DVD hacker hero goes on trial

An 18 year-old hacker is going on trial in Norway for writing and distributing a program capable of cracking copy-protected DVDs.

According to Associated Press, Jon Lech Johansen was only 15 when he wrote the DeCSS program.

The case is seen as an important test of Norway's strict laws against computer piracy and hacking. The trial, in Oslo District Court, is expected to last five days.

Johansen's defence counsel, Halvor Manshaus, has maintained that the teenager has done nothing wrong, having only written a small program using security-breaking code developed and sent to him by others.

Under Norwegian law Johansen faces a fine and the payment of compensation, and could be sentenced to up to two years in prison, although few expect him to do any time behind bars.

The charges were filed after Norwegian prosecutors received a complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The prosecutors agreed with the movie industry that Johansen's program effectively left their property unlocked and open to theft.

Johansen argued that he wrote the program to watch DVDs on his Linux-based computer, which lacked the DVD viewing software installed on Windows and Macintosh machines.

However, the DeCSS software also lets people copy and share DVD files on the internet, thus allowing others to obtain movies for free.

More than 5,000 copies of the program were downloaded from the internet in the first three months after it was posted in late October 1999. It has already been the subject of at least three lawsuits in the US.