Slashdot Mirror
Jon Johansen To Be Retried On Piracy Charges
cecil36 writes "Yahoo has the scoop on 'DVD Jon's' latest trial regarding DeCSS being used as a piracy tool. The article claims that Hollywood is losing $3 billion a year due to piracy *yawn*, but Johansen's lawyer believes the acquittal from the previous trial may be enough for him to win the case. The case is set to go again on December 2nd this year. What are the prospects of Johansen winning a second time?"
Just set the evil bit for any content decoded by DeCSS.
As he is brought up for the second time on more or less the same criminal charges: doesn't Norway have a 'ne bis in idem'-rule, which prevents people from being tried for the same crime twice?
Usually if a person has to have a 2nd trial then its usually better for the defense.
beating a dead horse. The RIAA and their possie have enormous patience and wallets. If they don't get what they want this year then they'll do it again next year and so on.
I bet they loose a lot more from making bad movies.
internet like monkeys'
DeCSS is a terrorist tool and should be stopped. We cannot allow people to terrorize the MPAA members (who are all poor and starving) like this.
Go get em PATRIOT act, watching Men In Black II without paying for it or ever having intention of paying for it in the first place is a serious crime. (to yourself! ever SEEN that POS?)
That's a great concept! The idea that he can use what he bought in a fair manner.... this is an interesting concept, one that we should try here in the US! Since he's using it in a manner that is fair to him, we should call it the fair use act! Imagine the possibilities!
Shit, its the second. Couldn't this have been posted yesterday? Next thing you know, Dimitri Will be back in the slammer and kevin will be ... well, getting slammed.
"kids -- 30 seconds of joy, 30 years of suffering" -- this kid wrote a few pages worth of code years ago when he was 16. And since then his life has been spent enduring lawsuits by huge industry firms from another country. but that won't keep me from trying to create beauty with code.
Why not go after the ones distributing the illegal media, instead of someone who just made a tool inteded for legal use...?? Its like suing knife makers for being the cause of murders!
Since 9/11 there seems to be a growing desire by governments to abolish double jeopardy - the idea that you cannot be tried twice for the same offense. One way around it is that many countries now have so many statutes that one action can be held to break several different laws - so they can try one thing and then if it doesn't work, try another until they get you. We possibly shouldn't be surprised that Norway is one of them: underneath the clean and friendly image, Scandinavian states have a history of social control, significant right-wing politics, and social repression of dissident groups. Just like us, in fact.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
and pin it on the RIAA. the life of one teen sacrificed to allow encrypted movies to be copied ...
.... even *WITHOUT* DeCSS one can copy DVDs trvially .... so WTF is the RIAA on about again exactly,
Err wait
No, it is the same case pushed to a higher level of the court.
Who cares if Hollywood is losing $3 Billion a year due to piracy. What about the fact that African Americans are owed trillions of dollars for unpaid wages due to slavery, false imprisonment, and joblessness. Payment may include all of the following: land, equipment, factories, licenses, banks, ships, airplanes, various forms of tax relief, education & training, to name a few.
REPARATIONS NOW!
Assalam Alaikum
If I was that guy I would feel like I was in the middle ages and I was suspected of being to towns biggest/baddest witch! Cuase this sounds like an ordinary witch hunt to me. Hollywood wants his head...
What's the Norwegian for, "Amicus Curiae?"
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
How about ex post facto applying for this case. If the ruling body had made the law that they want to try Jon under _after_ DeCSS was written, it stands to reason that the law should not be able to apply to him.
Well, IANAL, (definitely IANANL), but IWLOF (I Watch Law and Order Frequently).
Have a look at the way the Norwegian justice system works before you make this kind of comment. The initial trial was in a lower court, both prosecution and defendants may appeal to a higher court.
You may not like it, but this is the way the Norwegian systems works, and has worked for a long time.
So "DVD Jon" is being charged with creating software which allowed the copying of DVD's. So why aren't the people who created VCR's being charged as they allow copying of films as well. Ok so I will say that yes I'm sure this makes pirating a bit easier but if you've ever looked a DeCSS it just providers a framwork that 99.9% of people couldn't use. It wasn't until people starting writing GUI/CLI DVD rippers that it became possible. Should they go after them?
All in all hes been proven innocent once and will be again
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
This could go two ways, and both for the same reason. On the one hand he could have an easier time, seeing as the EU is a bit miffed at the US at the moment. On the other hand, that could be reason to screw Jon, just to show the US a little goodwill.
