Petteri Pyyny
13 Aug 2002 12:51
Norwegian DeCSS case against Jon Johansen has been delayed. Johanssen, who is accused of creating the "notorious" DeCSS tool that allows people to copy contents of DVD to their HDDs, is facing charges of breaking into secured computer system.
Obviously, the charges are ridiculous and it took two years for MPAA to pay^H^H^Hconvince Norwegian government that they should prosecute Johansen. Problem obviously was that there isn't such law in Norway that would make it illegal to develop, distribute, etc a software that allows copy protection circumvention. So, they had to use the law that is used for cracker cases, where people break into mainframes in order to steal information from servers, etc. And the most ridiculous thing is that, according to everyone who knows something about the DeCSS history, Johansen actually didn't even code the original software :-)
Anyway. The case been now postponed until 9th of December this year, because both parties want to appoint "technically savvy" judge for this case, which will probably get worldwide attention once it begins.
Source: The Reg