Petteri Pyyny
16 Dec 2002 15:11
The trial Norway vs Jon Johansen ended today with both sides delivering their closing arguments to the court. Prosecution is seeking $1,400 in court fees, three-month probation sentence and taking Johansen's computers away from him.
Johansen's attorney, Halvor Manshaus, said Johansen had to copy DVD movies to test the DeCSS software. Manshaus called copying a few bits of DVD data no different from copying parts of an encyclopedia for studying later.
Johansen said in his testimony that he owns almost 200 original DVDs, each costing appx. $35 in Norway and said that he has only used those movies that he owns to test the DeCSS software, that allows breaking the weak copy-protection found on DVD-Video discs, called CSS.
Manhaus also argued that the DVDs were copyprotected by technical methods, but not protected by Norwegian law. Johansen is accused of breaking into a computer system -- in this case, into a DVD that he owns.
The verdict in the case is expected in beginning of January, 2003.
Sources:
Aftenposten
Reuters/Yahoo!
Associated Press/Yahoo!