The program was devised by persons unknown and released to the
internet by a number of people allegedly including Norwegian
teenager Jon Johansen, whose home was raided in 2000 by
Norwegian police. He was put on trial in a Norwegian court and
faced a possible jail sentence of two years and large fines, but
was acquitted of all charges in early 2003. However, on March 5,
2003, a Norwegian appeals court has ruled that Johansen would
have to be retried on charges that he violated copyright and
anti-hacking laws. The court said that arguments filed by the
movie industry and additional evidence merited another trial. On
December 22, 2003, the appeals court agreed with the acquittal,
and on January 5, 2004 Norway's Okokrim decided not to persue
the case further. DeCSS was used as a guide by programmers
around the world to create hundreds of equivalent programs, some
merely to demonstrate the trivial ease with which the system
could be bypassed, and others to implement an open source DVD
player (the licensing restri