Johansen werd onder druk van de Amerikaanse media-industrie voor de rechter gedaagd wegens het meeprogrammeren aan DeCSS, software waarmee de beveiliging van dvd´s kon worden omzeild. Volgens Johansen deed hij dat alleen om dvd's onder Linux te kunnen afspelen. De Noorse rechter was het daar mee eens.
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Norway's special division for white-collar crimes, Økokrim, has decided to appeal the acquittal of 19-year-old Jon Lech Johansen, accused of copyright violation for helping bypass DVD code protection, web site Nettavisen reports.
Johansen was acquitted on all counts of piracy and distribution of the code-breaking program. Johansen has argued that his programming work was designed to play DVDs, which he purchased, on a computer with the Linux operating system, something the copy protection would not allow. The head of Økokrim's computer crimes division said that the reasons for the appeal would be in their offices Monday afternoon.
Johansen's counsel, Halvor Manshaus, said he was not surprised by Økokrim's decision.
"There were signals from Økokrim quite early, that they would appeal and that they see this case as dealign with an important principle. We believe that the first verdict was extremely thorough, but that doesn't prevent them from appealing," Manshaus told Nettavisen.