Jon Johansen, 19, was 15 when he allegedly co-authored and distributed free of charge a program called DeCSS, which is used to compromise the Content Scramble System (CSS), a copy-protection system found on DVDs, designed to prevent unauthorised duplication of their content.
The case was brought by Norwegian prosecutors, following prompting by the country's entertainment industry and the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents all major Hollywood studios.
The teenager is accused of violating a Norwegian data security law prohibiting the unauthorised compromising of computer security systems. The maximum penalty for the offence is two years' imprisonment and fines.
Johansen has denied any wrongdoing. He said he was sent DVD security codes from abroad by other hackers and that he only combined them to create a program enabling him to watch DVDs on his Linux-based computer which, unlike computers running Windows and Macintosh, lacked DVD-viewing software. The teenager also claims that he only used the program once, to view a DVD he bought legally.
The prosecutors and the studios, on the other hand, claim that the DeCSS program can also be used to copy and share DVD files on the internet, and therefore violates copyright laws. In the opening of the trial yesterday, the prosecutors compared the hacker group with an international criminal network.
They also claimed that, in the first three months after DeCSS was posted on the internet, more than 5,000 copies of the program were downloaded.
The Oslo District Court is currently hearing arguments and the trial is expected to last for five days.