'DVD Jon' Acquitted On All Counts in DeCSS Case

benh57 writes "Jon Johansen, the author of DeCSS, has been acquitted on all charges by the Norwegian Supreme Court.' Johansen and his defense attorney Halvor Manshaus won on all counts, with the Oslo court ruling that Johansen did nothing wrong when he helped cracked the code on a DVD that was his own personal property.'" Here's Aftenposten's story, in English. Read on below for some more links, and please post others in the comments. Update: 01/07 14:02 GMT by T : Reader Torstein Grotnes writes with a correction: The court which cleared Johansen is not Norway's Supreme Court, but rather "the 'tingrett' which is two steps below 'supreme court' level."

Here's John Leyden's story at the Register about the ruling.

LarsBT links to this Reuters newsflash and points out that since Johansen's arrest, "Norway has introduced legislation similar to the European Unions directive on copyright [pdf], making it illegal to circumvent any copyright protection - making it highly unlikely that he would be found not guilty under these new rules."

An anonymous reader writes with some background (or do a search on Slashdot for DeCSS ;)): "Read the DVD-Jon lawsuit story here and here" and notes that "'the prosecution decided to charge Johansen with a data break-in, rather than handle the matter as a copyright case.' The court said that DeCSS could be used both legally and illegally and referred to similar cases outside the computing industry. The court said it was difficult to conclude on Johansen's intentions with DeCSS, but there was no conclusive evidence."

Comments

Re:What a surprise!

[N3WBI3]

All governments have done something this bad or worse. Hell the Brits tried to starve all the Irish, the Vikings raped and pilliged the Brits on over in Asia one needs only to point out what Japan did to china (and for that matter what China now does to its own).

The American Government officially apoligised and paid restitution to the domestic victoms of ww2. While a very darm moment in history we have done more to keep it in our national mind than the euros have their disgusting treatment of lessernations.

In other news,

[Pig Hogger]

President George W. has suddenly announced a shift of his priorities towards the axis of evil.

We have to take down those evil plunderers that operate in Norway; their court system has been subverted by pirate interests, and it is vital for the people of the United States of America that their court system be brought back into line