Teenage hacker beats Hollywood clamp on DVDs

Hollywood's biggest film studios were defeated yesterday in their effort to punish a Norwegian teenage computer hacker for DVD piracy.

The case has made a cult figure of Jon Lech Johansen, who is now 19.

Mr Johansen - dubbed "DVD Jon" by the international hacker community - created a computer program in his bedroom which cracked all the codes protecting DVD films from illegal copying.

The codes also prevent DVDs being watched on many personal computers, which was why Mr Johansen set out to break them.

He infuriated US film makers by posting his program, called DeCSS, on the internet.

His bedroom was then raided by Norway's white-collar crime unit, his computer was confiscated and he was charged with unauthorised data tampering.

Mr Johansen maintained that he had merely devised a way of watching his favourite films, such as The Matrix and The Fifth Element, on his own computer.

But Hollywood disagreed. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents such leading studios as Walt Disney, Universal and Warner Brothers, lodged a complaint, as did the US DVD Copy Control Association.

Yesterday the Oslo city court ruled in Mr Johansen's favour, clearing him of all the charges.

In a unanimous ruling it said that nobody could be punished for breaking into his own property - he had legally bought the DVDs whose codes he subsequently cracked.

Nor was there any evidence that he or anyone else had used his program to produce or watch pirated copies of films.

"I'm happy but not surprised," a beaming Mr Johansen said after his acquittal.

"This is about consumers' rights. All over the world copyright holders are trying to limit consumers' rights. We cannot have that.

"Today it's been clarified that consumers have certain rights that the film industry can't take away from us."

In Washington Phuong Yokitis, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association, said the group had decided not to issue a statement and would have no comment.

Film studios had hoped that the case would send a signal to hackers that the complex codes protecting DVDs against illegal copying must not be tampered with.

They say that Mr Johansen and others like him are undermining the market for DVDs and videos, worth $20bn (£12.5bn) a year in North America alone.

They had wanted an example made of Mr Johansen. The prosecuters sought a 90-day suspended sentence, the permanent confiscation of his computer, and the payment of costs.

They were refused on all counts.

"This is a very solid ruling," said Halvor Manshaus, Mr Johansen's lawyer.

"It is saying that when you have bought a film legally, you have access to its content.

"It is irrelevant how you get that access. You have bought the movie, after all."

The prosecutors have two weeks to appeal .

Programs such as Mr Johansen's have multiplied since he was charged, and are easily obtained on the internet

The case has turned him into an international celebrity with hackers, especially in the US, where a battle is raging over a 1998 copyright law which bans software such as DeCSS.