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.

Double Jeopardy

[ifreakshow]

This article makes me glad to live in a country where the government can't try you more than once for the same crime(if found not guilty).

Just imagine if special interest groups could put pressure on politicians to keep appealing cases that they lost. Scary.

Re:Shhhhh...Ashcroft will hear you....

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a perfectly sane thing and works pretty well in the norwegian legal system....it's the US system that's fucked up, and i think you know...

Ray of Hope

[anachattak]

Maybe a decision by the high courts of Norway will point the way out of our current copyright monopoly nightmare, though things probably won't improve in the U.S. until Congress stops whoring itself to mass media ("Oh, you need another 100 year extension on that copyright. Just send me a copy of the bill you want (gratuities accepted and appreciated)").

Double Jeopardy Possible in US

[Sean Clifford]

Double jeopardy is possible in the United States. If you're accused of a crime and prosecuted under state law in the state you reside, then acquitted, you can be tried again for the same crime by the feds.

e.g. You're prosecute for LS XYZ in Louisiana, then acquitted, you can then be prosecuted under US ABC in federal court. So yeah, you can experience double jeopardy in the good ole US of A.

Measuring Piracy losses?

[ebbomega]

From the article:

The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales

I'd honestly like to just take a statistics University Class and have them look over the methodology of it, and get them to report any breaks in logic. Where in god's name did this team get their figures from? How do you measure something like this...

I know it's not in sales drops, because I know that last year MPAA reports that they've had excellent sales lately...

I've never seen any kind of study that actually reports how much piracy is going on around the internet, so I can only really assume that they're going on estimations. Which is ludicrous... that's like counting the number of people in Russia and estimating the world's population based on those results... It's bloody insane!

The only way I think they can possibly justify this amount of money that's being lost is
a) When the MPAA pays money to hire people to do silly estimations like this.
b) When these companies' stock goes down because they lose some court case in which they were trying to sue some guy who wrote a program for ripping DVDs.... not to mention the lawyer costs behind these lawsuits.... how much do you think they put per year into prosecuting people like this?

Would it kill people to think a little critically when reading blind statistics like this?

Re:They have no chance.

[matthewn]

I have a hard time with the notion that a legal system that allows double jeopardy is "sane." How many times does the Norwegian government get to try to fry Jon? As many as it takes? (Can someone who understands Norway's system provide a real answer to this question?)

Justice... What is?

[anubi]

Just what is meant by "Justice"?

Does it have anything to do with right and wrong? Or is it just a mechanism used by the powerful to penalize the weaker?

Does a farmer have a right to say you have to drink the milk you bought directly from the carton? Can it be made illegal to pour the milk into a glass before drinking it?

Does a producer have a right to say you have to watch their content in a specified player?

Is it wrong to take something legally purchased and bend it to suit your needs? If so, God help us that buy wire!

Is it wrong for design and sell equipment for breaking access codes? For spam filters? For telephone telemarketer blocks?

What I am getting it is just what *is* right or wrong? "Justice" just seems to be selective enforcement so that the forces of society can be directed at the weaker party, not the wronged party.

Is the wielding of money to any different than the wielding of technology?

No-one is going to be able to pay Jon back for all this frustration he has been pestered with, yet the same force of "American Justice" that is used to pester Jon looks the other way when its the stronger ( financially speaking ) party doing the thing that someone else does not like them to do.

This whole sordid affair to me is just a demonstration of just how "unjust" our system has become. My immediate idea is to determine the resources of both parties - If Jon loses, RIAA gets the resources of Jon, if RIAA loses, Jon gets possession of the assets of those who are bringing on all this pesterance. In a Norwegian Court - as he, after all, *is* a Norwegian citizen. Now, that the element of who has the most money is nulled out, see if they still want to pester Jon.

Personally, I am sick of this whole sordid affair - I can't for the life of me see what Jon did wrong. No more than I would see it that someone figured a way to get my computer to dump its video signal onto a big-screen projector.

The right way.

[Luguber123]

As an inhabitant of Norway I'd rather see what Hollywood did pay for this 'appeal'. I really don't like crap like this to appear on my next tax-bill. I know that somebody have to pay these lawyers and I'd hate it to be me.

Criminal prosecutions invoke important . . .

[D1rtbag]

Constitutional rights, and cause a severe drain on the defendant. Imagine being wrongfully accused, and then sent up and down the legal system to try to vindicate yourself, becoming bankrupt in the process. That really would create a system where justice is what you can afford.

As a prosecutor, I have no problem with the *general* lack of ability to appeal. There are limited circumstances in which we do get another bite, but it requires special circumstances. For me, trials are fun, but for a criminal defendant the uncertainty, the court appearances, and the stigma must be quite unpleasant. I don't think I'd like to be part of a process which just beats a defendant down with government appeals until he's all out of fight, money, or both.

With the resources available to us, we (the State) can usually convict the guilty if we do our jobs right. Sometimes they get away, but that's how our justice system is set up -- the Framers wanted to have a system where we risk a few guilty individuals going free, but we minimize the risk of convicting the innocent.

In France, I believe, there is no Miranda as we know it. The police can question a suspect for 48 hours with no right to counsel. It would make my job easier, but it doesn't make it a system that I want to live under or be a part of. If it works in Norway, that's their business, but we don't need to pick up all of the bad habits of the "Old Country," just because it works for them.

Become proactive

[circusnews]

We /.ers are one of, if not the most connected community on earth. We have, what, 375,000 people who read /. every day and come from just about every nation in the world? Why then do we not take a page from actual grass roots groups and become a proactive in writing to law makers to change this garbage?

For now take a look at this letter writing guide [circusnews.com]. Over the weekend I will post a new one specific to the /. community. Maybe we can stop just complaining and start trying to fix these laws.