"DVD-Jon" Faces Retrial 366
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."
Oh for crying out loud (Score:2, Insightful)
disclaimer: may be over simplified as i dont know the full situation
Memo to Økokrim: (Score:0, Insightful)
Thanks.
US laws. (Score:1, Insightful)
Where is the guilt? (Score:3, Insightful)
Øh shit! (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess Double Jepordy exist in Norway (Score:3, Insightful)
Defendant's rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be completely different in his country anyways...
Yes, it would be... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is this justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Double Jeopardy? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the US the double stuff ONLY applies to Capitol offenses!
Not true at all; double jeopardy applies to all criminal charges.
Re:Legitimate use (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Guns - armed robbery, murder, etc
2) Cars - often used to leave the scene of a crime.
3) Telephones - wire fraud, scams, illegal wiretaps.
4) Clothes - commonly used by thieves, murderers, policitians, etc. Oh, sorry, strike out policitians - they're supposed to make outrageous election promises that nobody expects them to keep...
I bought it, I should be able to play it in Linux. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Liberal Scandinavians? (Score:1, Insightful)
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?
Re:You can appeal an ACQUITTAL in Norway? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is this justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [transgaming.com] and VMWare [vmware.com] allow you to play windows-only games under Linux.
Re:Is this justified? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Actually no (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Neither "Law & Order" or "Jeopardy" runs in No (Score:2, Insightful)
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"
Re:Legitimate use (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been pondering something lately that, strangely, I don't ever recall seeing discussed on
Neglecting the ridiculous DMCA, what exactly is the law (US and otherwise) on making copies of legally purchased products for personal consumption, i.e. "private home viewing" on devices other than those sanctioned by the copyopoly? All my videos and DVDs have statements on them forbidding duplication. Most make vague references to "US and International Law" forbidding copying. There is no fine print about fair use. I know US law set out parameters for some of these things in the "betamax case" and "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992", but is the warning in the leader of these media a statement backed by clear law, or is it equivalent to a EULA, a term of purchase agreement which to my knowledge has so far not been proven legally binding (at least I hear people saying over and over they're waiting for a case to challenge them)?
I know there are pending bills in the US Congress to explicitly deliniate fair use rights, but where do we currently stand? DMCA covers defeat of copy control measures, but in the absence of these, is there anything in the law that says creating a mix CD or duplicating an unprotected VHS (why, I can't imagine, given the quality degradation) is llegal when done for one's personal use?
IAALs please chime in!
Re:Actually no (Score:3, Insightful)
To really nitpick, he's guilty of creating a tool that could possibly be used for copyright infringement, not theft. To my knowledge, and rhetoric aside, no one claims that piracy is stealing (in the legal sense), but rather a violation of the copyright.
A better (but still flawed) analogy would be to suggest he's being prosecuted for having invented the Xerox machine.