And even though I'm glad Jon did what he did and defends himself, I'd still not want to be in his shoes.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
One thing to keep in mind is that when one is prosecuting a case, either in criminal terms or as a plaintiff, there are usually multiple angles to take when building one's argument. If the prosecutor chooses a different angle of attack in this new trial, it might bring new points that weren't stressed in the previous trial, which gives the defense more challenge in defending. Granted, in theory the bulk of available information should have been put forth in the previous trial, but information or points that the prosecution might have thought unnecessary could be brought to light. In the United States, the prosecution has to outline and show their case on paper before they can even begin to argue it in court, and the defense has to receive all that information, on witnesses and what they're probably going to say, on evidence, etc. I don't know if this is required in Norway or not. If it isn't, and if there are new bits and pieces of information that weren't used before, this could be a very bumpy road for the defense.
It's a damn shame that there isn't a practical way to force the hand of the prosecution. Between his age at the time he wrote DeCSS, the fact that he's already been acquited once, and the fact that this is a completely nonviolent offense that he has been accused of, I'd imagine that Norway's court would have a lot more important, and more success-likely cases to prosecute. Cases like murder, rape, even theft that are pushed back because of the state appeal of a case they already lost against a minor who simply wanted to use his computer as the new-age equivalent of a VCR, and enable others to do the same.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I don't think that Hollywood and the movie studios care so much about the outcome of the trial as long as the process is scaring the shit out of other potential code writers.
The goal of the process is not "justice" (Whatever that word means in the US of A) but to make an example out of John. "Hey, if you mess with us we will keep you tied up in legal problems for 10 years, guilty or not!"
The whole thing isn't exactly giving a good image of the USA as the "land of the free and brave" but rather something like the "rich and blinded by power".
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
This is funny. Then again you are probably rolling around on your jizz stained floor at the "evil bit" joke.
What does he expect. If you go sailing around the carribean, stealing gold from the spaniards while waving a cutlass and crying "shiver me timbers", you can expect the authorities to try you on piracy charges. The sooner we send this scourge of the seaways to Davy Jones' locker, the better. Hang him from the yard arm, I say!
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
This is just some bizarre, perverse way of dismissing the charge, or a prosecution following a well-known doomed route just to piss him off. Instead of just dismissing the charges, they retry the defendant for the same thing, just so the first day of the trial, the defense lawyer can call SHENANIGANS on the prosecution.
There would be a greater chance of slashdot having a 'ne postus in idem' rule.
1) Smith&Wesson, Colt, Heckler&Koch all have products that enable, for example, car-jacking, armed robbery and murder.
2) GM, Ford have products that enable many people to commit actual crimes and subsequently escape into other jurisdictions.
3) Numerous beer, wine and liquor manufacturers have products that cause many deaths, often when combined with items 1 & 2 listed above.
Call it flamebait, or troll if you like, I don't care. No, the above don't relate to the DMCA - so what? They're just as ridiculous as retrying someone who was acquitted, and that's all my examples are intended to show.
Jon was acquitted - what on earth could the MPAA produce as evidence that wasn't produced last time around? Not much, I suspect. If a firearms manufacturer can say "we just produce guns, we don't kill people with them" and get away with it, why can't Jon say "I'm legally watching DVDs I already own" and be safe from this modern Inquisition? I sincerely hope that the Norwegian courts are able to hand off Jon's defence expenses to the MPAA. If not, he should be considering suing the MPAA for libel, slander, defamation of character, loss of earnings, etc.
This post is a comment on the stupidity of the DMCA and the MPAA and has nothing to do the Gulf War or gun control. (In case you're interested, I firmly believe that gun control means hitting your intended target first time, not squeezing off a few rounds and calling whatever you hit the target...)
The problem with hollywood's "we're losing 3 billion annually" numbers is that they are taking an estimated number of copies made each year at a price of FREE and multiplying it by the price they charge for DVDs. If they took an economics course they would realize that the demand for a movie is very elastic, meaning as the price goes up the number of movies purchased goes down. At a price of essentially zero the demand for every movie is HUGE, thus there are hundreds of thousands of downloads. If it actually cost the retail price of the DVD to download the movie then downloads would significantly drop. To find the actual amount that downloading DVDs costs hollywood you have to shift the demand curve along the supply curve until you hit the price of the retail DVDs and then you have the real number of lost DVD sales, which would be significantly less than 3 billion dollars a year because the demand for DVDs is most likely very elastic (help me out here any of you people who actually have an economics degree, what do you think the actual cost to Hollywood is? Is the demand elastic?)
