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"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."
...if at first you don't succeed: trial, trial again.
I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Norwegian law, but in the US, wouldn't that be considered Double Jeopardy?
If not all sentients are human, couldn't it be possible that not all humans are sentient either?
He wanted to play some movies and distrobuted the software. Whats so wrong with that?
disclaimer: may be over simplified as i dont know the full situation
you might complain about the US copyright laws, but at least you can't have a criminal aquittal appealed.
He (the defense) says it was intended simply to allow playing of DVDs under Linux. Seems quite reasonable. How can he be faulted for this? Perhaps they would have preferred that he also build in the same security mechanisms as other DVD players, but these, of course, would be easily defeated, assuming the code is open source. I guess I don't see a lot of details in the article, or I'm missing some of it. Would the prosecution suggest that any open source DVD player is illegal?
As usual, big-money corporations will continue to wield their influence until they get the justice they want. They will not let this rest until they have made an example of Jon Johansen. Money will talk.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Good luck contestants...
I was very surprised to see that they are actually going to appeal and aquittal for this kid. You don't see this in the US since such an appeal is not allowed under the Constitution. In the US, sometimes prosecutors try charging the person with another crime that was related to the original one but that doesn't work very often. For instance, after the LA cops were aquitted of beating Rodney King, the US District Attorney's office stepped up and charged the cops with violating King's civil rights. I don't remember if they were convicted or if they settled, but the cops did do jail time. But that's just an example of how things are done here.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
How does it work in legal systems in general? Usually it seems to me that the defendant does the appealing if they are found guilty etc. It seems unfair that the government can just keep attempting to prosecute the same person over and over. What about the effect on their lives? And couldn't the defendant point to the old trial - I mean if a judge already found you not guilty is that enough to create a reasonable doubt? It's kind of scary, guess I just never thought of it before - say for example, you beat Microsoft, defending yourself in some sort of trial - if MS remains PO'd with you could they not just keep appealing forcing you to return to court again and again? Until finally you are completely broke and your life is ruined and whatever you were defending against is completely irrelevant.
It may be completely different in his country anyways...
As a Norwegian I'm a bit surprised that Økokrim appealed the sentence. It's normal for prosecution to appeal, but in this case it was a pretty clear acquittal. However the background for the appeal is (as the article states) not ready yet.
However my concerne now is that if the appeal goes through (I believe that - in Norway - most appeals at this level do) it will be tried in front of a jury, which means this case can be on hold for ever. In the previous instance they had trouble finding only 2 laymen who could understand the technicalities of the case.
Look a monkey!
So the MPAA didn't win the first round, so let's try to nail him for "computer crime". So I wonder what crime he committed, and I also find it curious that the specifics of the the Norweigan Computer Crime Division will be "in their offices Monday afternoon". Does that mean they have to "manufacture" something to justify the appeal?
Unless you beat up Rodney King, of course.
The alternative to limited government is unlimited government.
No... he was previously tried in one of Norway's regional courts.
Lars: Sven, we hate thees job, yah?
Sven: Yah.
Lars: Always giving trooble to the dirty accountants and such, yah?
Sven: Yah. Lars, eets very boring.
Lars: So Sven, lets go after thees kid, Jon Lech Johansen. He ees famous, does theengs with compooters.
Sven: Yah. We cood be on T.V.
Lars: Yah. Famoos.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
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.
I believe there are ways around this even in the US -- the prosecution can ask to have the original trial declared a mistrial if they can show that the original trial was conducted improperly, or some such. And of course there's always the possibility of trying people for different charges relating to the same crime, as in the Federal civil rights trial of the cops in the Rodney King case after they were acquitted of State assault charges. The Norwegian deal might be something like one of these two -- the article certainly didn't give much detail. Anyone who knows more, please feel free to correct me.
The real lesson here, I think, is that The Forces Of Evil never rest in their attempts to persecute hackers for actions that should not, by any sane measure, be crimes at all. This is apparently no less true in Norway than anywhere else.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"DVD-Jon" faces retrial 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. Johansen was acquitted on all counts of piracy and distribution of the code-breaking program. Johansen has argued that his programming work was designed to play DVDs, which he purchased, on a computer with the Linux operating system, something the copy protection would not allow. The head of Økokrim's computer crimes division said that the reasons for the appeal would be in their offices Monday afternoon. Johansen's counsel, Halvor Manshaus, said he was not surprised by Økokrim's decision. "There were signals from Økokrim quite early, that they would appeal and that they see this case as dealign with an important principle. We believe that the first verdict was extremely thorough, but that doesn't prevent them from appealing," Manshaus told Nettavisen. Aftenposten English Web Desk
It seems like Norwegian authorities are trying to make Johansen a cybercrime posterboy as the US did to Mitnick.
Trolling is a art,
They didn't. They were invaded by the German army.
I know this is a bit xenaphobic, but what does this ruling mean to those of us in the U.S.? If it's overturned, or if the ruling stands, will it have any impact on those of us under the DMCA and the RIAA?
--- have you healed your church website?
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.
Also known as Oslo Tingrett. It's the "lowest" of three court systems.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
In the United States, if one is acquitted of a crime and there aren't any additional charges that can be filed by the state, that's all folks, no more immediate legal repercussions. However, the state can always attempt to find something else to bring against someone, like additional crimes committed on the scene.
This isn't the first time that I've heard of an acquittal being appealed, I think that there was something in Italy in the last couple of years that made news for such.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
No. Bitwise copying is for piracy; DeCSS is really, really, really, REALLY crap for piracy. It's for playback.
No matter how many times "the man" says DeCSS is for piracy, it just isn't true. DeCCS is to copying what roller skates are to theft: it is possible that you could find someone trying it but it's a useless way to go about it.
Plus, in most countries CSS itself is actually an illegal proce-fixing mechanism backed by an equally illegal cartel.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
from the article:
The head of Økokrim's computer crimes division said that the reasons for the appeal would be in their offices Monday afternoon.
I guess they had a meeting with the MPAA today?
Any movies that I have seen that were obvious pirates were on the original medium that they were released in. I've seen pirated DVD's sold openly, and guess what. You don't need to break the encryption to make a bit for bit copy of a DVD.
I didn't mention the people that transcode the VOB's to divx or some other more lossy format, but the people that do this could also do the same thing through windows.
Legally, no, it is not their right to decide what can and cannot happen unless I sign a specific contract stating to that effect. I don't sign that 'invisible' contract when I buy a DVD because simply buying a product gives a few specific rights to both parties, but those rights are typically for the consumer.
There are hacks that allow windows only games to run on linux. That hack is called "WINE" and "WINEX".
To recap.
1) You don't need DeCSS to pirate.
2) If you wanted to transcode movies, you can do it in Windows also.
3) There are no implied contracts when I purchase a DVD that the DVD itself can only be played on specific OS's / Players
4) go to http://www.codeweavers.com to read about wine, etc.
I don't see anyone saying that people should be allowed to hack popular windows only games to run on liniux, so why should movies be different?
uhhhhh, havent you heard of wine before? there are most certainly people trying to get windows games to linux. oh, and you dont hack the games, you write software to properly use them...which is exactly what decss does for linux....jeez man, wine is all over slashdot. go read up!
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
I quote http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d075.htm:
"the courts have decided that since the state and federal governments are separate sovereigns and therefore successive prosecutions based on the same underlying conduct do not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause if the prosecutions are brought by separate sovereigns. See, e.g., U.S. v. Koon, 34 F.3d 1416, 1438 (9th Cir.'94)"
Which is essentially what has happened here. The case is tried at a local level and being appealed to a regional court.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Sean Connery: "It looks like this is my lucky day. I'll take The Rapists for $200."
Alex: "That's Therapists... not The Rapists"
Sorry, I know I know... But it had to be said.
Nay! The accused is protected from double jeapardy on any given charge -- Double jeapardy has nothing to do with appeals.
