DVD Jon provokes the music industry
Jon Lech Johansen, better known as “DVD Jon”, has turned his attention to music. Johansen has developed a source code for copying music and posted it on the Internet. In addition to challenging the music industry, he is also fighting in court. Tomorrow starts the appeal in court.
Johansen became known world wide when he was cleared of piracy charges in January, and the court ruled that Johansen did nothing wrong in bypassing DVD scrambling codes that stopped him using his Linux PC to play back DVDs he had bought.
However, the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit will try for a second time to prove that Johansen broke the law when he developed and distributed a program that copies DVD movies when he was 15 years old. Tuesday 2 December is the start of the appeal.
But the court trial has not scared Johansen. Now he is back with a new program that discloses even more codes. Johansen's code allows users of Apple Computer Inc's new iTunes online music store to break digital rights management (DRM) technology that prevents people copying files downloaded from the service.
On an Internet site appropriately named "So Sue Me", Johansen said critics had "failed to understand that by buying into DRM they have given the seller complete control over the product after it's been sold," calling them "clueless about copyright law".
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