...and if Norway was a member of the EU your flawed reasoning might actually not hold then either...
Depends on whether Norwegians stick to the law or turn quisling instead.
Frivilous lawsuits like this are running up costs for the Norwegians. I hope the Norwegian government has been billing RIAA and cohorts for Jon's legal costs.
Otherwise it will be death by a thousand cuts as the RIAA, Spanish fishing, and British and U.S. oil interests all DDOS the Norwegian national budget and legal system.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Try to get it right just once please: this not double jeopardy, it is simply appeal.
Do you remember how the prosecution appealed in the Microsoft case? This is like that: the prosecution is appealing in this case as well.
Appeal is not the same as double jeopardy. It is a legitimate part of the legal process.
that you could torture Slashdot moderators like Saddam Hussein tortures underperforming soccer players.
This is something I have often wondered myself. The MPAA fights DeCSS so aggressively that they succeed in getting people shut down for putting the code on T-Shirts, yet nice and user friendly programs like DVD Decrypter just seem to be left alone.
Can anyone explain this logic to me?
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
This event could have substantial consequences for all those involved and all those in this industry. I have experience with said individual and everything you have heard about him is true. However, I have also been blessed with the opportunity to work with said technology and I can tell you that it will live up to it's potential. Moving forward, it's time that we start thinking outside the box and work towards a greater synergy.
I bet there won't ever be a movie released about "The DVD Jon Trials"... At least not on DVD.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Speaking of VCRs and such... What, if anything, in any of these copy-protection schemes prevents copying by digitizing the analog output?
I wonder if hollywood will try to sue PigDog for using the trademark'd name "DeCSS". I mean, they are suing for it, why not take advantage of it? Go get em guys!
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
'Prosecutors in January lodged an appeal, objecting to the application of the law and the presentation of evidence. '
If they object to the law, shouldn't that be debated by government reps? I don't think a judge has the authority to ignore the law.
Objection of evidence presentation should have been done at the time the evidence was introduced, shouldn't it? Just because your legal team didn't think of a 'snappy comeback' at the appropriate time isn't a reason for a 'do-over' (IMHO).
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Scientology remembers anon.penet.fi
- Right wing politics
- Repression of dissident groups
Im shooting for April 10th. Ill have every theater in Las Vegas covered.
http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/18
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
"What stops analog copying?"
...the region codes supposedly stop that from happening, given that most of the large scale piracy actually occurs in China, and no one would ever think to bring a Region 1 or a region-free DVD player into China, and none of those DVD's could ever make it back to the U.S., right?
In theory, your DVD player adds MacroVision(tm) to the signal.
But MPAA really do not care about analog redistribution, per se, because it's not an issue for them: it doesn't scale to 10,000 copies very easily, like dumping a DeCSS'ed data stream onto Internet II.
What they are more worried about is digital duplication of perfect copies over communications networks, both todays, and those just over the horizon.
At some point, the DVD-R/DVD-RW technology will get to where it can make a verbatim copy of a still-protected DVD, and the game will be up for them, since people will just copy verbatim images of the CSS'ed DVD's themselves.
In fact, you could just send the raw DVD data over a network to a remote site *now*, and burn a copy, and to heck with the idea of CSS anyway: a bit-for-bit copy is identical: let your DVD player DeCSS the contents for you with legal chips.
Then
-- Terry
The article claims that Hollywood is losing $3 billion a year due to piracy
br> Ok, so where do they come up with this number? I don't buy videos, except perhaps previously viewed (i.e. no new sale) And a movie I see on a computer screen thats worth watching I will probably want to see in the theatre. Where do they come up with this statistic, and what do they expect if they win? The kid to pay out 3 Billion a year? politics bores me
ahh forget it,... I thought about saying something usefull, but with all the fucking flame wars on here recently it seems it would only be read by a bunch of freaks anyway.
Can he sue for malicous use of the legal system?
I know this isn't the United States and I'm not famlure with the legal system where he is.
But here if you can show the suing party is pushing this for non-legal issues you can sue back.
It's such a flimsy thing here so I'm not even sure it's done elsewhere.
I don't actually exist.
This trail is a waste of my tax money.
Øko.Krim (norwegian goverment police agency for envierment, computer and economic crimes) is wasting our norwegian tax money on a dead case.
They are simple pushovers of the american movie industry.
The case it self was collord by a prosecuter with no basis of the case or computer technology.
