Norwegian Police Won't Appeal Acquittal Of 'DVD Jon'

Chief prosecutor Inge Marie Sunde told The Associated Press that she nor any one else in the Nordic country of 4.6 million would pursue an appeal of the Dec. 22 decision to uphold Jon Lech Johansen's acquittal last year.

"I ascertained that the court has a different mind than the prosecuting authority and so we'll follow in this direction," she told AP.

Johansen, 20, also known as 'DVD Jon,' was 15 when he developed the program to watch movies on a Linux-based computer without DVD-viewing software. He posted the codes on the Internet in 1999 and became a folk hero among computer hackers.

Johansen's lawyer, Halvor Manshaus, said his client was thrilled to be rid of the four-year ordeal.

The case, the first of its kind in Norway, was widely seen as a test of the country's computer protection laws.

Prosecutors had appealed Johansen's January 2002 acquittal of charges he violated Norway's data break-in laws with his DeCSS program. The prosecution wanted a 90-day suspended jail sentence, confiscation of computer equipment and a 20,000 kroner (US$2,940) fine.

Prosecutors had charged Johansen after a complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America and the DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses the film industry's Content Scrambling System, or CSS.

Johansen's program is just one of many that can break the CSS, which prevents illegal copying and blocks the use of legitimate copies on unauthorized equipment.

A federal appeals court in the United States ruled last month that the recording industry couldn't force Internet providers to identify users who swap music online.

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