Not sure about the legal system in Norway, but in the U.S. and Canada, appeals must be based on possible mistakes of law or mixed fact/law at the trial level. This can result in a different verdict, or in a trial de novo. The intention, however, is not usually to retry the case. Rulings regarding fact usually remain intact from the trial level, unless there has been some obvious gross error.
Seriously, what's so strange about it? If trial judges can make mistakes of law in favour of the prosecution, they wouldn't occasionally do the same in favour of the accused? And shouldn't the justice system be able to say: hold on! That piece of evidence should have been admitted (or whatever the alleged mistake was)
the prosecution can ask to have the original trial declared a mistrial if they can show that the original trial was conducted improperly
Not after the verdict is in. Then, jeopardy is attached.
Jeez, don't you ever watch "Law and Order"?
DeCSS doesn't help pirates - there were bootleg DVDs available before DeCSS was. CSS is there to stop you, the user, from doing things with your DVD that the MPAA don't want you to. Pirates just duplicate the disc, CSS and all at the pressing plant, or if they're low-tech, rip and re-encode via analogue.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
I know nothing about non-U.S. legal systems, and hopefully somebody who knows about Norwegian jurisprudence will answer, but the general principle behind appeals in legal systems is this:
The first court that tries you is the finder of fact. Unless that whole trial is thrown out (and you get a new one), the facts determined in that trial are beyond question in the process. However, the court has to apply rules to the process of the trial and to the facts that come out, in order to get an outcome. Those rules can be both formal laws and legal procedures. (In real life, the line between facts and rules gets blurred, which both sides try to use to their advantage, but that's a different topic.)
Appeals apply to these rules, not the facts. So an appeal isn't just a second chance to start over and get a different trial outcome. It is a challenge that the process in the previous trial was in violation of those rules in some very specific way. (Or, many specific ways, since most appeals are a laundry list of possible violations, hoping the appeals court will find at least one they like.)
This is true already in the U.S. when those found guilty appeal their convictions, or when either party in a civil trial appeals the outcome. This is why appeals often force the original trial to be thrown out: they clarify the application of a rule as it applies to this case, then you have to start over and apply that rule correctly this time.
There's no reason in principle that this couldn't be applied to appealing acquitals as well. In principle, if somebody is acquitted because a judge made a mistake in applying a rule about admissibility of evidence or jury instructions, it might be reasonable to say that the acquital was flawed, and is contrary to justice, and shouldn't be honored.
There's a question of rights, which is a big one. There's also a questions of "That's not how we do it in the U.S.!!!!", which, if it isn't backed up with something else, isn't much of an argument. But I'm just speaking to the principle of appeals in general terms.
IANAL, yadda.
The real lesson here, I think, is that The Forces Of Evil never rest in their attempts to persecute hackers for actions that should not, by any sane measure, be crimes at all.
Yep, that's exactly it. We live in movie land where everything is black and white, hackers vs. Evil Corporation X, and computer operating systems look like virtual reality.
If you want to support your case, may I suggest you tone down the rhetoric a bit? "Forces of Evil" and "any sane measure" are appeals to emotion... but we want this to be objective, right? Right?
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)
In the US the double stuff ONLY applies to Capitol offenses!
Not true at all; double jeopardy applies to all criminal charges.
He was *STEALING*. You know, *STEALING*. We're not real sure what he stole (since he bought the DVDs), or what he hurt, but he was *STEALING*. You don't approve of *STEALING*, do you?
Stealing is bad, u-kay?
A year after his criminal trial, he a href="http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics4/oj/16. htm">faced a civil trial. It had a different result. This wasn't considered double jeopardy. I don't know if there is any resemblance with this Norwegian situation though.
Additionally, while this is not a popular idea around here, isn't it the companies right to decide that they only want their disks to play on windows systems?
No, it isn't. Once I buy a DVD, the disc is MINE. I should have the right to play it on any player that I can get it to work on. It isn't necessarily the responsibility of the company to facilitate it, but if I should be able to play my DVD on my Linux box if I want to figure out how to do it. DeCSS has been very useful to me, as I can play my DVDs, all of which are legit, on my Laptop, which runs Linux.
I don't see anyone saying that people should be allowed to hack popular windows only games to run on liniux, so why should movies be different?
Except that people DO use WINE to to get their "Windows Only" games to run on Linux. People use it to play EverQuest, Starcraft, and many other games that the programmers didn't intend to run in Linux. Again, there is nothing wrong with it if the people doing it have legitimately purchased the software.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
That a product, program, or any tool for that matter, can be used to circumvent the law or do ill, does that mean that the tool is evil? Hardly. A tool is neither good nor bad, so long as it performs the task it was designed for in an adequate manner. Those kind of value judgements must be reserved for the person that employs that tool...
Is a gun inherently evil? Sure, there are many that use it for malicious purposes, but what about when the gun is in the lands of a legitimate authority? What about when it is in the hands of a potential rape victim?
Prosecute the Pirates. Prosecute the thieves. Don't buy materials from questionable sources. I'm not one of those people that thinks the "Industry" has no right to make a dollar. Still, the tool is not the problem. It is the people that choose to misuse it.
I don't think it is the company's right to determine how I use their product. If I have paid the same $22.00 for a DVD as my Windows using counterpart, how am I causing harm to Hollywood by viewing the movie on my own Linux running system? Have I hurt their revenue? Did I steal their intellectual property? Does my use of Linux automatically mean that I will decrypt their DVD, and spread it across the Internet free of charge?
What is the difference?
If anything, the movie industry should be going out of their way to put as many DVD players out there in the world as possible. They should have authored their own Linux DVD software, because it is beneficial to them to do so. The more players in existance, the more movies they are likely to sell. This seems evident to anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics.
Short of producing such a software player themselves, they certainly shouldn't mind that someone else has saved them the trouble.
The piracy issue is a strawman arguement. DeCSS doesn't make a DVD any more "pirateable." You needn't break the encryption in order to take a single DVD, and duplicate it. You can produce duplicates without even attempting to decrypt the software, simply by making a bit-for-bit copy.
What DeCSS does allow for is the conversion from one format to another... It allows you to take a DVD, and from it, procude VCDs, etc. That's hardly a threat though. They are lower density, and lower resolution. Nobody would rather have a VCD than the corresponding DVD. In any event, VCD production poses the most minor of threats to the revenue streams of the movie industry.
In any event, this is definately a new reason not to move to Norway. I had no idea that "Double Jeopardy" protection wasn't commonplace in most of the "Free" world.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Maybe not yet, but your point sure makes this story about the RIAA going after ISP's all the more interesting.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Actually, after the first witness has given testimeony, jeoparady attaches. There are only 2 circumstances where a mistrial without prejudice will be granted, a deadlocked jury and/or jury tampering by the defense.
- James
Not to poke fun, but if I understand it correctly, we'd all have a little fun prØning the bushes, and drinking prØn juice.
If anything this goes to show just how commited and driven the the various studios, labels and their entourage of lobbyists and lawyers are.
Traditionaly the Scandinavian countries have been liberal with their attitudes. I think this perfectly illustrates the clout you can wield with a few million dollars of lobbying in the right place.
So whose worse the Danes with their p2p screenshots or the norwegians for trying to make an example of some poor kid?
It's all a bit insidious isn't it?
In the exact same way that all the gun manufacturers do aid murderers, armed robberies, etc, Jon's code aids movie pirates. However, you don't see many Americans harping off about banning guns, do you? It's really the same thing. It's not what you have, it's what you can do with it that's important. Why waste the resources chasing after someone who simply wanted to watch his films that he paid for with hardware that he paid for, when those same resources could much better be used on those selling the shoddy films down at the local market!
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
IMHO, your loss. In general, you are better off in a criminal trial in the US than in most of the world, and *WAY* worse off in the US in a civil trial. We are the most litigitous(sp) society in history, after all.