Prosecuter Inger Marie Sunde from økkrim has many statements in norwegian press about computertechnology that is redicules. such as anonomus mail is to be prohibidet. How is that to be fullfilled.
"hey is this hotmail? yes this is Inger Marie Sunde. I just called to tell you that you cant have norwegian users."
the worst thing is. jon just programed the gui.
so why is this case in norway and not i germany where the code is cracked?
1) ???
2) Start war with Iraq
3) Profit!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
First, even IF he gets convicted, the case will have absolutely no bearing on any federal or state law in the United States. No court in this country will recognize Norwegian law.
Second, though I know little about the Norwegian court system, an appeal usually focuses primarily on whether or not the law was correctly applied in the previous case. If that's how things work over there, there's a good chance the ruling will uphold the judgment of the lower court.
Third, if my experiences in US Courts are any guide, foreign companies/corporations/groups tend not to fare so well against a local defendant.
I might be totally wrong about those last two points, but I hope everyone in the US doesn't freak out too much. It's not going to have any bearing on what happens here. And beside the point, the genie (DeCSS) is already out of the bottle. They're just trying to frighten people out of using it.
IAAL
The article claims that Hollywood is losing $3 billion.
Didn't we just have a story here not to long ago that said that DVD movie sales where way up?
It seems like some kind of BS to me. Who in there right mind would download entire movies over the web? I don't see DVD's in all thse warez sites and I also don't see ads to buy these pirated DVD's, It's a bunch of BS
See the irony, try to stop one system from viewing movies and potentually let the cat out of the beg.
Good system too, 16 year old kid cracks it. Must have been invented by microsoft.
If any one is at fault it's the idiots who used such a weak system.
If there are pirate copies there probibly coming right from the factories.
I hope he wins. This has been a stupid trial from the start inforcing and even stupider law.
Re-trial? How about I give you the finger and you give me my fscking phonecall?
Again, it is the Norwegian government, not the MPAA, which will be presenting evidence, and they need no new evidence for an appeal. RTFA.
Firearms manufacturers haven't been able to to use that defense reliably in the US, let alone Norway.
come under the jurisdiction of the DMCA?
You just don't get it do you (Corporate and Political) America? You want reasons why everyone (else) hates your guts? This is a great example. Wake up!!
Gah!
Whilst I'm aware of a few programs that use DeCSS for copying DVDs to formats such as DivX, removing the CSS, what if DeCSS was used legitimitely in a piece of software such as a DVD player that contained a binary form of the decoder and was not capable of pirating DVDs? I pose this question because I am currently developing a small Linux distro and there are some really good pieces of software around that allow the playback of DVD. I would like to include such software, but not at the expense of a court battle.
What deems DeCSS illegal (in terms of the MPAA)? If I were to (for example) compile Xine , Mplayer or Ogle with DeCSS support compiled into the programs by means of a static version of the library, the program will still play DVDs as normal, but the DeCSS code could not be used for anything else on the system because the library does not have to exist on the computer, besides inside the player itself. In doing this, am I breaking the law, or at risk of having the MPAA onto me?
The big nonsense in the RIAA/MPAA argumentation is that the figures how much money was allegedly lost are utterly fictuous, and I would hope that the courts won't be dazzled by them. These numbers would be reliable if all the pirates had bought the stuff to begin with, which isn't so for obvious reasons. On the other hand the "loss" is at least partially compensated by those people who sucked MP3s and videos over the net and weren't too happy with the quality, and bought the real product. I for one tried to pull some King Crimson stuff from the net longer ago, and I was totally frustrated by the quality (I really wonder what crappy MP3 encoders people use) and by the lack of some interesting tracks. I ended up buying the entire collection, which I never had if I hadn't had the teasers.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
I think you are missing some things. Teh MPAA is not going after him again, the prosecution is. In Norway, like the US, a company doesn't prosecute anything, the government does. From what I have been told, in Norway if either the defense or presecution does not accept the ruling they can appeal it to a higher court. It then gets retried. That court is then the final word on things.
so its not a matter of the MPAA wanting to present new evidence, it's a matter of the prosecution ebing mad they lost, and wanting to take it to a higher court.
Again, US law doesn't apply here, they do things differently in other countries.
No firearm is an "obviously offensive weapons" any more than a SUV is an "obvioulsy offensive vehicle". Both are just objects. Both can be used to kill. Both can be modified to be more efficent at killing.
And SUVs are used to kill *far* more people each year than guns are.
But we're talking about knives...YOU aren't a professional chef with a license. So you don't need anything sharper than, say, a plastic spoon.
