A Crack in the Act ; A Wrench in the Linux ; An End to a Probe

A Crack in the Act

A judge in Norway has ruled that a hacker did not break any laws by cracking the DVD security codes on discs, adding that consumers have a right to make personal copies of DVDs they buy, according to Yahoo! News. Though it is seen as a setback for movie studios, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is expected to ward off similar legal rulings in the U.S.

A Wrench in the Linux

Novell is reasserting the claim that it owns the copyright to the Unix System V source code that has been at the heart of a protracted dispute between SCO and the Linux community, says Computerworld. On Monday, Novell confirmed that it has been registering copyrights for some of the same Unix System V code that SCO registered copyrights for earlier in the year. “Novell believes it owns the copyrights in Unix, and has applied for and received copyright registrations pertaining to Unix,” the software vendor said earlier in the week.

An End to a Probe

The times they are achanging, for the Justice Department’s investigation into digital-music-distribution ventures started by some major recording labels, according to The Wall Street Journal. It seems tha concerns that led the department to look into the pressplay and MusicNet services in 2001 “have now diminished or disappeared,” Justice officials said. “Consumers can now download individual songs from a growing number of competing digital suppliers, each of which offers songs from the music catalogs of all of the major record labels.”

Ed. Note: We’ll be taking a news break until December 29.