Jon Johansen finally cleared

The preposterous DMCA-driven prosecution of Jon Johansen has finally collapsed. According to this report, “an Oslo appeals court cleared a 20-year-old Norwegian man of DVD piracy charges on Monday in a new setback for Hollywood studios, which say unauthorized copying costs them billions of dollars a year.

Upholding a verdict by a lower court in January, the court said that Jon Johansen had broken no laws by helping to unlock a code and distribute a computer program on the Internet enabling unauthorized copying of DVD movies.

The U.S. movie industry, which says that piracy costs $3 billion a year in lost sales, had accused Johansen of theft in cracking the copy-protection code when he was 15 and appealed against the January acquittal.

Johansen, called “DVD Jon,” had pleaded not guilty to charges that he broke Norwegian law by helping break the code on commercial DVDs. The original court said that he was free to do what he wanted with DVDs he bought legally.

Prosecutors, who appealed against the original verdict, had urged a suspended 90-day jail term for Johansen.

“The appeal is rejected,” Judge Wenche Skjeggestad told the court.”

Yippee!.