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Johansen Trial Underway
Info is trickling in about Jon Johansen's trial In Norway, where he is accused of violating Norwegian law. Aftenposten and VG Nett have stories, and there's at least one amateur account of the trial. The trial is supposed to last a week, and I'm sure Slashdot will keep up with it, so please submit only *new* stories about it, thanks.
"The trial is supposed to last a week, and I'm sure Slashdot will keep up with it, so please submit only *new* stories about it, thanks."
;)
The same could be asked of the editors..
I kinda doubt they are going to execute him. I don't even think the MPAA would encourage that.
Not unless they could get the movie rights for cheap!
(Yes, I'm joking.)
As long as its not American:
"Guilty by reason of pissed corporation."
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Classy. This is the reason why he won't get a fair trial, regardless of the outcome. The prosecution, judges, etc. don't have a fucking clue about technology and yet they are presiding over it.
Same thing goes on in the States. I don't buy the whole "technology is in it's infancy" bullshit. There are tons out out of work sysadmins. Give them books, let them take the bar exam and proceed to become a prosecutor. Everyone wins.
CNN's interpretation of the beginning of the trial is here.
Amazingly the CNN story isn't actually 100% biased.
I watched the news on norwegian televison just 30 minutes ago. They said the prosecution actually made a huge case out of the fact that Johansen was a Linux users, saying Linux is popular among hackers
Here's another article.
Also, here's a statement from Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN) on the matter
http://www.debian.org/~kju/decsstruth.txt
in short:
He stole the source, violated the GPL and didn't even have a linux-box.
I don't know whether it's true but it sounds convincing
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The American system is "Guilty by reason of lesser bank account balance"
Um... What about both? Do they have a problem with that concept? :-)
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
From WORLD FACTBOOK OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS -- NORWAY:
excerpt 1:
PROSECUTORIAL AND JUDICIAL PROCESS
1. Rights of the accused.
*Rights of the accused. The rights of the accused are described in the Criminal Procedures Act. The accused must be informed of the nature of the charge(s) brought against him or her upon being arrested and attending court for the first time. The accused must also be given the chance to refute the grounds on which the charge is based. (Criminal Procedures Act, Sect.90,92,171).
Although the accused has a general right to attend court proceedings and to summon and examine witnesses, the court can order him or her to leave the courtroom while a witness is being examined "if there is special reason to fear that an unreserved statement will not otherwise be made." The accused must be informed subsequently of the proceedings that occurred in his or her absence. In special circumstances, such as if national security interests are at stake, the accused may be entirely excluded from the proceedings. (Criminal Procedures Act, Sect. 135,245).
The court's verdict must be communicated to the accused as soon as possible, along with information on rights of appeal. Court judgements and orders are to be accompanied by reasons. (Criminal Procedures Act, Sect.39-41,43,52).
The accused has the right to bring appeals against court verdicts, both on questions of fact and questions of law. There are, however, several limitations on the exercise of this right. For example, appeals to the Supreme Court, which is the highest judicial body, can only take place if permitted by the Court's Appeals Selection Committee (Kjoeremlsutvalget). Moreover, the general rule is that such appeals can only be based on alleged errors of law. In other words, the Supreme Court is unable to try questions of evidence related to the issue of guilt. (Administration of Justice in Norway, 1980: 65-66; Criminal Procedures Act, as amended new Chapt 23, Sect. 323, 1993).
The accused do not have the right to have their cases tried by jury. As a basic rule, however, appeals from verdicts reached by the court of first instance on cases concerning felonies punishable by more than 6 years' imprisonment are dealt with by the High Court (Lagmannsrett). In these cases, there is a jury (lagrett) present to decide the question of guilt. (Criminal Procedures Act, new Chapt 24, as amended, 1993).
*Assistance to the accused. As a general rule, the accused is entitled to the assistance of defense counsel of his or her choice during all stages of the judicial process. The accused is also provided with the free assistance of defense counsel, chosen by the court, during the main court hearing. There are several exceptions to the latter rule, such as if the case involves a
certain minor offense, like driving under the influence of alcohol, or when the accused has made an unreserved confession. However, these exceptions apply only in cases tried by the City or District Court. (Criminal Procedures Act, Sect. 94,96,100,107,262).
***
excerpt 2:
PENALTIES AND SENTENCING
2. Types of penalties.
*Death penalty. There is no death penalty.
"Folks just call him Buckethead." -- Les Claypool
State prosecutor Inger Marie Sunde claimed in an Oslo city court Monday that Jon Lech Johansen is guilty of breaching protection mechanisms in DVDs, ...
</quote>
The DVD itself is not altered. The protection mechanism that is being bypassed is in the DVD player.
First of all the law thats used to prosecute Jon was written to prevent people reading other peoples mail, it has a small bit about obtaining illeagal access to other peoples data, but the courts in Norway have earlier ruled that that dvds goes under the laws of music and film, not data. The laws that have to do with music and film in Norway gives the user very wide rights. You can even copy music and film from "close friends and family" legaly.
:(.
As long as the crime isn't done in the purpose of gaining money, the law thats used to prosecute him has a highest possible punisment of 6 months.
To sum up, the prosecution has a paper-thin case, and it is my view that they only prosecute because of all the attention, and if the judge isn't incompetent Jon will surley win. But judges sometimes are
(pardon my english)
They can't admit to having spent three years basicly finding out "Doh! He didn't do anything illegal", certainly not in such an international case with lots of media attention. Økokrim (the department handeling serious economic crimes) is on crack anyway. They're the ones that among other things wanted to ban anonymous email because it made people so hard to track. Not to mention no form of anonymous surfing, so webcafes would be forced to record IDs and more.
Kinda reminds me of the latest "doping-scandal" in Norway. Our biggest commercial TV station had been working for over a year trying to dig up sensational news about doping among norwegian top athletes. They didn't really have anything to go on but aired it anyway, and the program was picked apart as a bunch of loose rumors and false information, plus some very bad journalism. The executives ended up holding a press conference disavow the whole program, and cashed out 700,000$+ "voluntarily" to try to undo the damage.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Unfortunately most of lawyers don't read Slasdot or any other tech-education site (it really is a problem, for example the Law School in Helsinki University had 2-3 voluntary short courses on these topics and most of students didn't take them.)
About reverge engineering, yes, it is allowed under quite strict circumstances, the EU-directive (Council Directive 91/250/EEC, it's the same in Norway and Germany) sets a 6 step test for decompilation:
In this case the it's not clear if the information was readily available (from DVDCCA,NDA + price could make it possible to at least argue otherwise) and also it's unclear whether the reverge engineered software was legally bought or not..
Ville
Electronic Frontier Finland