DVD fairy tale

ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far, far away, there was a young man named Jon. Jon was a decent, intelligent young man, who lived a fairly normal life with his family.

One day, Jon purchased a DVD. He thought to himself, “I have a laptop with a DVD drive on it. Why don’t I watch this movie on my laptop?”

But there was a problem. His Linux laptop had no program that would allow him to watch his DVD, and one was not available commercially. Being a bright and industrious young man, Jon thought to himself, “Maybe I’ll write some code so I can watch this movie I bought.”

Jon labored long and hard, and using only some ingenuity and information found in the public arena, he finally found a way to view the movie on his laptop. Jon was happy. And being a generous soul, he decided to share his program with others so that they might watch their DVDs on their PCs, too.

One day, Jon received an angry letter from an organization in a far away land. “Thief! Pirate! Criminal!” read the letter. “You have no right to view that movie on your laptop! And you have no right to tell others how to do so!”

So the far-away organization complained to the police, and the police came, raided Jon’s home, and arrested the young man. It tried to find evidence that young Jon sought to commit acts of piracy but could not.

After three long years, Jon was put on trial. “Thief! Pirate! Criminal!” they cried to the judge.

But the judge disagreed. “Not guilty!” said the judge. “Jon merely wanted to view his DVD on his laptop, and as a consumer, he has that right. He is not a thief, nor a pirate, nor a criminal!”

Just a modern fairy tale? Unfortunately, no. This is basically the story of young Jon Lech Johansen of Norway, who at the tender age of 16 wanted to view his DVDs on his Linux laptop. Once he figured out how, he released the code as open source so that others could watch their legally purchased DVDs, too.

The motion picture industry and its European allies, incensed that Jon’s work might be used to pirate movies, demanded that he be tried as a criminal. But in a January ruling that had more to do with justice than political correctness, the Norway court acquitted him.

Jon’s DeCSS code does exactly what he claims: It allows consumers to view their legal DVDs.

If I see one more news report claiming that it “allows people to pirate DVDs,” I’ll scream. You don’t need DeCSS to pirate DVDs. But you do need DeCSS or something similar to view DVDs under Linux. The absence of a legally available DVD solution has reduced DVD sales in the developer community.

It is time for DVD producers to worry less about open-source code, which empowers consumers and promotes DVD sales, and worry more about real piracy, such as illegal DVD copies appearing in Asia before a film is even released.