Of course, YMMV.
I am not from the US.
The European Court of Justice has rules that double jeopardy violates European Law. The case in point was a German draftee who didn't show up on the assigned date. He was brought to trial for draft evasion and sentenced to prison for a short time (a month or so), after which he was supposed to recommence his military service. After his prison time was up, he again failed to show up on the assigned date and was again convicted of draft evasion. He appealed to the ECJ and won. The ECJ ruled that the second conviction was indeed double jeopardy and thus against European law. The person in Denmark could also appeal to the ECJ because Denmark as a EU member state is under the jurisdiction of the court. In the case of Norway, however, that is not an option as Norway is (still) not a member of the European Union.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
Two other points, as long as I'm writing:
1) Even under US law, double jeopardy only applies to criminal charges, not civic suits. Of course, trying to make that distinction is even tougher than explaing that Johansen isn't being charged with a DMCA violation.
2) If they feel it is fair, legal, whatever, that is their system, their law, their right. -- I'd agree with that more if the Europeans spent less time whining about the death penalty in the US (which their own citizens support with majorities or large minorities, but that's another issue...).
Additionally, while this is not a popular idea around here, isn't it the companies right to decide that they only want their disks to play on windows systems? If I pay money to buy a disc, in my mind it's not the company's disck anymore. It's mine do with as I please.
My loss? I'm an American, born and raised here. I am simply trying to point out that the whole world doesn't do thing our way and that we don't automatically have the best way of doing things. Personally, I think it's crap that prosecutors can appeal an aquital, but that is the law in Norway, and our law doesn't apply.
I believe (speaking from no expertise save high school civics classes in the USA) the "double jeopardy" provision is intended more to prevent the government from harassing citizens.
We tend to perfer (on paper at least) to err on the side of the innocent, since we see it as a greater wrong to imprison the wrong person.
Without double jeopardy, a well funded person with a grudge could just continue to retry a case until they got the result desired (i.e. conviction)
Now, I realize a bunch of people are going to nitpick on the symantics, and it's easy to take cheap shots, but I think I have the original intent correct.
Norway in not a member of the EU
Cite, please.
A crime involves both action and time. It's not that you can't be tried for violating the same law twice (else we wouldn't have recidivists now, would we?) it's that you can't be tried for the same crime twice. The second offense is a separate crime.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Logically, yes. Practically, no. I don't think anyone is opposed to someone guilty being found guilty and if new evidence is found or an error in the original trial would have resulted in a guilty verdict, logic says the guilty person should be retried.
In reality, once a person is found innocent then that should be it. That's why we (supposedly) can't be tried for the same crime twice. The risk is that if we aren't protected from being retried, we can be retried and harrased for the rest of our lives for strictly political or other reasons. The threat of that can be used to keep people from speaking up against corrupt officials or against people with more money than they that could pay to keep you pretty much on trial for the rest of your life. We aren't protected from being retried to let the guilty get away, but to keep the innocent from being harrased, or the guilty from being harrased after they've "paid their due to society" or whatever.
Unfortunately, ever since the Rodney King verdict I've come to realize that we aren't really protected. First they charged the officers, they got off (for better or for worse), and then after the riots they were retried on other charges. That was BS. Criminals should be charged with the maximum crime for a given event and that's it. I.e., if beating up Rodney King could result in a charge of Assault, Misuse of Police Authority, or violation of his civil rights, they should pick the "most severe" charge and that's the charge. At the very least, all charges for a given event should be filed before the trial starts. To charge the police, get an innocent verdict and then say, "Oh, we'll go ahead and accuse them of violating his civil rights" was completely BS in my opinion. There may be some legal justification for why they could do that, but the *spirit* of protection from double jeapordy was certainly violated that day.
Like it or not, 'DVD Jon' and his work, DeCSS, do aid pirates.
Like it or not, that doesn't matter. At least in the U.S., I'm not familiar with Norwegian law but regardless, it's bullshit. Cars are used to getaway from crimes, guns (the obvious analogy) are used in crimes, paper and pens are used to plan crimes. Guess we should start going after manufacturers of these products.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
So do web sites, FTP, and email. Shall we make it illegal to write web browsers too?
many people do use it to break the encryption scheme so they can rip and distribute movies. Is this necessarily what we want? If movie companies don't get paid for there work they'll stop making movies, blahda blahda
I'd much rather live in a world with fewer movies than in a world where Hollywood is allowed to dictate what programs I can write or use on my own computer.
Additionally, while this is not a popular idea around here, isn't it the companies right to decide that they only want their disks to play on windows systems?
Companies have every right to decide what is done with their property. However, once they sell a disk to me, it becomes my property, and at that point it should be up to me (and only me) how I use it.
I don't see anyone saying that people should be allowed to hack popular windows only games to run on liniux, so why should movies be different?
There is no argument about that because everybody agrees that it should be allowed. Products such as WineX and VMWare allow you to play windows-only games under Linux.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Exactly! But don't forget Air! I mean the criminals must be using air right? Especially if they make their escape on foot - without air they could run.
You hit the nail on the head though. In Canada there's a tariff on CD-R's just because they *might* be used to copy music. Not sure about DVD-R tariffs though...it's all so stupid!
Rather than engaging in discussion on hackers vs. The Establishment, take a step back from the keyboard and think like they do.
Here are a group of law enforcement personnel contacted by a large corporation identifying a case of compter-related theft.
I'm pretty sure the investigators listened to Jon's argument about Linux and use of his legal DVD's. But when a semi or non-literate computer user (a Windows computer user) who can play DVDs on his bundled player in his store-bought Microsoft-equipped PC will probably think to themselves that a legal, sanctioned solution to the problem exists, and if it doesn't work for Jon, then he should have be using an approved method such as Windows.
It's not necessarily evil intentions, it could just be a simple case of plain ignorance as well.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Actually, it's even earlier: the swearing of a witness, or the swearing in of a jury if there is one.
There are several other kinds of "manifest necessity" that will lead to mistrials with retrial possible; the biggest category is those that come on defense motion.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
The key to the above, here in the U.S. is the same offense part. There are so many laws to cover the same actions, that if you aren't convicted on one, there can be other charges brought to bear (or at least trumped up.)
For instance, if the gov't doesn't like something you do, they will hold either conspiracy or civil rights charges back so they can keep you in jail while they look for a more sympathetic jury.
I am not a resource! I am a free man!
The head of Økokrim's computer crimes division said that the reasons for the appeal would be in their offices Monday afternoon.
Could this mean that they are appealing just for the sake of it? Like in : "We do not know for what we are doing this but we shall let you know as soon as we find out!!!"
May I use your sig please?
CSS protects the DVD content from being played on an unauthorised machine - which means one without the appropriate license keys. In practise, that means using either an actual DVD player, or PC-software from a CSS-licensed provider. Never mind that the exact same hardware can run Linux or Windows, if you don't have an officially licensed CSS implementation for Linux, it's illegal...
As for hacking PC games to work with Linux, that's a much bigger deal than making it possible to view movies. Trying to restrict movies to real DVD players or to WinXX PCs is exactly like trying to make any other media only playable on proper players or WinXX PCs. I have a bunch of vinyl albums that I'd like to listen to while at work - I can't because I'm not going to drag my hifi to the office every day. One day I'll be bothered enough about it to make MP3s of those albums. Until then, my only option is to re-buy content I've already bought, at stupid prices. What's more, some of those albums are not, and probably never will be available on CD, or even cassette... Note: I'm not planning on trying to download these albums, I just want to be able to continue to enjoy the vinyl records I already have, in places where an actual turntable record player is impractical.
Just try thinking about it in terms of some other industry: a gun maker turning out a rifle for use only on a target range, or a shotgun for shooting anything except ducks; a car maker turning out a Moms-Only SUV, or a highway-only car; furniture for used only by married people; etc... Sounds stupid, doesn't it?
