DeCSS: Jon Johansen Retrial Begins 559
JPMH writes "Jon Johansen is back on trial for DeCSS. Despite the acquittal back in January, the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (OKOKRIM) is allowed to bring his case back before an enlarged panel of judges. The retrial begins today."
Re:What is this about ? (Score:4, Informative)
Kierthos
Re:Pay the piper. (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, nobody is hurt, financially, by me using Linux and DeCSS instead of Windows and WinDVD. I've paid all my licenses, including my Microsoft tax (actually, I got a free license from a site-license, but somebody paid it, which is really all that matters).
I'm thinking you were trolling, but I wanted to bring this up anyway.
ecocrime (Score:4, Informative)
Losely, it's "Oko" for 'eco' (economical) and "krim" for 'crime'.
I think. I'm not Norsk.
Norwegian courts (Score:5, Informative)
If either party disagree with the verdict at the lower court they can appeal and get a new trial with more judges (and depending on the type of crime, either a jury or a panel of judges)
Re:OKOKRIM (Score:4, Informative)
OKOKRIM sound to me like a abbreviation of "Okonomisk Kriminalitet" (the first letter should be an "Oslash") which lead me to suspect that it is the prosecutor for economic criminality.
Re:What is this about ? (Score:1, Informative)
This is Norway we're talking about, where there is no US Constitution preventing double jeapordy.
The parent post is nothing but troll-bait.
Re:Norweigan Economic Crime Unit? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to feed the troll, but according to this [cia.gov], Norway has a per capita GDP of $31,800, a Gini index of .26, and $68 billion in exports vs. $37 billion in imports. Not too shabby for a bunch of fjord-huggers -- and they're Gini index sure kicks the US's ass (we're at something like .43)
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:0, Informative)
The fact that you don't know that you can appeal a decision in most civilized countries reflects badly on your educational system.
Not a retrial, an appeal... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, for the people I see making fun of the name, it's really Økokrim, Øko = eco- of economics, and krim of crime... It's just not fucking possible to get slashdot to show HTML character codes
Anyway, I hope they appeal it all the way to the top and fail with flying colors... too bad, that by then the EUCD will probably already be in effect, making the precedent outdated...
Kjella
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:5, Informative)
This appeal is a perfect reason why "no double-jeopardy" laws exist.
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:4, Informative)
wait for it....
DOUBLE-JEOPARDY
Re:ecocrime (Score:2, Informative)
It's actually spelled with an oe, but foreign characters are filtered in the slashcode. The letter 'oe' looks like an O with a slash through.
For those who may be interested: here's [okokrim.no] Okokrim's site.
Re:Pay the piper. (Score:1, Informative)
Also, Johansen didn't really "crack" CSS, he only found a private key that some vendor had stupidly included in their software. All modern ripping software uses a real crack that was developed at MIT, I think. DVD CSS would have broken soon or later without Johansen - it was known to be a weak implementation even in hollywood.
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:3, Informative)
The government may appeal if they lose, or if they don't think the punishment is harsh enough.
Furthermore, if I remember correctly, Hoyesterett may reschedule the case back into Lagmannsretten if it thinks it should be a retrial there, instead of them making a decision. I'm not sure, but I don't think that happens often, unless there is doubt about presented evidence or somesuch. Not sure, really.
In theory, due to your double jeopardy laws, if the accused is guilty and aquitted - he may walk out of the courtroom and then tell the press "They released me, but really - I did do it! Ha! Ha!"
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Norwegian courts (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Norwegian courts (Score:2, Informative)
There are other worries about norwegian courts, though.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's Norweigan Law (Score:4, Informative)
Shrill hyperbole empathically supported by the previous court, in that case, if you read the deliberation on the aquittal.
New Rule For Disclosure (Score:5, Informative)
If you're going to crack open the schemes of the corporate overlords, do so anonymously.
Re:What is this about ? (Score:5, Informative)
Since the Norwegian legal system only has three levels, and appeals will only rarely be heard by the supreme court (the third level) and then normally only regarding matters of law, the burden isn't that great.
Add to that that Norway has a public defender system where private practising attorneys take on cases at the governments cost if you can't afford an attorney (as opposed to having dedicated, underpaid public defenders), AND that it is fairly easy to get awarded damages if you are aquitted and the court finds that the government prosecuted you without good reason, and you have a reasonable compromise.
As an example regarding the public defender system, I was refusing military service (which is mandatory in Norway) years ago. The first step then is for them to get the police to take a statement and ask you to confirm whether or not you will accept the decision from the Department of Justice regarding whether or not to transfer you to civil service. I refused.
The next step then is to ask the court to confirm the decision of the Department of Justice. In that case, I was given a partner in one of Norways most well known and prestigious law firms, with 30 years experience in defending people refusing military service, as my public defender, cost free. (I didn't really need him though - I got the court to throw the case out on a formality on my own accord, but he was a cool guy to talk to anyway :) )
Re:Wording... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:3, Informative)
You can appeal any verdict in the US. You need to have a reason to appeal though, such as a potential mis-trial, tampered evidence, new evidence, etc. If there are no anomolies or grounds for retrial, the appeal is denied.
Larry Flint was found innocent and the prosecution appealed to the supreme court, which upheld the decision.
Know the laws before quoting them.
