Norwegian government prosecutors today submitted an appeal of the case against Jon Johansen, a teenager who again faces criminal charges for helping to write and publish a DVD descrambling program. Johansen used the program called DeCSS to watch his own DVDs on his Linux computer.

Johansen's attorney Halvor Manshaus, of the lawfirm Schj�dt AS, provided the following statement:

"It is correct that the prosecution has decided to appeal the court ruling in this case. This is not unexpected, as the prosecution has flagged this as a case of principle interest. The appeals court, Borgarting lagmannsrett, may decide not to grant the appeal, as there is a screening principle for criminal cases. If the appeal is granted, this means that there will be full proceedings before the appeal court on all aspects of the case, i.e. both factual evidence and legal arguments. I am positive with regard to the final outcome of the case."

"The lower court ruled unanimously that Johansen did not violate Norwegian law," said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Executive Director Shari Steele. "Johansen did not violate any copyrights and Norway doesn't have a Digital Millennium Copyright Act that could prevent DVD owners from viewing their own DVDs on their own computers as we have here in the United States."