No, no, no. A criminal defendant cannot be retried for the same crime by the same sovereign no matter how wrong the original trial was.
ONE recent case (in the Seventh Circuit) allowed a retrial where the acquital was a result of bribery (!!!) (on the grounds that the tainted trial was no "trial" at all), but the court didn't reach the merits of the issue, and the better rule is to prohibit retrial even in this situation.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
Boastful killer shows the court who's stupid
Norway is not a member of the European Union, hence those laws are of no relevance..
*You are not allowed to read this*
RIAA has no hold over Norway.
See there are theese little things called borders in the real world, so no matter what happens in this case, it only applies in Norway.
BUT, it still means that you should hold on to your copy of DeCSS, because you woun't get it from a site in Norway any time soon.
No, he's guilty of creating a tool that could possibly be used for stealing, but doesn't necessarily have to be used for stealing.
It's more like he's being prosecuted for having invented the crowbar. Suppose all shipments within a country or countries come in boxes that require you to purchase an ACME-brand "crate opener" for you to retrieve your shipped items. However, ACME doesn't provide their brand-named crate-opener in your neck of the woods. You decide that since you bought the crate yourself, you are entitled to the contents. So you invent the crowbar and pry the crate open to reap the sweet sweet goods inside.
But now you've bypassed the purpose of ACME-brand crate-openers, so ACME prosecutes you. They claim that since you can now use your crowbar to open crates that you didn't buy, you are thus guilty of theft.
The whole question really boils down to whether you are entitled to open the crate that you have purchased. And is having possession a tool that MIGHT be used for stealing illegal?
Crowbars can be used to smash windows, pry open doors and crates not belonging to you, and all other sorts of nasty stuff. But they do have legitimate and legal purpose. So, is it illegal for me to possess a crowbar since it can make stealing much easer? Would it have been illegal for me to invent the crowbar (mostly a trivial invention, but still)?
This case is not just a simple black/white issue of stealing.
make world, not war
If I were allowed to vote in the USA, I would, if only to be able to claim I voted for "the other guy". As I'm not a citizen, I have no vote, but I'm expected to pay taxes...
No, I'm not bitching, just stating a fact. I may very well apply for citizenship once my period of taxation-without-representation ends in about 4 years. That's assuming our glorious world leaders don't talk themselves into nuking each other any time soon... :)
OK, the government has no case, and they're appealing? GREAT! Take it all the way to the highest court in the land. Get a ruling that's binding for the entire EU! Make it clear with as much authority as legally possible that JON IS INNOCENT!
That's why I'm in favour of this latest development.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Look, son, I'll tell you what a wise man once told me: There's no shame in not knowing the law, but you still don't need to proclaim it to the world, see?
In the U.S., Double jeopardy absolutely bars prosecution appeals. Totally and completely. That's why you never hear about them, or see them in movies: they don't exist.
That's right. Even if the judge totally screws up. Whether it's law or fact. (And, for that matter, defendants are free to appeal decisions of fact; they just face a higher burden of persuasion.)
Now, why don't you wait until we're discussing something you know something about for your next post, huh?
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
As has been rehashed here many times, his software does nothing to enable copying CDs (which _would_ be stealing). It merely allows those who have legitimately paid for a CD to play it on devices (such as a Linux box) which has not been blessed by the music industry powers that be. Those who want to copy/steal can do so handily without the program.
You mean "Then, jeopardy has terminated."
There are two significant events for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause: first, jeopardy attaches in most cases when the fact-finder (the jury, for example) begins to receive evidence; second, jeopardy terminates with the determination that the State has or has not proved the merits of the case against the accused.
The whole point of "double jeopardy" is that once a person has endured this process, he or she may not be put the stress and expense of going through it again for the same offense.
I am familiar with this case. He was not acquited: he was convicted, and his conviction was thrown out, as the article says. Retrials in that situation are routine.
See the difference?
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
"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."
Sources say the legal team was threatened by the MPAA with a movie about them that totally skews the actual facts and makes them look like idiots. When asked if they meant it, the MPAA said, "One word: Takedown." The appeal was filed within the hour...
Not always. There is a complicated analysis -- the Blockburger test -- that governs whether the conduct of an accused may qualify as more than one offense for purposes of double jeopardy.
The conspiracy and civil rights charges often count as different offenses because they contain elements that are not present in garden-variety crimes. The civil rights charge, however, may be leveled only against persons acting under color of state law, and it probably does not apply to the criminal acts of the average Slashdot reader.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Although a knee jerk reaction is to express distaste for this decision, perhaps we should consider it in more depth. Like it or not, 'Acme Axe Manufacturers' and its work, the Acme Super Chopper, does aid axe murders.
Yes, that's not why they were created and there are legit uses, but many axe murders do use them to split the skulls of busty coeds on holidays at remote cabins. Is this necessarily what we want? If axe murders are using the Acme Super Chopper to commit crimes, isn't everyone who owns an axe just as guilty, blahda blahda?
Additionally, while this is not a popular idea around here, isn't it the companies right to decide that they only want their axes to be used on wood? I don't see anyone saying that people should be allowed to chop metal, plastic, or bales of hay into smaller pieces, so why should wood be different?
Thus, O.J. was found innocent in the criminal case and guilty in the civil one.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
. . . remember that in America, even O.J. Simpson couldn't be retried criminally once acquitted.
... to leave that country... if he still can do it. ...sigh...
Technically copying the DVD wouldn't be stealing under fair use copyright laws. You are allowed to make a back up afterall. It was only after the heavy handed DMCA was put in place that it became a crime to circumvent digital copy protection.
In Republican America phones tap you.
..It's like "taking the fifth" and not being an American .. or not even being in the US, you can't do it!
.. you don't have them in those countries.. you have other rights, but people generally doesn't know them .. they know the Miranda bit though .. in any of the above languages because of oversatuation and translation of american movies.
Different country, differet rules, it's that simple
Oh, by the way, don't try demanding a Spanish, German, French or Italian police person to read your "Miranda rights"
Both sides can appeal to the higher court, and in rare precedence setting cases after that to the Supreme Court.
But once the case has gone through that process, you can not be retried for the same crime. So it is still not possible for the gevernment to harass people by retrying them again and again in perpetuity, which was the abuse of power the US constitution "double jeopardy" rule was designed to avoid.
Actually, you don't have to be an American for the provisions in the 5th amendment to apply. You just have to be under the jurisdiction of the American court system. In general, the provisions of the constitution apply to all people (persons) under the jurisdiction of the United States, whether they be citizens or not.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
Right you are, and I neglected to mention this important point. However, I was concerned with refuting the claim that Jon's software was a theft tool, and when I mentioned copying, it was in the sense of making copies for distribution to others.
...are belonging to us!
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
It occurred to me, but the point is that I hate how everyone takes the moral high ground about criticizing the US as though they are perfect. It's hypocritical. This is the way I hear you: "The US is a bunch of overbearing, hateful people who feel they are in a position to criticize the world. Of course, we ARE in a morally superior position from which we can critize, so we can overbearingly hate them. And that's just fine because we have less money...the burden is on the 'racist, cowboy hooligans' to prove their righteousness, not on us to prove ours!" But anyway, I did read above that the EU now interprets Double Jeopardy as illegal. Good. As for Microsoft, they were found guilty, that was appealed (in the defense's favor) but they still were found guilty of some things. What the states "don't accept" is the settlement. Whether they are guilty is not being questioned, but rather how much they should suffer.
Økokrim?!? Where's my keyboard's "Ø" key?
To the right of the "L" key. Assuming you have a Norwegian or Danish keyboard.
If you don't, you can use Ö instead. It's basically the same letter, the way it's written in Sweden or Germany.
The "Ø" sound is the same as the "U" in the English word "run".
It is not bizarre and it was not previously tried before their analog of the US supreme court.
