Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
courtTV will be releasing the entire trial on DVD with 3 different camera angles, and a secondary audio track with commentary by the judge.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Taken from the Greplaw link, copy pasted and formatted. Originally by "Seth Finkelstein".
... 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.
...
As Jon Johansen put it himself in an old interview:
Jon Johansen: I'm 16 now, I was 15 when it happened
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.
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!
it isn't just playback on linux... it is playback on linux from the harddrive... NOT the original DVD disc.
if mother teresa ran the record companies, all we would hear is shitty local bands that she gave all the airplay to cause they were 'nice boys'.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Something interesting I noticed about the timing for this case, that struck me as odd... When Jon was arrested two years ago, he was sixteen. He was, I believe, a minor under Norwegian law, and the charges were dropped. He is now eighteen, if my math is correct, and possibly older. Is this past the age of legal majority in Norway? And if so, could this be part of the motive for delaying the trial?
After all, they probably wouldn't be able to get much of a penalty against an underaged individual who wasn't even the primary coder and who has stated many times that he wishes his code to be used as part of a DVD player. However, now that he's older, they might be able to get stiffer penalties. Or at the very least, get a black mark on his permanent record and make it much harder for him to get into a good college/university or get a good job.
Remember, Johansen is being made an example of. The MPAA is trying to say "screw with our monopoly and we'll do this to you". They, of course, want this example to be as effective as possible.
At the very least, everyone reading this article (especially those of you in Norway!) should support Johansen however possible. Donate money, organize protests, publicize his case. Make it a hot-button emotional issue. Make it clear that we just want to play DVDs, make it clear to people that the MPAA doesn't want them to import movies from another country and watch them before the approved-from-on-high release date, or buy at a cheaper price from the next country over.
Good luck to you, Jon! I remember being shocked back in 2000, when you got arrested on nothing more than the say-so of the DVD CCA for releasing a simple program that did nothing more than read data. I'm shocked that the MPAA's still persecuting you. I hope you can prove your innocence and strike a blow for the right to use generic computing technologies.
JUDGE: Would that you could render this extermination unnecessary by renouncing this method of illegal decryption!
JOHANSEN: No, Your Honor, it cannot be. I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest. No, Your Honor, I shall live and die a Pirate King.
(SONG -- PIRATE KING)
JOHANSEN: Oh, better far to live and die
Under the flightless bird I fly,
Than play a corporate raider's part
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I'll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King.
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
SLASHDOTTERS:You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
JOHANSEN:And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
SLASHDOTTERS:It is!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(Inserted to avoid lameness filter.)
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
JOHANSEN:When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I rip a few more flicks, it's true,
Than a well-bred hacker ought to do;
But many a hack with a first-class clone,
If he wants to call his warez his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More lines of code than e'er I do,
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
SLASHDOTTERS:You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
JOHANSEN:And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
SLASHDOTTERS:It is!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(the lameness filter, to avoid, inserted.)
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(exeunt.)
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The original Slashdot story about Jon prompted me throw up a mirror on my own site, and link to it from a comment. (I'm a UK citizen resident in the UK, as is the server holding my little site.) A couple of months later I was clearing the christmas mail list backlog when I came across a legalistic document concerning deCSS. To my amazement it seemed I was a defendant ("John Doe #13") in the California case. (The 2600 case is in NYC.)
In the ensuing two and a half years I've become increasingly radicalised (in the geek sense: I had a flirtation with "IRL" politics for a few years in my late teens/early 20s and lost interest pretty thoroughly after that.) In retrospect, this event was the first time I made a small gesture of public support for the freedoms we all consider so important. The reaction to it, whilst amusing, has given me a different perspective on matters which previously seemed unconnected: the importance of the GPL, for instance, the reasons *why* the DMCA is just the tip of an iceberg...
The only moral to my anecdote is this: where's *your* mirror of deCSS? Mine's still there =)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe