restrictions. No way, no how are region restrictions in any way protected under copyright law. Neither is not playing the disk on the OS of your choice.
Even if you want to complain that he wrote code for Windows rather than Linux, here's an example from my own situation, since I use windows for media tools: For a long time, (until a firmware patch came out) my mobo would not support DMA to my DVD drive under Windows 2000. This means fairly slow access speed and jerky, out-of-sync playback in any of the good software DVD players for win32. By ripping the DVD to my harddisk, however, I can watch it at normal quality settings. Without DeCSS and rippers based on it, I wouldn't be able to do that.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Actually, you should be the one opening your eyes to a bigger picture.
Diluting the percieved crime is the best way to find the parties who are most culpable. The people who are at fault in this case are the ones who _pirate_ the movie and use the tool that John wrote for non-legal purposes, not those people who want to watch a dvd on their damn linux box. What this kid did was not (or should not be) illegal. What people are using his tool for is illegal. You can't imprison someone for creating something that "might" be used for illegal purposes, if their intent and wish for developing that tool was for something that should be perfectly legal. (watching a DVD that you purchased with your own money).
Diluting this issue is exactly what should be done, because we don't charge gunsmiths with murder. (Even though guns see their most widest use in killing people)