Johansen Trial Underway 227
Info is trickling in about Jon Johansen's trial In Norway, where he is accused of violating Norwegian law. Aftenposten and VG Nett have stories, and there's at least one amateur account of the trial. The trial is supposed to last a week, and I'm sure Slashdot will keep up with it, so please submit only *new* stories about it, thanks.
Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
Classy. This is the reason why he won't get a fair trial, regardless of the outcome. The prosecution, judges, etc. don't have a fucking clue about technology and yet they are presiding over it.
Same thing goes on in the States. I don't buy the whole "technology is in it's infancy" bullshit. There are tons out out of work sysadmins. Give them books, let them take the bar exam and proceed to become a prosecutor. Everyone wins.
Now how's this for journalism... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've only found one story in English, which is quite vague. Hopefully the above poster is correct in summarizing the situation.
You've got to love Slashdot!
False dichotomy (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... What about both? Do they have a problem with that concept? :-)
So what... (Score:4, Insightful)
It occurs to me that having trials where the judge, prosecution, or defense are so technologically behind, how is one to get a fair trial?
Is this something new to computers? Are there cases in the past (like 20+ years ago) where technology or something else causing a major lack of understanding, has caused difficulties in providing fair trials?
Re:Asinine (Score:3, Insightful)
Submit only new stories.... (Score:3, Insightful)
To the topic at hand, from what I've read, the case against him is weak and hopefully he will prevail and deliver a much needed blow to the MPAA and DVDCCA.
If he is convicted, I hope the Norwegian people cry out the way we did when Dimitry was jailed. In this case it would be a Norwegian jailed for breaking a US law in his own country, I expect the outcry would be phenominal. If so, hopefully whoever their president/primeminister/etc is has pardon powers and uses them before things get out of hand.
It will be interesting to see... in any case, I'm going to light a candle for Jon this holiday season and hope that he comes out on top, not because its right for fair use, but because its unjust to take a man's freedom for something like this.
Re:Making a case out of him using Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that neither sides understands (Score:2, Insightful)
Jon didn't do the reverse engineering, but lets assume that he's involved with the people. Now then they reverse engineered a piece of software. I'm not sure exactly wha the Norwegian legal point of view is on this, but many countries have a specific exception that you may reverse engineer a piece of software for purposes of interoperability, even if you have agreed not to.
The fact is that a piece of code is readable by a human. The fact that it is in a cryptic format makes this a little harder, but not impossible. I can quite happily go through a binary file, with a piece of squared paper, writing down what will happen, just as easily as I can taker a car to pieces to see how that works.
Oh boy (Score:3, Insightful)
However, my opinion as a technology using citizen of the world that routinely watches DVDs that I purchased and own in Linux is this: Any judge that possesses an ounce of common sense would wrap this case up in favor of the defendant in a day. The kid/man owns the DVDs, the CSS encryption is not in place to protect anything other then access. He did not gain unlawful access to anything, and furthermore did not harm or effect the DVD (which he owns) in any way. I would imagine that the judge has heard of reverse engineering, and understands that it is legal.
Bah, this all pointless. They should just bring in a group of Korean protestors and make it interesting.
Breaking protection schemes is legal in Norway! (Score:2, Insightful)
"breaking a Norwegian law which prohibits people breaking into others' locked property to get data that they're not supposed to obtain. This is the Norwegian Criminal Code section 145(2).
But Johansen owned the DVD, while the law was used in the past to prevent access to banks, telecomms companies, or other systems to look at others' records.
Said Cindy Cohn, the EFF Legal Director: "Jon owned the DVDs and he's never been accused of copyright infringement or assisting in copyright infringement. He's facing criminal charges for taking the necessary steps to view his own DVDs on his own computers."
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the prosecutor is asking what a GUI is because he needs to ensure that everyone present in the courtroom is using the same terminology. It has to go into the transcript, or the first thing that will come up in appeal is "They were using a different definition of GUI than we were."
If out-of-work sysadmins want to become prosecutors, they can go ahead and enroll at law school. It takes more to become a lawyer than reading a few books and taking an exam, though.
To paraphrase someone, "the nerds, geeks, etc. don't have a fucking clue about the legal system and yet they are trying offer commentary about it.
Re:So what... (Score:3, Insightful)
A fair trial is a process where each party has the opportunity to present their case to an appropriate tribunal which decides whether the accused has done the deed alleged and whether that means they have broken the law in question. This determination is based on a reasoned consideration of all the facts and circumstances as presented in the trial. I suspect that this occurs in the vast majority of cases.
nowhere in that is there any mention of the fairness of the law itself or the outcome.
In any case your statement that laws are not inherently fair seems to be based on an idea that it is not fair to be held accountable for your actions in any way. On that basis please tell us what is unfair about the laws against murder (as an extreme example)