Two years after police stormed into his home and seized his computer, a Norwegian teenager has been indicted on security cracking charges.
Jon Johansen, who helped create software that makes it possible to crack DVD security, faces up to two years in jail on charges originally designed to protect phone and bank records. On Wednesday, Norway's economic crime unit accused Johansen of trying to break through a security system to gain access to material he's not entitled to, in this case a movie on DVD.
"It did come as quite a surprise," said Robin Gross, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who's been helping Johansen navigate the legal quagmire created since his program, DeCSS, first raised the ire of movie studios. Hollywood feared the program would lead to rampant copying of DVDs.
Gross said the charges mark the first time the Norwegian security law has been used to pursue someone for breaking into material he already owns, relegating movies on DVD to the same status as private banking records.
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