January 2003
How to decode DVD's and get away with it………
A Norwegian teenager has won a court hearing brought by the might of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in the latest battle against piracy of films and games.
Jon Johansen, 19, created software called DeCSS which enables the user to remove the content scrambling system (CSS) from DVD disks. Following a raid on his home after a tip-off from the MPAA a case was brought against him for copyright infringement.
Mr Johansen claimed to have decoded the DVD's with the sole aim of watching them on machinery more convenient to him, i.e. a non-compatible computer rather than an expensive DVD player. It just happened to be coincidence that decoding disks also enabled them to be copied.
The Norwegian courts felt that there wasn't adequate evidence to show that Mr Johansen was helping people to break the law by copying DVD's. In addition to this they also ruled that using DeCSS to watch DVD's is not illegal (although evidence of using this technique to copy them would be).
BRIFFA Comment:
Whilst US laws actively aid the large film producers to combat piracy, laws around the rest of the world are not proving to be so facilitative. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US has encouraged the film and music corporations to pursue possible infringers however UK law has not yet followed suit. Please contact us for any queries that you may have regarding how copyright applies to you and/ or your business.