Hollywood’s Hunt for “DVD-Jon” Continues
Prosecution to Appeal Teen’s Acquittal

 Oslo -- Norwegian prosecutors have decided to appeal their loss against Jon Johansen, who helped to create DVD descrambling software DeCSS when he has fifteen years old.  Earlier this month, a unanimous court in Oslo found Johansen not guilty for trying to watch his DVD film on a computer not authorized by the Hollywood movie studios.

“Johansen has become an international symbol for consumer rights -- that’s why his acquittal was appealed,” said Robin Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice, a non-profit organization that promotes more balanced global intellectual property laws.  “Johansen represents the individual freedoms that the studios are trying to eliminate, like bypassing region codes, fast-forwarding through commercials, format shifting, and reverse engineering the technology.”

In October 1999 Johansen published DeCSS onto the LiVID mailing list, a team of open source developers working to build a DVD player for the Linux computer operating system.  Then Hollywood lawyers filed a complaint against Jon and his father Per (who owned the equipment) in 2000 with the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (OKOKRIM) requesting their prosecution.  A conviction under this law carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.

In January 2002, OKOKRIM charged Jon Johansen with violating Norwegian Criminal Code Section 145.2, which prohibits bypassing digital locks to access data one is not entitled to access.  This was the first time this Norwegian law had been invoked to prosecute an individual for accessing his own property.  In the past, this law has punished people who break into another’s bank records or the telephone company’s computers.   At trial in December 2002 Norwegian prosecutors claimed that Johansen’s trying to watch his DVD movie on his home-made player was the equivalent to stealing under this law.  They argued that Johansen should be required to purchase an expensive DVD player, licensed and controlled by Hollywood studios, rather than use the free software program of his own creation.

But on January 7, 2003, the three-judge panel rejected Hollywood’s claims and stated, "The court finds that someone who buys a DVD film that has been legally produced has legal access to the film."  Norwegian prosecutor Rune Floisbonn informed media of the decision to appeal the court’s ruling today.

IP Justice timeline of DeCSS litigation:
http://www.ipjustice.org/publications/decsstable.html