Norwegian Teen Pleads Innocent in DVD Copy Protection Trial

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Norwegian Teen Pleads Innocent in DVD Copy Protection Trial
by Doug Mellgren <mailto:letters_to_the_editor@corp.law.com>
The Associated Press <http://www.ap.org>, 12-10-2002

A Norwegian teen-ager pleaded innocent Monday to breaking data security
laws in the first day of a trial over a program that unlocks the security
codes of DVDs Jon Lech Johansen was 15 when he wrote and distributed
without charge on the Internet a program that unlocked copy-protected 
DVDs.

snip

Johansen has said he was sent the security codes from outside Norway by
other members of a hacker network, and that he only combined them into a
program so he could watch DVDs on his Linux-based computer, which lacked
such software.

snip

The short program Johansen wrote is just one of many easily available
programs that can break DVD security codes. One is included in a software
package, sold by at least one U.S. company, that even burns DVDs after
cracking the copy protection.

The prosecution decided to charge Johansen with a data break-in, rather
than handle the matter as a copyright case.
--