When's the last time you had to skin a bear? See, ya don't need one. You can buy rope at the length you need, or use safety-scissors.Knives are used to cut objects including people.
In almost any modern society (processed meats, cheese, etc) You don't need one.
Consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the MPAA claiming that prices of retail DVDs are inflated due to repeated frivolous lawsuits and the expense of lobbying to Congress. The MPAA responded, saying that the lawsuit is ``absurd,'' and that they will be filing a counter-suit shortly.
Meanwhile, Congress is expected to vote on a federal sales tax bill in which will collect a 10% sales tax on all goods capable of storing digital information. If passed, the money raised from this Act -- an estimated $3 billion anually -- will be used to prop up the floundering movie industry.
Why don't the MPAA go after (for example) the authors of SmartRipper? It's been used to rip FAR more movies than DeCSS.
OK.Jon Johansen made the GUI + some subsystem to break the CSS DVD encryption. Mind you, he got these codes from a German fellow, he did not get the codes himself.
In current Norwegian copyright law, you are entitled to make a copy of a copyrighted work for personal use (Åndsverkloven 12, 1st section. This does not apply to computer programs or databases.). Jons program does not facilitate the copying of the DVD, just the reading the contents. He also argued that DeCSS could be used for making backups of the DVD.
Jon argues that he made DeCSS to view the contents of the DVD on this Linux computer. The prosecution argues that he mocks Linux and was a BSD-guy at the time of DeCSS. Anyway, the DeCSS program first appeared on Windows.
The prosecution wanted to nail Jon on the paragraph 145 of the Norwegian penal code. It says that (summary) "anyone gaining illegal access to locked data, also computer data can be punished with jail for a maximum of six months". Note the "illegal" part here. The judge ruled that Jon had only gained access with DeCSS to data HE had bought. It was his copy of the work in question so he had a right to access it. He did not distribute any illegal copies, and he did not gain unlawful access to the DVD although his program might be used for that.
Disclaimer: IAANLS (I am a Norwegian law student)
I don't have a standalone DVD player, but I have a CD-ROM drive that can read DVDs. So yesterday I decided that I should get it to work so that I could watch the few DVD's I would come across.
So I installed the DVD player software that came with the drive. I had 2 DVD movies that came bundled with different stuff, not movies I wanted to watch but good enough for testing.
First problem, they were different regions so I had to search the internet for a Firmware to the drive that wouldn't increment the region change counter. It works I think, but the DVD player program still counts down.
Next problem, the DVD player program won't let me play the movie because it is copy protected and I have TV-OUT enabled. WTF, Now I do not have it enabled but my plan was to use it and watch the DVDs on my TV. So I am forced to watch them on the PC or buy some software on the internet that can bypass this.
After spending a couple of hours, I decided that DVD's were not worth the hassle for me anyway, I don't need a standalone player for the one movie I want to see every month and playing it on the PC is too much of a problem.
I am left with the feeling that they really don't want me to play their DVD's and their copyprotection attemps only works on those, like me, who are not really into it, and don't care enough about it to spend days to gain knowledge on the subject. But putting these roadblocks in the way to cripple the technology has just killed my interest in the media.
my sig
The real issue seems to be control over the choice of viewing platform.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Basicly, this appeals court is reviewig his case based on the law as-is, i.e. the question of guilt. With the same interpretation of the law as last time, he should undoubtably win.
However, I'm certain the prosecution will appeal to the Supreme Court, because of the principal nature of the case. This court is deciding what the correct interpretation of the law is, which is ultimately what is in question here.
Personally, I think it works out pretty good. In the US the prosecution could make ten DMCA charges, and even if they'd get thrown out in the first court, but you'd still tie them up in court and there'd be no precedent set. Not appealing in a Norwegian court would basicly be admitting to having no case. And if they do appeal, they risk getting a precedent against them. Personally I think that's fine. The first meritful case goes up to the Supreme Court, not some posterchild case for either side.
I hope for the Supreme Court to reject the prosecutions appeal (on the ruling in this trial, which I assume DVD-Jon will win). That's about as much egg-on-face factor as you can get. And they deserve it. It's coming from the same group of geniuses that wanted to ban anonymous email.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Otherwise, since piracy = terrorism, the evil regime in Oslo would be supporting terrorism, and we'll soon have triggerhappy american soldiers on our doorstep coming to "liberate" us.
"What are the prospects of Johansen winning a second time?"
