OSLO, Norway (CNN) -- A Norwegian teenager has been cleared of DVD piracy charges in a landmark trial brought by major Hollywood studios. ... "Johansen is found not guilty," Judge Irene Sogn told the court. She said prosecutors could appeal against the unanimous verdict. ... The teenager has become a symbol for hackers worldwide who say making software such as Johansen's -- called DeCSS -- is an act of intellectual freedom rather than theft. ... The studios argued unauthorised copying was copyright theft and undermined a market for DVDs and videos worth $20 billion a year in North America alone.
But Johansen argued his code was necessary to watch movies he already owned, on his Linux-based computer, for which DVD software had not yet been written. ... The court ruled there was "no evidence" that Johansen or others used the decryption code called DeCSS for illegal purposes. Nor was there any evidence that Johansen intended to contribute to illegal copying. The court also ruled that it is not illegal to use the DeCSS code to watch DVD films obtained by legal means. In the United States, Johansen's case raised concerns among Internet users of what they see as a constitutional right to freedom of expression. A battle is raging in the U.S. over a 1998 copyright law that bans software like DeCSS. Even though Johansen's software is now outdated, it was the first to give the so-called source codes, or instructions, for how to decipher DVD codes. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]