One thing that is bizzare, is how so many americans firmly believe that their way is the only way. When you don't really know anything about their system and many of you evidently don't know much about your own system either, why do you automaticly assume that your system is superior in every way?
I guess it's just the American way.How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Jeez, don't you ever watch "Law and Order"?
I think you meant to say "Law and Ørder".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's the old issue of states' rights. See nullification.
I used to be massively in favor of a strong federal gov't over states, (what you'd expect from Republican public school teachers covering the (American) Civil War) until I got involved with this crowd.
Now I find myself standing on the battlefield between the two. Quite uncomfortable.
What's this Submit thingy do?
This very prescient of Monty Python to include this subliminally in the credits for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.A note on interpretation. Moose is the Norwegian codeword for the MPAA:
...so can the bite of a Jack Valenti scorned.
A moose once bit my sister...
No reali! She was karving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge -- her brother-in-law -- an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies: "The Hgt Hands of an Oslo Dentist," "Fillings of Passion," "The huge Molars of Horst Nordfink"....
Mind you, moose bites kan be pretti nasti...
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
>The person in Denmark could also appeal to the ECJ because Denmark as a EU member state is under the jurisdiction of the court.
Are you sure of this? After rejecting the Maastricht Treaty the Danes got 4 exemptions from the Treaty. One of these were certain aspects of the legal cooperation.
I don't think Europeans whine about the death penalty in the US. They just choose not to extradict people to the US that might be subject to the death penalty (i.e. already convincted, or will be tried on a death penalty case).
I don't know about Norway specifically, but Turkey has chosen to be under the ECJ jurisdiction by signing some treaty, while it's not currently part of the EU.
Double Jeopardy is a foundation of our consitution. It includes "What could be lesser included charges" because it is based on the OFFENSE (time frame being within a set bounds) not on the laws you are to be tried with.
The case where the guy and his ex-gf kills his wife. They find him not guilty and then they find pictures of the actual crime being committed. Sure hes guilty, but he never went to jail on the murder (They did get him on perjury charges).
For all the crap about the DMCA and the laws and such in the US, I am so glad we have Double Jeopardy and the right to be tried by our peers. We can get off by jury nullifaction and say "SCREW YOU GOVERNEMENT, the COUNTRY wanted it this way" while in other countries, you can be tried until the government gets you.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I'll probably get modded down for this but so what. The biggest pirate in the world is the telecommunications industry because they grab and duplicate copyrighted material from all over the world for delievery to their customers (the surfing public) and not only do they not pay a dime to the vast majority of the people who created this content - if the owners of the content were to ask even who the consumers were then they are told that would be a breach of privacy.
Not only this, the industry has so much influence that they were able to get "safe harbour" laws passed that makes it legal for them to do this.
But - not _all_ of the people who create this content are ripped off. Some - if they happen to be corporately attractive enough were able to do a "convergance" and these people do make money...
They say they make money from the "distribution" of the content - but then this is what the recording industry does too. The difference between creating web content for instance and musical content is that at least in the case of musical content the artists own the rights until they sign them away. In the case of web content the creators lose their right to distribution the moment it is put on the net. This right is taken from them with zero compensation.
------------------
It has been said before that it is trivial to copy a dvd and play it back from say a tape or hard drive WITHOUT resorting to cracking the encryption. All that is required is the development of a VIRTUAL DVD device driver. If the windows player thinks it has a DVD out their in hardware land it will decrypt the bits even if they are actually comming from a file.
Does anyone dispute this? Do we have to create a virtual DVD driver before people will believe this? Perhaps we should - and sent it to Jon's defense team.
-------------
The only way you can prevent the unauthorised copying of digital material in a computer is to prevent programmers from being able to access _any_ part of the data stream that is playing the material. This means programmers must be prevented from writing device drivers and memory probes etcetera. This is REALLY what paladium and DRM is all about. Microsoft is very much in favour of this because it will shut down independant programmers. The short of it is that if the programmer has access to ring 0 - then he can do anything he wants. He can even write his own DLL wrappers and trap the parameters going back and forth.
In order to prevent this, it is necessary to restrict end user from running the software. Thus the software must be certified and this will be both expensive (another microsoft tax) and restrictive.
This is a restraint of trade move of unprecedented porportions.
And in related news, the MPAA has mysteriously misplaced 18 million dollars. It was last seen in a briefcase at the International Departure counter at LAX. Police remain mystefied.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
So how exactly is it wonderful that a double murderer could walk free, mostly by beeing rich? Do you expect this example to make the rest of the world see the folly of their judical systems and adopt the US way wholesale?
The "criminally" part is telling, since OJ actually was retried for the exact same crime, and found guilty. Only in a civil court.
I think it was pretty inevitable that this acquittal was appealed. The judge had to make rulings of how the law applies to this kind of charge. Those type of rulings (ie.e what the prosecution has to prove to sustain a guilty verdict) are exactly the kinds of things that get appealed.
It's inportant to distinguish finding of fact from findings of law. Remember the Jackson findings in the Microsoft case? He seperated his findings of fact from his findings of how the law applied to the case. It is his legal findings which were overruled, not his findings of fact.
Had this case gone the other way, Jon's lawyers would be appealing the legal rulings the same way the prosecution is today.
As regards double jeopardy, if the appeals court finds that the judge made errors in the application of the law, then that trial was flawed and it's result is null. A retrial typically results if an appeal does not uphold the ruling of a trial court.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Argh. *You* are correct with regard to the U.S. That's what I get for typing faster than I can think. I was responding to the point about double jeapardy protecting only against constitutional cases, and that's why I had both countries in mind. My comments (aside from that one -- double jeapardy does cover any charge, if I'm not mistaken) only apply to the Great White North (no racial reference implied).
To the previous poster: I can certainly understand the concern that prosecution appeals could permit abuse if unrestricted -- but why should a defendant be able to try and retry until they get a favorable judge and then say: "Ok! Hold it! No more cards, I'm staying at 20!" Is there a constitutional guarantee to a lucky trial?
And, lets not forget the most famous case of double jeopardy. Even though it ended in a Civil retrail instead of criminal.
O.J. (for better or for worse) was acquitted. Yet through the loophole of Civil vs. criminal trials, he was tried again for civil damages and found guilty. This was a sham. This loophole should be closed. A not guilty verdict should mean just that. (again, this is not a testimony to his guilt or innocence, but rather an on topic comment that Not Guilty should mean Not Guilty!) Even in the case of DVD Jon.
And BTW, if he is convicted, wont we all sleep better at night knowing that he is off the streets!?!
WTF?
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
In Windows, you can simply type ALT + 0216 on the keypad for the capital Ø. Lower case is ALT + 0248. Other nice to have Norwegian characters: 0229=å, 0230=æ.
:)
Being that my name is Jørgen and I live in Australia, that's one feature I really like in Windows. And yes, I describe it as the "u" in _surf_ here.
Cheers.
ISO certified == THX certified
I think the theory was that since she was trid and [don't know verdict] of murdering him, and since you can only be murdered once, there was no way she could be tried for the second "murder", since it's impossible to murder a dead man... or is it?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
HAHAHA! Okay, whatever.
The primary use of DeCSS was, is, and will continue to be -- to gain access to the video and audio data so people can make and share DivX ;-) rips. It most certainly is for piracy, and everybody knows it.
Free Hans!
Well "Fortunately" our goverment here in the UK wants to change the rules about double jepardy, so a politican gets the final say on allowing a retrial... Nice to see our legal system which has been tried and tested flushed and replaced with quick fixes.
James
Gee I would love to live in Norway, a place where the corts and goverment procicuters have nothing better to do than to victimise teanagers who piss of the american recording industry. What a lovely crime free place it must be
Over here in the real world there are many crimes being commited and criminals getting away with it. I think I saw in the scum (sun newspaper UK) that 90% of crimes go unpunnished.
