'DVD Jon' faces new court date
VNUNet.com

'DVD Jon' could be back in court if Norwegian prosecutors go ahead with their plan to appeal against the verdict that cleared him of any wrongdoing for distributing DVD encryption-cracking software.

Jon Lech Johanson, now 19, wrote the DeCSS program when he was just 15, in order to watch his own DVDs on his Linux computer. But the software was placed on a website and copied all over the world.

A Norwegian court that did not believe he had violated the country's law acquitted him unanimously.

But Johansen's attorney Halvor Manshaus told the Electronic Frontier Foundation that the prosecution has now decided to appeal this court ruling.

Josh's Comments: No way to know if this is why he really designed the software, BUT- his defense is good, if you ask me. I mean, it's silly the way some of the technology out there works. You can't use a lot of stuff on certain operating systems. MS has a definite monopoly- I don't think it should be illegal to have a good business and dominate the market, but we shouldn't be in court over stuff like this when that is the case. The entire thing is silly anyhow- people can copy a video to a video or a video to a VCD or DVD, it hasn't hurt sales before, and it won't now.