My translation of the Dagbladet (norwegian newspaper) article. Spelling and gramatical errors are mine, factual errors are those of Dagbladet and the norwegian Police.
The 18 year only Jon Lech Johansen has been indicted for breaking the
"computer trespasing" paragraph of the norwegian criminal code.
Thursday January 10, 2002 14:02, updated 14:53.
This is confirmed to NTB by attorney Inger Marie Sunde. Johansen has since
January 2000 been charged by the norwegian financial crimes unit (Økokrim)
after being reported by the american movie- and entertainment organization
Movie Picture Association (MPA).
The background is that Johansen in 1999 participated in creating a program,
DeCSS, that make it possible to play back DVD movie under the Linux
operating system, and made it available on the internet. The program can
also be used to decrypt the content of DVD-disks and makes it possible to
copy the movie.
Johansen is indicted for participating in breaking the protection system
Content Scrambling System (CSS), that protects the content of DVD-disks
from copying.
Johansen is indicted based on the criminal code paragraph 145, parts
two and tree Sunde informs the NTB.
From the inditement:
"- For by breaking a protection scheme, of by similar activities unjustly
having gained access to data stored of transmitted by electronic or other
technical means and by having caused damage by gaining or using such
unjustly obtained knowledge."
The charged offense carries a maximum sentence of 6 months in prison.
...the protection system Content Scrambling System (CSS), that protects the content of DVD-disks from copying.
Does it hell! Will someone please explain to these reporters that encryption has no effect on copying whatsoever?
An encrypted block of data is exactly as easy to copy as the plaintext it was made from. All the CSS encryption system does is force those wanting to play a DVD to agree to a license from the DVD CCA (the licensing outfit controlling the encryption keys). Ultimately, I think this is what the MPAA and co want: control. Bit by bit, they build up their control; Macrovision, no skipping the FBI warning, region coding - maybe next you won't be able to skip the trailers, either? Then some sort of pay-per-view version (DiVX tried, but was too early - then. Will it return in another guise?)
In the published article [nettavisen.no] by NetAvisen it is stated that this law has previously been tried by the Norwegian Suprem Court on descrambling Cable signals. The court found that this law could not be used for punishing that act, so I think that the court will find in favor of Johanneson and give us a clear victory.
I can see little difference between scrabled TVsignals and encrypted Video, both used for same purpose. The encryption is not for any Privacy issue only for restricting useage.
(Norwegian, IANAL) This law is intended to be used against a third party that manages to get information he should not - by breaking encryption, by trojans, by social engineering or any other means. But in this case the data is legally purchased when buying the DVD, with no licence restrictions. It does not provide access to any other data than those you already have access to by playing the disc normally, as you would have to be in possession of the DVD disk to use it. That these data are now without a copyright protection scheme is irrelevant, as we have no DMCA, only actual copyright infringement is illegal. I think it'll be shot down in flames.
a) With ownership of a DVD video, you have the right to access the video signal, but not the unencrypted digital data. (DMCA prohibits circumvention of an access control mechanism.)
b) Only the licensed DVD player has the right to decrypt the digital data. (Copyright holder has granted the consumer electronics company the right to build a device that can read and decrypt the data.)
c) Therefore, to gain access to the video signal for private home viewing, you must rely on the licensed player to decrypt the data and to change it to a video signal you can watch.
Without the encryption, and without the decryption being punishable under the DMCA or similar legislation, this argument would not work. So the MPAA and DVDCCA were very sneaky in making sure that one has to break anti-decryption laws in order to exercise fair use rights.
I don't think CSS has much to do with copying, but everything to do with access control. And then the law kicked in (in the USA) to make it illegal to gain access to content, even when you legitimately purchased media that holds the content.
I wonder how our rights are different for use of data on unencrypted DVDs, or unencrypted blocks on encrypted DVDs.
Related to the article more directly: Under the Norwegian law in question, it sounds like I could be prosecuted for accidentally typing "rm *log" rather than "rm *.log", if the company did not grant me the right to delete access_log. (And never mind that we will pull it from last night's backup -- they still lose a few hours of entries, and therefore I would have caused some harm.)
My translation of the Dagbladet (norwegian newspaper) article. Spelling and gramatical errors are mine, factual errors are those of Dagbladet and the norwegian Police.
Doh! Now they'll be after you for abusing the intellectual property rights of Dagbladet!