Calling in a specilist white collar crime unit to prosicute someone for something they did when they were 15 is ridiculas. Well I suppose school uniforms do have white collars, but that is not the point.
what a pathetic waste of time and resources this retial is, I hope the fool who took the bribe to make it go ahead realises what a stupid use of the court system this is.
You want reasons for NOT moving to Norway?
How about
- 24% VAT
- 35-50% income tax
- cold long winters
- world's most expensive taxi rides
- world's most expensive capital city
- one of the highest gasoline prices in the world
- not member of the EU
and by the way Norwegians are too conformist to use anything but Microsoft software. But I guess that last one isn't unique...:-)Oh well at least they don't dub imported movies like they do in France and Germany...
Now I don't give a rats ass about Iraq, but if we were to champion a war for our rights, I'd be suited up and standing at attention.
Hang in there John.
F-YOU RIAA/MPAA. MAY YOU ALL BURN IN HELL!!!!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Prove it. After all, I use DeCSS all the time, but never to rip a DVD. There are a large number of people who can say the same.
Can Norwegian courts change the laws? I believe that the US courts can change US laws but that the Westminster system cannot do so. If a law change can occur, does the appeal to a higher court prevent the law change?
It's swings and roundabouts, though, isn't it? I mean in the US you have elected judges... I mean wow how good an idea is that[/sarcasm] but here in the Uk, the government is doing away with the right to a jury trial, and the double-jeopardy rule!!!! ... but we don't have elected judges.
There's always a mix of good and bad.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Now, I wonder by whom?
Proven.
Free Hans!
I don't think so. Given the poor quality of public defense an arrest is essentially a large summary fine impossed by the DA. The quality of the jury pool is often quite poor in the US. Finally the sentances are incredibly harsh; so harsh in fact that it often pays to plead to a crime and get the reduced sentance regardless of your guilt status.
function big_corp($money, $connection){
$target = to_blame($money);
if(!$target) $target = to_set_example($money);
$weap = get_lawyers();
do{
$result =sue($money, $connection, $target, $weap);
if ($result == "undesirable")
$target = appeal($money, $target, $connection);
}while ($money != 0 && $target = "bendover");
}
call when needed
What this basically suggests is that the United States is not the bastion of freedom that is often held up to the world. If you piss off a policeman, he can drop a baggy in your car and say "Oh look, what's this?" and bust you for drug possession even if you've never done anything stronger than aspirin. The only difference between the United States and, say, Mexico, is that our cops generally do believe they work for the people rather than for, say, drug traffickers, so they tend to use their mojo on scumbags who, in their opinion, need to be in jail. But that doesn't make the system any fairer if a cop just doesn't like the way you look (e.g., you're a black man driving alone in a ritzy white neighborhood and thus guilty of driving while black) and concocts some lie to justify stopping you ("he was weaving in and out of traffic and slowing suspiciously in front of houses as if scoping them out for a robbery").
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
but why should a defendant be able to try and retry until they get a favorable judge and then say: "Ok! Hold it! No more cards, I'm staying at 20!"
Actually, they can't. There is a limit to the number of appeals that naturally derives from the fact that you must always appeal to a higher court (well, unless the appellate court remands the case back to the lower court, but one assumes they'd get tired of this after a while). Since the hierarchy of courts is finite, so are the appeals. Plus, the judges tend to get progressively smarter and harder to fool.
As I understand it...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Assuming that your statement that all of the DivX versions of movies available on DVD were created with DeCSS is true (it's not, but I'll let that pass), you've only "proven" that DeCSS can be and is used for piracy, which is still a far cry from proving that DeCSS is only used for piracy, or that it's intended to be used for piracy or even that it's primarily used for piracy.
As a counterexample, I use a descendent of DeCSS on a regular basis, but I've never pirated DVD movies (I have made infringing copies of VHS tapes, however -- better ban VCRs). So does everyone who watches DVDs using a non-DVDCCA-approved DVD player, such as xine. I also use a descendent of DeCSS to rip my DVDs and convert them to SVCD format so that my kids can watch (and destroy) the cheap copies rather than the relatively expensive originals. Such backup purpose should fall under Fair Use. I could also use DeCSS to extract snippets of a movie to include them in a commentary video, which definitely would be Fair Use.
There are many legitimate uses for DeCSS. As for what the *primary* use is, I couldn't guess. I know a lot of the movies available for download couldn't have been ripped from DVD since they're up for download before the film is even released on DVD (or at times before it's even released in the theatres!)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No use in a burglary = no crime, under the Arizona burglary tools law. Check your own state laws for what's legal or not in your own state.
So under the "burglary tools" theory, we'd have to show that Jon intended to use DeCSS to commit burglary (steal DVD content), or intended to allow others to use DeCSS to commit burglary (steal DVD content). Just as it is legal for you to unlock your own car with lockpicks, under the "lockpick" theory it would be legal for you to unlock your own DVD (but nobody else's) with lockpicks. That is why it is so important that the Norwegian prosecutor forgot to find anybody who'd used DeCSS to steal DVD content. Proving intent was half the case, and the prosecution blew it, though apparently Norway allows an appeal where the prosecution will be able to introduce facts regarding intent.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Which of course shows the idiocy of going for the lowest wage -- nobody is going to risk a $50,000/yr job to pirate DVD's, but risking a $5 a day job to pirate DVD's when someone is about to pay you $50,000 is a different tale. It's the same reason why Mexican cops are corrupt and American cops (usually) aren't -- Mexican cops aren't paid a living wage, thus most are in the pay of the drug cartels. Low wages will always mean corruption, and the MPAA members, by siting their DVD-pressing facilities in low-wage nations, have insured that they will have a massive piracy problem.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
By this logic anyone convicted of murder in the EU has a license to kill anyone else after he is released from his first prison term? What about speeding tickets?
What is it whit this s**t?
Can't you people do at least your basic history homework before claiming somebody sided with the Nazis. Besides, that was freaking 50 years ago. LET IT GO!
Of course. Most European countries have governments that have evolved, rather than being built from scratch. They don't have specific provisions in their constitutions to prevent (or at least make logically unconstitutional) the most unfair advantages of the state over the individual.
Without protection against n(where n>1)-tuple jeopardy, the bully (state) with (comparitively) infinite resources, gets to keep calling "do-overs" whenever they lose, exhausting the victim's resources. Sure, you can win once, but if you keep having to go back and fight the same fight every time you win, without resting, until you eventually lose, you will eventually reach that end condition.
Can a Norweigian fill in some details here? Is there any provision against "ex post facto" laws? If not, the state can simply adjust the rules until they win.
Sorry for the rant, but even here, we get crap like somebody getting acquitted of a crime, then re-tried for "conspiracy to commit" the crime they were acquitted of, essentially saying "well, maybe he didn't do it, but he wanted to, so let's punish him anyway". I do find intent to be infinitely more significant than the actual offense (Why does a murderer avoid capital punishment because he's incompetent?), and feel that attempted murder(and all other violent crimes - rape, assault) should be a capital offense, once someone is acquitted for an incident, that should be the end.
Anyway, what happenned to the "enlightened" europeans?
Wow! That's pretty cool. All I've got to do is get blatantly framed for murder, win the case, then, any subsequent murder is not prosecutable. I think I've found the solution to my financial problems. I'll be the most prolific assassin in the history of Earth. "Hello, your honor. Yeah, I shot him, standing right next to this find officer of the law. If you will check ECJ 2003-DK-164, you will see that I was acquitted of murder. Yes, nice to see you again too, sir. I've got 3 more jobs this week. Can you issue some sort of restraining order against the Gens d'armes, to stop this harassment? It's quite an inconvenience having to come in here and explain the law every time I do my job."
Well, OK, I admit, I just can't stand the idea of killing people who don't deserve it. I think I'll just beat a speeding ticket and become the world's fastest pizza deliveryman.
own select-fire weapons there
Same over here "US". I'm not saying that our government honors the second ammendment as well as it does the 1st, 4th, and 5th (though it treats it better than it does the 10th), in that we have to register and buy a special license, but I have friends with AC556s (M-16 done right) and similar tools.
