Johansen, now aged 18, was yesterday charged under a section of
Norway's criminal code which prohibits the opening of a closed
document in a way that gains access to its contents, or breaking
into a locked repository. According to SecurityFocus.com, it also
covers the breaking of a protective device in a way that unlawfully
obtains access to the data. If convicted, he faces up to 2 years in
prison plus compensation claims.
Johansen quickly became a cause-célèbre when he first made
available the code which breaks the encryption in the Content
Scrambling System (CSS). CSS is used for imposing playback
restrictions on DVDs. At the time, he claimed he only wanted to
find a means of playing DVDs on his Linux-based computer. The CSS
prevented playback of DVDs on non-Windows PCs. The movie reacted
because it was concerned that DeCSS would be abused to copy DVDs,
paving the way for on-line distribution of illegal high-quality
copies of movies.
Two years ago, Johansen's home was raided and he and his father
(who owned the PC) were both taken into custody. After questioning,
no further action was taken against either of them at that time.
Subsequently, US lawsuits began against those who posted the code
for DeCSS on their web sites. The code was deemed illegal under the
US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The hacker site 2600.com -
which linked to the code – was also successfully challenged under
the Act.
A spokeswoman for the National Authority for Investigation and
Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway (OKOKRIM)
told news agency Associated Press: "We want to focus on the
code-breaking part of it and that he made a copy of something that
he did not pay for." OKOKRIM took action following requests by the
Motion Picture Association of America. It will be the first
encryption-breaking case in Norway.