I'd say it's almost certain. The previous aquittal was crystal clear. I think they're appealing mainly to build some strong case law.
sudo ergo sum
Luckily Norway didn't invent the DMCA.
...money for nothing and the chicks for free (Dire Straits) :(
I don't get it, why is it necessary to get this kid into prison, while being unable to provide some products that need no work arounds.
Instead of being ashamed that a kid was able to crack their code they blame him. Interesting Times we live in
DOUBLE JEOPARDY - Being tried twice for the same offense; prohibited by the 5th Amendmentto the U.S. Constitution. '[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause protects against three distinct abuses: [1] a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; [2] a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and [3] multiple punishments for the same offense.' U.S. v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 440 (1989).
In this case, i'm glad i'm an American. I guess the Norwegians don't have this sort of protection.
-ted
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't buy them because I can't afford them anymore, I must use my money for food. Regardless of how wrong it might be if I get a pirate version of a movie, it couldn't bring a loss to Hollywood. I wish I had more money, because I would buy a crapload of DVDs then after all.
I dislike that they go after this supposed "loss" instead of simply saying "this is ours, if you want it, you have to pay for it". The same with music. When the music and movie business gets serious I will get serious as well.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I read stories about retrials after acquittals, it makes me REALLY glad the U.S. Constitution prohibits Double Jeopardy (and not the round in the television show either).
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
This is much like the bank drive to fingerprint non-account holders who want to cash a check drawn on the bank. (That is, I write you a check from my bank, Bank X. You have an account at Bank Y, but figure instead of depositing the check there you'll stop by a Bank X branch and cash it.) Anyone who complains is told that $837 quintillion is lost to check fraud each year. Never mind that the universe of check fraud is infinitely larger than people coming into a bank with a check from someone whose signature the bank has on file and being required to present ID to people who are trained to detect fakes.
The only acceptable evidence should be provable DeCSS'd DVD copies.
I may have no idea what I'm talking about. But even if this wasn't out there, does anyone really have that much more money to be buying dvd's? So where is this 3 billion dollars of lost income coming from? Most of my friends wouldn't be buying even if this wasn't available to them, they would just use their time for something else.
Piracy in Hollywood! Guys with cutlasses boarding studios, ah, under way....
Oh, wait a minute....
haha, i though someone had re-nicknamed him "piracy *yawn*", since that is how you pronounce jon in dutch, maybe the same in norsk?
I wonder how much Hollywood is losing by alienating their customers with their strong arm tactics and the loads of crap which they put out every year. They spend how much trying to ram the latest Adam Sandler or Rob Schnider (Derp-de-do!) movie down our throats? I'm so sick of their shit that I'm just passing on everything they put out. I've got better things I can do with my money and time.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
DeCSS isn't a piracy tool. It is a tool that can be used to watch DVDs on a computer that has DVD hardware but not licensed DVD software. It doesn't make piracy any more or less doable and most likely isn't involved in any large scale piracy operation.
DeCSS does mean that the license that companies pay for using the DVD decrypt doesn't have to be purchased at all. So that people that created and control the DVD encrypt/decrypt system might not have complete control of DVDs and might not get paid for every player sold.
When he finally wins his case?
"Jon, now that you have been cleared in Norway, where are you going to go?
I'm going to DISNEYWORLD!
Oh wait. uhhh.... maybe not."
I'll pretend you are really black, just for fun.
OK. Now prove YOU, not your great-great-great-great grandmother, but YOU, have incurred some economic loss for living in the US, as opposed to Ghana, Cameroon, or Guinea.
Once you do that, prove that YOU are a net payer and not a net receiver of the tax bill.
Once you do that, then, MAYBE, you have something.
The article claims that Hollywood is losing $3 billion a year due to piracy
No wonder that over the past 2 years Hollywood has been releasing utter crap. This explains everything!
Except for the LOTR saga being done by a UPSTART in the movie biz and not the big guns like MGM, etc..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Free Jon!
I think it is time we cut the strings completely and push ahead with our own culture. The best way to deal with these folks is hurt them where it counts their pocket book. Plain and simple, we don't need there crap, lets just stop buying it. I mean besides, holy shit, the movies really suck lately.
>If only Ben Franklin were still around to help us out with thorny issues like this... *sigh*
Clone him until we can guarantee he has five fingers on each hand no more no less. If he comes out with or even three heads even better then.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I have a right to defend myself with a sufficiently capable weapon.