While I agree that a wrong trial (bribery, absolute stupidity, OJ, etc.) would be better redone, we then run into the question of who decides it should be redone. If I get to force redos on every contest I have, I will until I win, just as the state will (See my rant higher up the page about "Do-overs".).
"Capitol offenses"? Would that be graffiti in the Rotunda, perhaps?
Anyway, you're wrong. All criminal offenses are covered... essentially, anything that can deprive someone of all or part of their life... "jeopardy of life or limb;". We're not primitive savages who chop off hands and such, like some *cougharabcough* "cultures" I could name, and never have been, so the "limb" part never made much sense to me, except as part of an expression "life or limb", interpreted as I do above.
Of course, I feel for the poor fool who gets in some big company's crosshairs and gets sued and wins over an over until he can't afford a lawyer any more an loses.
...that he is so often portrayed to be. Just recently, I picked up this in a news forum. Read for yourself, but basically Jon bashed Linux and hence most certainly did NOT want to watch DVDs on his Linux box
...) still sort of demands attention...
Now while I was not able to verify whether or not these accusations hold true, he would not really deserve much pity and support if it was.
But of course - the basic idea behind this trial (circumvention, CSS, MPAA's politics and monopoly,
I am not norweigan but swedish and we have the same law system.
First, make no mistake: We are not the barbars you think any longer... =)
But our justice system is OLD - we invented this under the viking age. So our justice system has a long tradition.
Second - our courts are NOT run by jurys. We don't use jurys. The only case a nordic court uses a jury is in cases agins the press. In my opinion this makes our court better than the angloxacian system. That we don't use a jury don't mean that the people don't have a voice since we use a different system - we have selected officials that sits in. These guys are selected by the local politicians. The benifit is that they are actually willing to serve.
In the swedish lowest court there is one judge and (if I remember this correct) three officials. A judge has two votes. Anyway, the point is that the judge can be voted over - the majority of the court rules. In the second court the judges have more votes since they are two and has two votes each. In the supreme court there is only judges.
Third - our prosecutor are not political selected. This mean that the state in a nordic country have a proffesinal workforce that don't have a political mind. We think this is very important since we don't want political motivated trials.
Forth - a prosecutor has to try a case when you break a criminal law.
Fifth - a prosecutor has to be sure to win a case to try it (we don't want unmotivated trials). This means that a case that the prosecutor don't think have enough evidence will not be tried at all.
Sixth - you can apeal any rulings of the first court. All parties can apeal. However, a prosecutor are not supposed to appeal if he don't have more evidence or if the court was divided in their decision (they usually appeal if the judge don't agree with the rest of the court).
Seventh - all apeals have to be made in a limited time.
Eigth - you can ONLY apeal to higher courts.
This means that any party can only appeal once since the supreme court don't have to take the case (they only take case that are important as a guide for the lower courts). As you se this mean that the state can't continue to apeal you until you die.
Ninth - the state pays your legal fees if you are facing criminal charges. In civil cases the losing party pays.
Tenth - the supreme court can rule that your trial have to be remade in the second court if new evidence has emerged that would make you free.
All this sums up to this:
If you win in the first court you will most probaly win in the second court. You can only be tried once for each crime.
The EU have approved our court system. Norway isn't a EU country but follows EU rules since they have an agreement with EU.
You can appeal to a higher court two times. Put simply, at first you are tried before a lower court (lagmannsrett). If the sentence is appealed, you are tried before a higher court (tingrett) (a "middle court", so to speak). If the sentence is appealed, you are tried before the High court (Høyesterett). Now, it's not uncommon that an appeal will be accepted the first time, but very few appeals to the High court is accepted.
IMHO, your loss. In general, you are better off in a criminal trial in the US than in most of the world,
I don't think so. Settlements of trials are too common. Say, you're not guilty. AG offers you to confess and you'll get only three years. You deny, since you're not guilty. Now, you are considered a nuisance, may be found guilty after all, and then your refusal is often actually taken into account when considering your punishment. Trial settlements are just blackmail in the US.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Since I'm Norwegian, I'll give a brief description of the courts andf practices.
DISCLAMER: I'm an engineer damn it, not a lawyer!
In the lower court, that aquitted Jon, there is no jury. In civil, and criminal cases with a maximum prison sentence of six years, as this was, there is only one judge.
The judges writes a written argument, the judgement, where the judge argues the evidence, the law, and come to a conclusion (the judgement).
However, the court may appount co-judges when there are complex issues involved. The co-judges are not from the legal profession, but from the profession the case deal with. In this case there were two co-judges, one engineer, and a university lecturere.
Since there is a legal argument, the argument can be argued, which is be definition an appeal.
I'm not sure on the practices on appeals, but it seem that appeals are pretty automatic.
In the second court, there is a jury that decides guilty/not guilty, but I belive that is only in th e case if there is a maximum sentence of 6 years. Else there is a panel of three judges.
The jury, with is 10, not 12 peers, do not have to be unanimous, a majority of 6 is sufficient.
Jury judgements are just yes/no as in the US, and the supreme court don't overrule jurys on the ground that they don't know the jurys reasoning.
In Jon's case there seem to be a panel of 3 with whatever co-judges they assign.
It should be noted that Norway, along with many many other countires do not hace the brittish/US consept of common law. Under common law, court rulings become law, and if there is an earlier ruling in a identical/similar case, a the court must rule the same. Thats why US lawyers study past cases to the extreme, and quotes them al the time.
Under norwegian law, if there is an identical case, the court may rule whatever way it desides. THe lawyers may argue prior rulings, but they are just arguments, not law as in the US.
Oh, don't go confusing him with facts! That'll just ruin the entire tone of the debate...
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Here, sir, you are terribly wrong. Death penalty has had no real support for over a half century in the majority of European countries (i.e. any of the EU members and alike). Otherwise any of the populist governments elected during that time had brought it back ages ago. Death penalty is generally deemed passe. Vulgar. Barbarian. Just as uncivilised and backward as the mutilating of petty thieves in Arab countries.
(And how telling is it that only two "Western" nations, both with a very spotty human rights record, have it implemented anymore.)
______________
OTTERS RULE.
Maybe I haven't got my troll filter switched on today, but.. umm... you can't be tried for the *same* crime twice, not a disparate crime. If you kill a different person, then I'm guessing you'll be brought up on said charges. However, it is possible to bring other charges against the person for the same crime, as this doesn't violate double jeopardy. I don't know if people get the idea of this rule, but say you're acquitted of a murder, and the Police/CPS/US legal system want to prosecute the case again. Your fundamental right under the Human Rights Act is to be innocent until proven guilty. You would be hauled back into court because the Police are absolutely *sure* you did it. As this court ruling is already public, it's going to be pretty much assumed you're guilty as hell.
&lawyers($instruction);
I think you are demonstrating seriously poor judgement here. The "double jeopardy" term is a US legal implementation that is designed to protect US citizens from being harassed by the government. It is how the US has chosen to solve this problem.
European legal systems also have mechanisms to protect the individual from being harassed. Each country will have a different legal process and thus they will need different mechanisms to protect their citizens from harassment. The Norwegian system has such protection but it is not the same as double jeopardy in the US.
Just because something is different does not mean that it is less or more.
Bush is holding US and non-US citizens imprisoned without trial and conviction. In most countries that we like to compare ourselves with this is considered a breach of their human rights. That many people are critical of this practice is only fair and right.
Now this is flamebait +1. ;).
At least you can do it in Finland. Sometimes lowest court level cases have unfair / semi-illegal resolutions. Mid-level court decisions are very rarely so. If you're suing the county, the county court might be a little bit biased. Ditto if the county sues you!
