This kid has more teflon than a Ronald Reagan convention:
- Norway's most famous computer whiz got an early Christmas present on Monday. An appeals court in Oslo upheld Jon Lech Johansen's earlier acquittal on all counts of alleged copyright violations.
A verdict in the case, which has caught international attention, wasn't expected until early January. But the appeals court (Borgarting lagmannsrett) apparently didn't see any need to wait with its decision.
A panel of judges Monday cast aside the appeal that prosecutors had filed to a lower court decision handed down in January. That means the lower court's decision will stand, at least until another eventual appeal takes the case to Norway's supreme court.
....Prosecutors had put Johansen back on trial earlier this month for his role in creating a software solution that removes copy protection from DVD films. He was dubbed "DVD-Jon" after he helped crack the copy protection code as a teenager and then published it on the Internet.
He became an instant hero to those who finally could watch DVD films on their computers instead of being forced to buy expensive DVD players, but he incurred the fury of some of the biggest players in the entertainment industry. It all turned into a classic "David and Goliath" situation, with Johansen ultimately facing prosecution by Norway's white-collar crime unit Oekokrim.
In January, Johansen won. An Oslo court cleared him of all charges that his role in creating the so-called "DeCSS" program was a violation of copyright and an invitation to wide-scale piracy.
Prosecutors appealed the verdict, only to be knocked down once again by the higher court. [Aftenposten]
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