Jon Johansen returns to court [LWN.net]

Things have been quiet enough on the DeCSS front that one might be forgiven for thinking that the issue had run its course. The software remains freely available on the net, and there are no high-profile DeCSS cases left in the U.S. We are now being treated to a reminder that the U.S. is far from alone when it comes to repressive legislation, however.

Jon Johansen is one of the original authors of the DeCSS code, which may be employed to play a DVD on a Linux system. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), not content with its efforts to suppress any mention of the code in the U.S., went to the Norwegian economic crime authorities and asked that charges be pressed against Mr. Johansen in Norway. The agency (Økokrim) obliged, and Jon went to trial in 2002 for violations of Norway's anti-circumvention law. The court, however, decided that, if you buy a DVD with a film on it, you have bought the right to access that film. Jon Johansen was acquitted on all counts.

The Norwegian government appealed the ruling, and the new trial started on December 2. It is expected to last for eight days. Jon and his lawyers have expressed confidence that the appeal will come to the same conclusion as the original trial, but there is never any certainty when an issue goes to court. One can only hope that the appeals court will see reason and realize that it makes no sense to convict somebody for breaking into their own property.

Regardless of the outcome, however, the MPAA will have achieved an important goal. It has been made clear that, if you write the wrong sort of code, you can be arrested and threatened with jail. Even if the ultimate outcome is a complete acquittal, few people will want to avail themselves of the opportunity to learn how the justice system works in such a close way. The prosecution of hackers like Jon Johansen can only have a chilling effect on other developers, whether or not that prosecution is successful.

(See also: this IP Justice press release).

to post comments

Jon Johansen returns to court

Posted Dec 4, 2003 11:12 UTC (Thu) by gyles (guest, #1600) [Link] (3 responses)

My understanding was that Jon was not an author of DeCSS, he wrote a windows front end.

As there are plenty of ("legal") windows DVD players available, that ought to change the situation.

Jon Johansen returns to court

Posted Dec 4, 2003 16:12 UTC (Thu) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] (2 responses)

Well, the original DeCSS was a Windoze app... Jon helped write it, along
with a couple others, I believe... But, yes, he has said that one of the
anonymous others is the one responsible for the actual decryption code,
which is the heart of the program...

And, frankly, I don't see why it should change matters one bit... He has
stated that it was created as a Windoze app for the simple reason that
Linux's UDF support wasn't yet up to the task at the time... It was a
sort of proof-of-concept test app, to see if their approach was sound...
But, even if it were created solely to be used as a Windoze app, I don't
see the problem... So what if there are other legal players available??
Why should that mean that any person that wants to shouldn't be allowed to
create another one?? I don't see why any self-appointed authority should
be able to tell anyone what kind of code they can and can't write...
Besides, unlike the officially licensed 'legal' players, DeCSS can be used
to get get around stupid stuff like required viewing of ads and junk like
that, too... Which is a perfectly legitimate use for it, all by itself...

Jon Johansen returns to court

Posted Dec 5, 2003 16:34 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

Giles refers to the conclusion of law mentioned in the article:

The court, however, decided that, if you buy a DVD with a film on it, you have bought the right to access that film.

Linux users often apply that conclusion to DECSS by reasoning that if you're a Linux user, you've bought the right to access the film on Linux, and outlawing DECSS would deprive people of their rights. Ergo, writing DECSS must be legal.

So if DECSS were a Windows-only program, that would completely obliterate that argument. So yes, it's originally being a Windows program changes things. There are a dozen reasons it doesn't change things enough to make a difference, but it does change things.

Jon Johansen returns to court

Posted Dec 6, 2003 19:38 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]

No, I don't see any way in which that argument is "obliterated"... The
legal ruling quoted makes no mention of Linux, or any other OS... It says,
"you have bought the right to access that film"... Period... However and
wherever and under whatever OS you like... If you want to access it under
Windoze instead of Linux, well then so be it... You might be accused of
having poor taste in OS's, but that's not a crime... ;-) And, no, it doesn't
matter that you already COULD access it under Windoze, because you couldn't
FULLY access it, in any way you might choose to... And, you have a right to
do so...

Also, remember it was an open source app, so the fact that it happened to be
initially targeted at Windoze does not make it any less useful for Linux
users, either... They were able to take the code, and adapt it into various
apps and libs, which still exist today, and are widely used... So, DeCSS
indeed WAS very important to Linux users, and DID ultimately allow them to
access their DVDs under Linux... Regardless of the OS it was initially
targeted at for testing/proof-of-concept purposes...

To make a comparison, would you claim that OpenSSH isn't important to Linux
users just because it was originally targeted at OpenBSD instead of Linux??
No, that's just silly... Same thing here...

Chilling effect

Posted Dec 10, 2003 10:49 UTC (Wed) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

For some, deciding factor is court and jail, for others, it is having your code and your name all over the Internet, and being approved of and supported by all hackers throughout the world. Resistance is fertile!