Plain and simple.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The quality of movies on average is crap. I don't understand how some people(including some I know) need to have every ripped movie. I guess it's more of a collecting motivation than anything else. Kind of like baseball cards or Air Jordans.
::) not enough coffee yet.
I can't see buying a pirated DVD which will be of crappy quality, making the original crappy content even that much worse.
I forget what my original point was
-- taking over the world, we are.
Had you funded or harbored those who blew up my friends and family, you would have a trigger happy person showing up on your doorstep. God Dag.
I thought that one could not be tried twice for the same thing. Maybe it's that I admittedly didn't read the article, but....
This sig no verb.
I misread the topic and thought it was Sue Johanson, of Talk Sex With Sue... a cool TV show on late nite Oxygen (yes, it is for women, but it's worth it for this show guys!).
People call up and ask sex questions, and Sue answers. It's great cuz she's like 65 and talks just like one of the guys. About halfway through the show she brings out the night's sex toy and gives a review for it.
I was wondering what she'd been pirating.
no comment
First: Norway, is a small country with far less crime than USA pr. innhabitant. This makes it possible for convicted to appeal their case, and for the prosecutors to apeal the case without creating chaos because of too many cases in the highest court instances. In US, which have a much more crime, the number of appeals, from both sides, would have crippled the system.
I would say that there is a fair number of "checks and balances" in the Norwegian Court System. The prosecutors can't allways appeal, because of limited budget, they can't afford it if _all_ of their cases would go to the next court instance. And, apealing all the cases would in some way reducing their right to apeal as a special power the prosecutors have.
On the other hand: The prosecuted, in this case Jon Johansen, is covered by the state, as *all the cost of having a lawyer is paid by the state*. And in contrast to "some other countries", you don't get only those lawyers which failed to get a better paid job. After what I have heard, the "quality" of the public lawyers in USA ain't that good. You can choose any lawyer you wan't and the goverment pays. The problem is rather that some of the good lawyers are quite busy. So the problem of losing all your money because an appeal isn't that problematic. But of course there is always an uncertainty with an apeal.
Among proffesionals in the Norwegian systems i think most people think that the risk of convicting an innocent person is far smaller than in Norway compared to USA. And the implications from convicting someone falsely is far smaller than US because of not so hard "punishment".
Compared to US, Norways maximum sentence is 21 years behind bars. And most murders get away with 10-15 years, probation after 6-10. Economic crime have maximum 15 years if I remember right. And I can't remember anyone getting more than 8 years (!)(i think is was some kind of organized bankfraud). So I Jon is found guilty, he won't get more than 1 year. Maximum. As for damages or expenses he have to cover or pay back; I doubt he would get more than $10000.
I reckon that there is some US centric views on this topic. But in a hypotetical situation I would have choosen too stand in front on the Norwegian legal system, rather than the US legal system, double jeopardy or not.
[Double jeopardy or not, it aint no good if you are innocently convicted for manslaughter and sentenced to death.(or 300 years behind bars)]
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
I'm working on a PhD in foreign language education, and I had intented on doing research into learner-sequenced instruction. Specifically I wanted to use DVDs random access ability to allow the user to view different media at will.
However, after reviewing current DVD packages (Intermedia, EFRaid, etc.) I realized that I would have to write my own code, but I could not secure a license to do this without paying outrageous fees.
So, I'm now looking at sound-symbol relations and cognitive distance theory. Too bad, since my system would have used off-the-shelf DVDs.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Hell rot in jail if I get my way.
Are you kidding? I would have killed to have this much fame at that age. I know it would get tiresome, but the experience you would get dealing with the media, learning about the law, and defending your rights would be once-in-a-lifetime.
:-)
Granted, maybe I'm more of a "law geek" than Jon is, but if I were in his shoes I think I'd be loving every second of it.
And on the practical side of things, any sort of publicity gets you chicks. I didn't think Shawn Fanning was a particularily hot guy, but he invents Napster and the girls are all over him. Think like a teenager!
Reading articles like this really saddens me. Johansen is (or should be) a hero to all users of open source. Every time I put a Cowboy Bebop dvd in the drive I must say a silent thank you prayer to Johansen because what he gave us was NOT without cost.
This poor kid is being hassled, harrassed, and treated like a criminal for wanting to watch dvds he owned on a computer he owned. By writing a few lines of code (which should be protected as free speech) he brought the wrath of the entire film industry down on his head. Poor guy. Hopefully this trial is quick and painless.
