Jon Johansen DeCSS Trial Next Week

daniel_howell writes "Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has a story on the imminent start (after delays in finding judges qualified to hear the case) of the trial of local teenage Jon Johansen for helping to write and distribute the DeCSS program to play DVDs on a home computer. The article notes that under Norwegian law it is perfectly legal to make a copy for your own personal use. The Norwegian press is generally supportive of Johansen, and Aftenposten is usually good at posting updates to big stories like this on its English pages, so watch this space to follow the story as it unfolds."

Comments

So many other programs

[Mirell]

What I don't see is why the MPAA focused on just the first program that was made available, deCSS, when now it is basically completely worthless with any new DVDs released today. It was a first generation decoder. That key has already been shelfed, and now you have such things as DVD Ripper, et cetera, which decode, rip the DVD, make a new IFO, all in one step. It's not like the RIAA vs. Peer 2 Peer shairing, where it can take down major nodes, and shatter the network. You may still own a copy of Napster, but it's completely worthless (Unless you try to use it to connect to OpenNap networks, but why not use WinMX then), while people with copies of DVD Ripper, if they rid the Internet of that program, will be just as useful as they were before.

Just my two bits...and a byte...haha...

By the way, what IS the legal status of Linux DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity: I am located in the United States, and use mplayer to watch encrypted DVD's on my Linux PC. Am I breaking the law (DMCA)? I'm sure that nobody has been prosecuted for it, but has the [il]legality of this actually been "officially" established? Can anyone cite a source?

Re:Judges

[catman]

[...]finding judges qualified to hear the case

barred (heh) from hearing computer- related cases until they pass it.

Yeah. I'm in the pool and I'm qualified, wish they had picked me. Never heard of the problem until a few days ago. Anyway - I have a couple of unused vacation days that I plan on spending in the courtroom. Wish I had a tape recorder!

Oh - FYI, this is a lower court where there is one learned judge and two lay judges.
Whatever the outcome I think it will be appealed to the next level, with a full jury.

Re:So what did Jon do?

[Anonymous Coward]

well outta of the group that did it he was one of the few that was underage (16 at the time if i remebr right)
so he chose to bve the front man for the group just incase it did go to court he would be more likely to get off.and wouldnt have to put his wife kids thru the pains of public life/trial.

Re:Judges

[starling]

Anyway - I have a couple of unused vacation days that I plan on spending in the courtroom.

How about submitting a writeup to /.? Would make an good follow up story to this one.

It's not like they can stop it...

[Kjella]

They just want someone to be punished for it so it will scare off other people from doing things like that. Seriously, even if you shut down the entire internet I'm sure we'd pass cds around with DVD rippers.

Kjella