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Johansen Prosecutors Appeal
kmitnick writes "Jon Johansen will be back in court, tried again in an appeals court, because Hollywood knows better than the Norwegian legal system." Norway's legal system is different than the U.S.; the government can appeal a loss in a criminal case.
The Motion Picture Association of America, representing major Hollywood studios like Walt Disney Co., Universal Studios and Warner Bros, filed the complaint against Johansen at Norway's Economic Crime Unit.
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales.
When are the MPAA and the RIAA going to realize that while they may be losing money, is isn't close to that magnitude?
Even if we couldn't download the movies and music, we wouldn't be buying the CDs or DVDs in those numbers. Out of every 100 albums or movies you download (the general "you"), how many would you have bought if you couldn't download them? 10? 5? 1? If it's only 1, or 1% of the movies you download, then that $3.0 billion figure is only $30 million. Which is pennies in a multi-billion dollar industry.
It's amazing how the game isn't "How much money are we losing," but rather "How much money would we have lost in this incredibly unrealistic circumstance?"
The situation that made the double jeopardy clause seem so important to the framers of the US Constitution was that oppressive governments can and do repeatedly prosecute people until they reach the verdict they wanted. Because the government has unlimited resources to accomplish this, compared to those of any defendant, the situation is fundamentally unfair. But what's important to know about doctrines against double jeopardy is that they are not written into government documents just because some wise pre-industrial politician thought it would be a good idea, but because they were already absolutely sick and tired of seeing the exact same means of oppression being used against them. It was an issue that people were willing to kill or die over, and not some absract ideal that would be nice to have.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Norway's legal system is different than the U.S.
But protection from double jeopardy is still part of Norwegian law. Read the article to see why this occuring. Before any Merikins start pontificating about our venerated and very good, but also deeply flawed legal system, remember that you can be tried twice for the same charge in the States as well. Hung juries, witness tampering, lawyer misconduct etc. cause subsequent trials to occur. I don't know the statistics on how many 2nd and third trials result in acquittal, but a egg rots when left out in the sun. It is best to not face a jury too often.
If you are acquitted of a crime and subsequently admit that "yes" you actually did it, you can be hauled in for perjury if you attested in court that you did not do it (read this: never testify on your own behalf), and believe you me, if an Attorney General can figure a way to hang a Federal charge on you for the same crime or an attendant one, they will. Sure this isn't exactly the same as double jeopardy, but if you piss off the right/wrong prosecutor, they will get you no matter what. And you will be put on the hardest bitch cellblock in whatever state you live in. All prosecutors have to do to people is threaten them with "Brushy Mountain" here in Tennessee and people fold like lawnchairs. The very protocol for picking prosecutors requires that they keep their hearts in jars buried under fencepost on an uncle's farm. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. Criminals need to be pursued and convicted.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
It's amazingly disappointing to see governments, previously mandated towards protecting the people, instead going out of their way towards protecting potential profits of major corporations.
The losses screamed about under the dark moniker of piracy are merely missed opportunities for revenue. Are profits down? Yes, but they're still profits, not losses. And just because they're down, Hollywood studios and recording companies think they can enlist the powers-that-be to get them back up.
And sadly, they're right.
Because allowing prosecutors to appeal gives the government a way to harass opponents with years of trials and the massive legal fees associated with said trials. Some governments might even keep a defendent imprisoned until appeals are exhausted.
Look at this BS:
Norwegian Teenager to Face Retrial for Film Piracy
Calling what Jon did "piracy" is a bit of a stretch isn't it? He wrote a program that reads the format of DVDs. Amazing that a news organization would use this expression.
acquitted by an Oslo court in January of charges of theft
No shit! Since there was no "theft", not even Mickey-Mouse Monopoly Money Copyright "theft"!
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales.
What does this have to do with Jon? How much did Jon lose from this stupid case, which has nothing to do with the MPAA's imaginary loses?
Johansen has become a symbol for hackers worldwide who say making software such as his -- called DeCSS -- is an act of intellectual freedom rather than theft.
Uh, hello, WRITING SOFTWARE is an act of creation, not of theft. Can't these people read the illogical statements they write?
There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act.
What, you mean Norway doesn't have copyright law? Yeah right. Laws like the DMCA don't protect *content* they protect *access methods* which "protect" content. They are "paracopyright" laws like one author has written.
I wish they would write the story and tell the truth: DVD-Jon wrote a program that lets you load DVDs into your computer. THAT'S ALL.
The evolution of Piracy:
What's next on the list I wonder?? Piracy == the crime of not preventing copyright infringement when you see it happening. Or maybe Piracy == not buying the latest Britnee CD.
FUCK I can't wait for this copyright nonesense to sort itself out.
So the firmly rooted conviction among many Americans that their system gives better protection to the accused ... seems very misguided
The problem isn't the protection not given to the accused, but the fact that we have made the most trivial of unsocial acts into felonies. Take the narcotics offenders, prostitutes, check kiters, etc, out of prison and we'll be on parity with most of Europe. We do have a problem here, but it has to do with the laws and the enforcement of laws, and not the legal system itself.
So why do we have this problem? Just take a look at Slashdot. How many times have you seen a Slashdot poster suggest that justice is corrupted because Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are not in prison? Have you ever secretly wished that? Yet they have not committed any felonies (check the laws, they haven't). There are some here that would wish every officer of every corporation, as well as every proprietary software developer, to be sent to jail. This kind of attitude is dangerous, and it isn't limited to the US.
If I were to hazard a guess as to why this attitude is more of a problem in the US than in Europe, I would say it's because of the US two party "winner takes all" system, which encourages pandering to the whim of the public. Most most European nations have parliamentary systems where the winners must share the "spoils" of power.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned