Johansen, now aged 18, was yesterday charged under a section of Norway's criminal code which prohibits the opening of a closed document in a way that gains access to its contents, or breaking into a locked repository. According to SecurityFocus.com, it also covers the breaking of a protective device in a way that unlawfully obtains access to the data. If convicted, he faces up to 2 years in prison plus compensation claims.
Johansen quickly became a cause-célèbre when he first made available the code which breaks the encryption in the Content Scrambling System (CSS). CSS is used for imposing playback restrictions on DVDs. At the time, he claimed he only wanted to find a means of playing DVDs on his Linux-based computer. The CSS prevented playback of DVDs on non-Windows PCs. The movie reacted because it was concerned that DeCSS would be abused to copy DVDs, paving the way for on-line distribution of illegal high-quality copies of movies.
Two years ago, Johansen's home was raided and he and his father (who owned the PC) were both taken into custody. After questioning, no further action was taken against either of them at that time. Subsequently, US lawsuits began against those who posted the code for DeCSS on their web sites. The code was deemed illegal under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The hacker site 2600.com - which linked to the code – was also successfully challenged under the Act.
A spokeswoman for the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway (OKOKRIM) told news agency Associated Press: "We want to focus on the code-breaking part of it and that he made a copy of something that he did not pay for." OKOKRIM took action following requests by the Motion Picture Association of America. It will be the first encryption-breaking case in Norway.