"DVD-Jon" Faces Retrial

An anonymous reader submits: "Norway's special division for white-collar crimes, Økokrim, has decided to appeal the acquittal of 19-year-old Jon Lech Johansen, accused of copyright violation for helping bypass DVD code protection, web site Nettavisen reports."

Comments

Legitimate use

[fafalone]

This case perfectly highlights a legimate use for breaking copy protection, to play your own DVDs on an OS that the copy protection doesn't like. As for distributing, I'm sure other people wish to do it as well. Time to stop outlawing things with legit use just because of the potential for illegal use. What's next, outlawing baseball bats because I can beat people to death with one? I hope this case gets more attention in the US so people can see this.

Posterboy

[grub]

It seems like Norwegian authorities are trying to make Johansen a cybercrime posterboy as the US did to Mitnick.

Re:You can appeal an ACQUITTAL in Norway?

[Jonathunder]

Yes, in Norway, as in some other European countries, prosecutors can appeal a finding of innocence.

This would not be permitted where there is protection from double jeopardy, such as afforded by the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights.

Re:Sven, we cood be famoos, yah?

[dbc]

I hate to be pedantic, but as a life-long Norsky-watcher I feel I must correct your misaprehension of Norsky -- a Norsky would not say "thees", he'd say "tis" with a very hard "t" and short "i" -- a Minnesota native from Daloot or da range would more likely say "dis".

And if you don't believe me, I'll introduce you to my mother-in-law, for whom "Ja" is a four sylable word with a two octave range, and who did not understand any of the dialect jokes in "Fargo", because that *is* the way she talks.

Re:Is that even legal?

[MattW]

The Supreme Court ruled that it does not violate the double jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment to try someone at both the state and federal level. It's hard to imagine how they managed to interpret it that way. You can read some about it here. I don't agree with the logic. The Supreme Court seems to be focused on the violation of 'laws', whereas the language in the Bill of Rights is 'for the same offense'. I'd take that to mean that you do one bad thing, you can only be put in jeopardy for it once. If you shoot two people, you've committed two crimes. But in another violation of the 5th amendment, you'll be charged with two counts of murder, possession of an unlicensed firearm, possession of a firearm with intent to cause harm, assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful discharge of a firearm, conspiracy to commit murder, and so on. In fact, the Supreme Court specifically contramands such separate charges unless Congress uses "language which is clear and definite", which to me implies the creation of a judicial mandate to decide the applicability of the 5th amendment.

Re:You can appeal an ACQUITTAL in Norway?

[Isle]

Actually this is not the same as in the US, I know because we have the same law in Denmark. Basically any result of a lower court can be appealed to a higher court granted that the higher court wishes to take the case.

We had a case of a man who was first acquited by a city court then found guilty by a national court. But he fled to England and now can't be extradicted, because according to a brittish law, you can't be tried for same crime twice. (in america this is called double jepardy)