-Ab
Re:Jon is now 18 years old (Score:2, Informative)
Nope... every linux distro I've used (Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, SuSE) has not included dvd playback. Often they'll include a video player like xine, which has support for dvd playback, among other things, and the dvd codecs will not be included. You can find them pretty easily if you look but they aren't released by any of the major linux players and usually have to be found on sites outside of the US.
Wby we have "double jeopardy" in Norway (long) (Score:5, Informative)
In the American system, it's all about finding the one trial that'll get them acquitted, be it that the jury that is so biased, incompetent, stupid, subjective, easily influenced, prejudicial, scared of sending innocents to jail or otherwise inept that they can't manage to find a man guilty even when the evidence should have been sufficient. Or through lack of experience on part of the judge and the prosecution, making the legal proceedings be of an inadequate quality.
I guess the reasoning is that if one jury is able to see reasonable doubt, there is reasonable doubt. In theory, it sounds like sound legal thinking. However, I can think of so many other reasons why one specific jury may find reasonable doubt where there is none. In the US, that seems to be acceptable, but I think most other places it'd be seen as a flaw, if the evidence was in fact sufficient (another matter altogether if the evidence is insufficient, both of us use "innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt").
In Norway, and I might add in quite a few other countries, we instead realize that trials are not perfect, and that judgements may be too excessive. This can go both in favor as well as disfavor of the defendant, and in extremes leading to aquitting those that by the evidence should have been guilty, and also in some cases sentencing the innocent. In particular, I'm thinking about sentences that get overturned in a higher court, though technically you're not sentenced until the judgement is final.
Instead, we base our legal system on competence. A higher court, with more/better educated judges, a full jury, is considered to be more competent, and so a more accurate instrument of justice than a lower one. That is, that a higher court will make less incorrect decisions, putting more guilty in jail, and freeing more innocents.
Now ask yourself this: If you were checking if a product was inside a specification, would you use one fairly accurate measurement, or many less accurate ones and reject it if one is outside the acceptable limits? I think the Norwegian system works great, it's just that some laws are completely nutty and sentences are overall too low. But that's a completely different discussion...
Kjella
dont watch this DVD then (Score:2, Informative)
David Lynch setup the DVD version of Mulholland Drive almost exactly like this. You could fastworward it in "seek" mode, but hardly any other mode. It didn't have any chapters to skip to and from.
IIRC, he disapproves of the chaptering system as he wants the audience to see the film as a whole and not be able to skip around... I haven't seen his other movies on DVD format, but I've heard that he did this with many other movies as well.
Re:Most worrying bit:: (Score:3, Informative)
No, you don't, legally. My fiancee has a bonestock DVD player purchased in the US (Philips I think?) that will let you fast forward over anything (FBI warning, ads...).
Natural Rights of Man only applies to US citizens (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Most worrying bit:: (Score:3, Informative)
If you cannot break the encryption to do view content in another manner, you will not be able to skip what they don't want you to skip.
Re:dont watch this DVD then (Score:5, Informative)
So while he disagrees with the idea of "chaptering" a movie (and so the movie is not chaptered on the DVD, which would consitute an endorsement of that approach), the DVD also does NOT interfere with the user's standard ability to navigate wherever they please.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me - if the user wants chaptering there's just a bit more work involved to simulate the effect.
The points will not be worth double. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Most worrying bit:: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes you do.
"The content creator is licensing it to you."
No they dont.
This is the first sale doctrine. Ownership of a copy is not the same thing as copyright. You own a copy and may dispose and/or do whatever you want with it, unless it is specifically limited by copyright law. You can watch it, sell it, give it away, lend it to someone else, do weird ceremonies over it or destroy it. What you cant do is pretty much copy it or rent it out.
Much as I'm sure Disney and co would love to get there eventually, we're not there yet.
Re:DVD jon is the bad guy (Score:2, Informative)
from what i recall on the news from back then (and yes inm from norway) he got some machines grabbed by the polices and atleast one of them where running linux. as for writeing or not writeing it: he wrote the gui, before that it was just a lib. without a ui a lib is worthless.
as for how it got out, i dont care. the fact is that it happend. and i dont belive he claimed to have cracked the CCS on his own, that was media that claimed (around here they cant tell a irc client from a P2P program anyways)...
allso, he just made a "hammer", its how its used that defines the legality in my book.
hell he isnt even being tried on copyright violations, he is tried on a law that at first was made to handle someone else reading your mail and got expanded to cover satelite encodeing systems (of all things)...
Re:Most worrying bit:: (Score:3, Informative)
I think you are wrong about that being a very bad thing for the trial though:
1. There is no jury consisting of 12 drawn people that would swallow the "Johansen has a blatant disregard for copyright" line. In this case there are seven persons; three "academic" judges, two experts (one from academica and one from business) and two other judges.
The actor can bitch as much as she wants about moral, personality and "hurting business" but they will to a large degree ignore that.
2. A trial like this in Norway is much more focused about technicalities, evidence and motive that moral and personality.
3. If the actor draggs in the iTunes case that might backfire as a sign of lack of evidence or unrelevant material.
Some newspaper mentioned that Okokrim really don't have any new evidence. They are running more witnesses this time. One of them is a gentleman from your beloved MPAA. I don't think it will work. Getting him to mourn about their "economic loss" because of DeCSS and linking that to DVD-Jon can become difficult.
I'm fairly confident that Okokrim will loose this case.
Re:For those who knock US justice... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Most worrying bit:: (Score:3, Informative)