Now, although you may be uncomfortable with this, there are countries outside your borders. These countries do not (gasp!) follow the same laws as you do. In Norway, any trial can be followed up again, all the way up to the Supreme Court, if the defendant and/or the prosecutor isn't satisfied with the sentence.
It's sad, but it seens that some of us
just get confortable with more and more
situations that lead to good people, willing to
help out mankind, getting prosecutted like this in
behalf of all other of us.
Even yesterday, I was making a lecture on
the GPL, when the subject came to Palladium/
Longhorn: everyone seemed easy, when someone
in the audience claimed that the security schemes
would eventually be hacked away like in the case
of the DVD's.
What the heros that perform these hacks have to come
through seemed to concern none at all.
-><- no
The courts really do get tired of the 800 lb gorilla thinking that they run the courtroom. After one court excuses someone for essentially the same issue, the court is not going to happily support their repeated attempts to squish the little guy. Oh, they'll still be able to cost him zillions in legal fees, but the odds of their winning against him are unlikely unless they can pick their judge, and get one corruptible. Or already corrupt.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
With the money of the US entertainment industry plus their toadies in the US Government pressing the issue, I doubt Johansen will have much of a chance the second time around. Watch for the following progression in the way in which he's described: Hacker -> Evil Hacker -> Thief -> Pirate -> Terrorist.
Trial, Trial, Trial again.
Yeah, and I bet you'd be the among the first to complain if Iraq came to your country with any kind of biological/chemical weapon: "Why, oh why didn't somebody TRY to stop them?"
When any startup company can easily create and distribute a movie without the help of the MPAA or member companies, they lose.
That's it, in a nutshell.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I've never been so ashamed of having a parent like you. I'll never forgive you for the rest of my life.
*Sits in a corner and tries to hide from the shame.
Hmmm... Pie...
I read the headline as above, and thought, "Man the kid can't be even 18 now, and he gets retirement? Life's not fair."
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
If, for instance, the democratic process was subverted in some way, We The People were expected to take up our arms and restore proper government.
And it has happened. More than once.
The poster-child for this is the Battle of Athens, where returning WW II veterans overthrew a pair of political machines by force of arms.
Another less reputable example is the San Francisco Vigilance Committee's "Second Clensing" in which the cleaned out the Barbary Coast political machine.
But there are plenty more.
Note that "law and order" is just the institutionalization of vigilantism, with checks against misapplying penalties in the heat of the moment. If the instution breaks down, the people often will take the power back into their own hands, from which (according to the US's legal theories) it originates.
People in the US are normally loathe to do this except under extreme circumstances, and generally use their power to restore the institutions to proper function rather than replace them outright. (Even the Revolution started as a battle to recover what the colonists perceived as the "Rights of Free Englishmen")
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Consumer DVD recorders cannot write CSS track"
Once again: the MPAA is more concerned with a professional DVD pressing operation pressing 10,000 pirated copies, than they are about ordinary one-off copies by users. A professional operation has no problem writing the CSS tracks; they will modify the electronics if they have to do it.
Piracy is only a problem for them when they hit economies of scale. The ability to distribute large files quickly on the Internet to everyone with a Cable Modem or DSL line is what has them concerned. It's the fact that everyone can (potentially) get a copy quickly, not the fact that one person gets a copy, that has them upset.
Technically, you could actually accuse them of "thinking ahead" to "what do we do, now that the `last mile' problem has been solved?".
The "one person gets a copy" case happens all the time, in stores: it's called "shoplifting of consigned goods". The publisher eats the loss on that, or retail stores would be unwilling to carry the items, because their margin is ~6%, and one or two thefts could wipe out their entire profits from carrying them (e.g. Target, Walmart).
If the issue weren't economies of scale, MPAA would still be upset about VCRs (see prior posting).
-- Terry
It seems to me if a court has already tossed this piece of litigation out like the garbage it is then why waste another court's time?
1.) Can they proove that DeCSS _directly_ cost them billions in revenue? (As opposed to the poor quality movies with recycled scripts, remakes, or lame sequels)
2.) Do they put on trial the person who engineered the gun used for a crime?
Why dont they focus on their own corruptions and downfalls before focusing on somebody that just wanted to watch a movie on the OS of their choice. How about those "Actor Workshops" where down and out aspiring actors hork out hundreds in cash to attend a "Workshop" where somebody just may be there from a current show to cast them in a 3 second background extra shot. Or better yet the flagrant plagarism of the people they dare call writers who do a few minor changes and Journey to the Center of the Earth becomes Core...oooohhhhhh aaaaaahhhhhh
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)