In a ruling that is a victory for fair use rights, Jon Johansen has been cleared by a Norwegian court
From IP Justice
(Oslo) A Norwegian appeals court today cleared Jon Johansen of all charges for viewing his lawfully purchased DVDs on a DVD player that is not approved by the Hollywood movie studios.
The Norwegian appeals court upheld a January 2003 ruling from an Oslo City Court acquitting Johansen on all counts and rejecting the prosecutor’s theory that Johansen was guilty of violating Norwegian Criminal Code Section 145.2, which outlaws breaking into digital data that one has no right to access. Because Johansen accessed his own DVD and did not commit any copyright infringement the city court found Johansen innocent on all counts.
The penalty for breaking this Norwegian law is two years in prison if convicted. Johansen’s case marked the first time this law was used to prosecute someone for accessing his own property.
Johansen was first charged by the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (OKOKRIM) at the request of the Motion Picture Association in 2000. After the Oslo City Court acquitted Johansen in January 2003, Hollywood pressured Norwegian prosecutors to appeal the decision and the retrial was scheduled to begin on December 2nd and wrapped on the 11th. Prosecutors may appeal this ruling to the Norwegian Supreme Court.
"It is delightful to see the Norwegian courts stand up to Hollywood and defend the rights of its citizens to engage in lawful, but unauthorized, uses of DVD movies," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin D. Gross. "Both the Norwegian city and appeals courts have wisely recognized that when you buy a DVD, you own it; and Hollywood does not have the right to tell you how you may use your property," explained the intellectual property attorney based in San Francisco.
Johansen was represented on appeal by Halvor Manshaus from the Oslo law firm Advokatfirmaet Schjødt, who also defended Johansen at the lower court.
"The ruling draws up the line of demarcation between the interests of owners and distributors of intellectual property on the one side, and consumers on the other," stated Manshaus. "The court mentions that optical storage media easily can be damaged, making it important for consumers to have the option of making a back-up copy within already defined "fair-use" terms. In addition, the Court states that although DeCSS can be used to make illegal copies, this was not the intent of Johansen, nor has he made copies in violation of intellectual property regulations," Manshaus added.
At 15, Johansen helped to create DeCSS, a computer program that unlocks DVDs in 1999 and first published on the Internet. DeCSS was written as part of an effort to build a DVD player for the Linux operating system and set off a fire-storm of Hollywood lawsuits to ban the software’s publication in 1999 and 2000.
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