Problem with the system is that just about everyone appeals to a higher court. Prosecution is unhappy with too easy sentences, defense with too harsh ones. Defendants are unhappy if they don't get not guilty with legal fees covered. And so on.
Movie "pirates" don't need Jon's code. Come to my country and go ask a few.
They just stamp out exact copies of originals. Why bother wasting CPU decrypting, when you can just stamp out copies pit for pit?
They could also play the original on a standard player and make copies of the stream.
DeCSS aids Linux/*BSD users MORE than it aids pirates. There weren't DVD players for Linux.
If something has greater legitimate use than illegitimate use it's wrong to ban it, especially when the illegitimate use doesn't cause harm to life or limb. Heck it's just copying which the MPAA don't like.
And that sort of copying in fact is allowed in some countries.
It's that simple. A higher court (there are only three levels including the Supreme court) can overrule any lower court. Not very unlike how you can be prosecuted at state and federal level in the US, I'd say.
Personally, I'm rather surprised they didn't appeal directly to the Supreme court over the legal interpretation. Based on the same legal interpretation as the current court, I don't see how an appeal could give any other result.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, in the EU, the E-Commerice directive specifically allows reverse engineering for the purpose of achieving interoperability with systems or for bug fixing.
Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj
Very similar here in the UK, although the lower court can refuse the plaintiffs right to appeal to a higher court. This is unusual and only done when the evidence against the plaintiffs is overwhelming.
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)
It's being scrapped in the UK. The government is planning to allow retrials if sufficient new evidence can be gathered, although it seems open to abuse.
It's quite easy to foresee people being dragged back in front of the courts every time the police or press decide to renew a case that had been previously acquitted. I can't see how it could work in a jury system - if you know someone has been tried once and now they're back, the jury is naturally going to be thinking that there is something in the case.
I know juries are told to disregard anything that isn't presented in the case, but they are only human. How do you ignore screaming headlines?
Still the announcement was popular with the 'The Sun' and 'The Daily Mail' and we know that's all that matters to the government.
Civil liberties can go to hell just as long as no one writes anything nasty about My Little Tony.
Best wishes,
Mike.
So as not to alienate our Norwegian friends, here's a couple of items for the plus column:
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Actually I think the USA likes Israel because the American politicians are terrified of being branded anti-semitic by the jewish lobby, thus causing them to loose their seats in the senate or whatever. America still suffers from this national guilt complex for not stepping in against Hitler sooner to prevent the haulocaust. All Israel has to do to get whatever assistance it requires is indulge in a little emotional/political blackmail. Why do you think no US administration has been able to effectively slap down on Israel for using F16's, Apaches etc against unarmed women and children?
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
>>In general, the provisions of the constitution apply to all people
>>(persons) under the jurisdiction of the United States, whether they
>>be citizens or not.
Except of course for "enemy combatants". Which seems to be pretty much whoever the hell the Bush administration decides is one. Don't that just make you feel all warm and squooshy?
Winning is beside the point - redo it until you get a fair trial with no major procedural errors. So long as you can't say the trial was fair and there were no major errors from the bench, no one really "won" and it deserves to be thrown out. If it was a fair trial and there were no errors, feel free to appeal your loss, but you'll lose on appeal and that'll be it.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Here you can find translations of most countrie's copyright laws:
http://www.unesco.org/culture/copy/
You've never heard of a "screener", have you?
Free Hans!
Are you actually convinced there are more people engaging in Fair Use than there are kiddiez downloading unauthorized rips? Wow, welcome to the land of make believe!
Free Hans!
Norway isn't a huge country, but surely there must be more than one person in it who has messed with DVD security. Poor Jon seems like a scapegoat for misplaced bureaucratic zeal. It would be interesting if the underground press in Norway could find others who hack DVDs, and sample their state of mind right now. I wonder if there are hundreds (or at least dozens) of Jons biting their fingernails over this.
Are you actually convinced there are more people engaging in Fair Use than there are kiddiez downloading unauthorized rips?
First, you're still being imprecise. You should be comparing the number of people engaging in Fair Use with the number of people *making* unauthorized rips for illegal distribution, not with the number of people downloading them. Otherwise you're comparing one group of people who are using a DeCSS descendant with a bunch of other people who are not using it, and how is that meaningful?
Second, do you have any evidence that there aren't more legitimate users than infringers? I'm not "convinced" one way or the other, since I have no data. Do you?
Keep in mind that *every* person who watches DVDs on a Linux, *BSD, BeOS, etc. box and even some people who watch them on Windows, MacOS and OSX use a DeCSS relative to do it. Obviously, the first set are minority platforms, but it only takes a few illegal rippers to populate the file-sharing systems (particularly since not all of the available movies were ripped), so you're comparing the sizes of two small groups.
Regardless, even if it is true that the majority of usage is infringing, that doesn't eliminate the fact that a substantial amount is not. And it also doesn't address the fact that watching DVDs on Linux was, in fact, Jon Johansen's original goal with creating it.
Finally, you didn't explain why DeCSS is bad but VCRs are okay.
Until you can rationally address all of these points, you're just spouting thoughtless, irrelevant drivel.
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Oh, now you've done it. I was just joking around on the last board where I hoped I could just joke around and not got embroiled in the same old controversies.
If the US lived up to its constitution, double jeorpardy is the perfect solution to capricious governments picking on a people. However, we are now a nation where the constitution is a document whose pieces are defended by only particular parties, and no party defends them all. Democrats are big into the 1st amendment, while Republicans are into the 2nd. And, both parties forget that the Bill of Rights was NEVER intended to be an enumeration of the only rights we have.
Sigh.
I have no idea what we should do with the Taliban POWs at Guantomino. I guess at some point they should be repatriated by the Afghan government.
My healthy distrust of any centralized power makes it impossible for me to condone the holding of American citizens or American nationals without trial. If they did something wrong, try them. If not, let them go. Just because a president of my own political party got elected does make his abuses of federal power any more right than when democrats do it.
If anything, Bush is a walking, talking argument for the power of the federal government needing to be checked. He has become everything that right wingers accused the liberals of plotting to do. I think I'm the only assault rifle toting right wing lunatic that things that Bush is a total prick.
Oh well. Maybe it's too much C++ on native Win32.
This is my sig.
And since you're making silly demands about things like VCR analogies (one notch below car analogies on the all-time stupidest computer argument fallacies list), how about you prove there is even one person who uses Linux to watch DVDs.
Free Hans!
Talk about clutching at straws. I could post a screenshot of my desktop with a DVD playing, but it's not worth the effort. After all, you've yet to prove your point.
People who download rips count, too. There would be no rips if it weren't for DeCSS.
I already disproved that erroneous assumption. Care to try again?
how about you prove there is even one person who uses Linux to watch DVDs.
I do. Judging from the number of software DVD players for Linux, there must be another person or two out there as well.
If you're going to hold up your trollish end of this conversation, you need some new fallacies.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You think your pathetic handwaving counts as "proof"? Wow, you're even more delusional than I thought. Well, you just keep on telling yourself that DeCSS isn't primarily used for stealing shit. You might as well still believe in Santa Claus.
Free Hans!
You think your pathetic handwaving counts as "proof"?
What handwaving? You claimed that all the illegal stuff on P2P was all placed there by DeCSS users. I pointed out that movies hit the P2P networks before they're even in theaters, much less available on DVD for ripping.
That, my fuzzy-headed friend, is known as disproof by counter-example.
Well, you just keep on telling yourself that DeCSS isn't primarily used for stealing shit.
Your thinking is getting fuzzier by the day. I never said it wasn't primarily used for infringement (not stealing, but I'll assume you meant infringement). What I said was: (a) there are legitimate uses and legitimate users, (b) the original intent was to facilitate legitimate use, (c) I have no data on whether or not DeCSS and its children are, in fact, used more often for infringement or for Fair Use and (d) neither do you.
You might as well still believe in Santa Claus.
Can't come up with any arguments, huh?
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