The law was clearly intended to apply to breaking into computers, not cryptanalysis of published information. But, as worded, cryptanalysis might well fall within the scope of the law.
Still, the "having unjustly gained access to data" clause will probably save him--it seems a stretch to argue that cryptanalysis of a legally purchased medium whose decrypted contents are also available constitutes "unjustly gaining access".
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
-- Frank Hubbard
From norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (Score:5, Informative)
The 18 year only Jon Lech Johansen has been indicted for breaking the "computer trespasing" paragraph of the norwegian criminal code.
Thursday January 10, 2002 14:02, updated 14:53.
This is confirmed to NTB by attorney Inger Marie Sunde. Johansen has since January 2000 been charged by the norwegian financial crimes unit (Økokrim) after being reported by the american movie- and entertainment organization Movie Picture Association (MPA).
The background is that Johansen in 1999 participated in creating a program, DeCSS, that make it possible to play back DVD movie under the Linux operating system, and made it available on the internet. The program can also be used to decrypt the content of DVD-disks and makes it possible to copy the movie.
Johansen is indicted for participating in breaking the protection system Content Scrambling System (CSS), that protects the content of DVD-disks from copying.
Johansen is indicted based on the criminal code paragraph 145, parts two and tree Sunde informs the NTB.
From the inditement:
"- For by breaking a protection scheme, of by similar activities unjustly having gained access to data stored of transmitted by electronic or other technical means and by having caused damage by gaining or using such unjustly obtained knowledge."
The charged offense carries a maximum sentence of 6 months in prison.
Same old lie... (Score:2, Interesting)
Does it hell! Will someone please explain to these reporters that encryption has no effect on copying whatsoever?
An encrypted block of data is exactly as easy to copy as the plaintext it was made from. All the CSS encryption system does is force those wanting to play a DVD to agree to a license from the DVD CCA (the licensing outfit controlling the encryption keys). Ultimately, I think this is what the MPAA and co want: control. Bit by bit, they build up their control; Macrovision, no skipping the FBI warning, region coding - maybe next you won't be able to skip the trailers, either? Then some sort of pay-per-view version (DiVX tried, but was too early - then. Will it return in another guise?)
Re:Same old lie... (Score:1)
We have... Some gets it, some don't.
Previous HighCourt Ruling favorable (Score:2)
The court found that this law could not be used for punishing that act, so I think that the court will find in favor of Johanneson and give us a clear victory.
I can see little difference between scrabled TVsignals and encrypted Video, both used for same purpose. The encryption is not for any Privacy issue only for restricting useage.
And the key word is *unjustly* - which it isn't. (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:And the key word is *unjustly* - which it isn't (Score:1)
You could make an argument that:
a) With ownership of a DVD video, you have the right to access the video signal, but not the unencrypted digital data. (DMCA prohibits circumvention of an access control mechanism.)
b) Only the licensed DVD player has the right to decrypt the digital data. (Copyright holder has granted the consumer electronics company the right to build a device that can read and decrypt the data.)
c) Therefore, to gain access to the video signal for private home viewing, you must rely on the licensed player to decrypt the data and to change it to a video signal you can watch.
Without the encryption, and without the decryption being punishable under the DMCA or similar legislation, this argument would not work. So the MPAA and DVDCCA were very sneaky in making sure that one has to break anti-decryption laws in order to exercise fair use rights.
I don't think CSS has much to do with copying, but everything to do with access control. And then the law kicked in (in the USA) to make it illegal to gain access to content, even when you legitimately purchased media that holds the content.
I wonder how our rights are different for use of data on unencrypted DVDs, or unencrypted blocks on encrypted DVDs.
Related to the article more directly: Under the Norwegian law in question, it sounds like I could be prosecuted for accidentally typing "rm *log" rather than "rm *.log", if the company did not grant me the right to delete access_log. (And never mind that we will pull it from last night's backup -- they still lose a few hours of entries, and therefore I would have caused some harm.)
Re:From norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (Score:2)
Doh! Now they'll be after you for abusing the intellectual property rights of Dagbladet!
write your laws carefully (Score:2)
Still, the "having unjustly gained access to data" clause will probably save him--it seems a stretch to argue that cryptanalysis of a legally purchased medium whose decrypted contents are also available constitutes "unjustly gaining access".