But I want to be able to listen as I want

Jon Lech Johansen, alias "DVD Jon", is a developer Norwegian twenty made famous in crisp protection of DVD-video (CSS) code to allow copying, seven years. Since the month of June, he joined a company of San Francisco, DoubleTwist Ventures, specialising in the interoperability of the systems of protection.

After the DVD you want to attack you today DVD high definition crisp their protection codes. Why

The problems of yesterday are the same as today ' hui with Blu - ray and HDDVD DVD players. When I cracked the system of protection of DVD-video, it was for two reasons. First, I bought a DVD in the United States and I could not read in Europe because of zoning. Then, I had a computer with the Linux operating system, for which no DVD playback software had been created. It took me eight to nine days to break the technical protection measure and be able to read the films.

I find abnormal that the film industry could limit the choice of the consumer by forcing him to see a film on this type of machine rather than on another. This is the reason why I want to break the protection of the Blu - ray and HD-DVD AACS, even if for the time being I have not started to work there readers are still too expensive so I provides me a. This system is more complicated than the previous, and very little information circulated on how works this new measure of protection. I think that, this time it will take several weeks, even if many people support me in my approach.

You now live in the United States. At the time, if you try once again to crack a code, you will be outside the law...

Indeed, I must comply with U.S. law and I therefore do not develop tools to break the protection of the DVD high-definition. On the other hand, I can do research on the subject and release it on the 1st Amendment to the U.S. law. I then leave to others to create the tools based on my research.

After the DVD, you you are attacked in the protection of the music files from iTunes, but never to those protected by Windows Media. This is for when

I am never attacked me at Microsoft because I did not see the interest. Windows Media format is quite popular in online music or video, still dominated by the DVD. For music, iTunes so dominates the market and so restricts the use of a music file, reserving listening on iPods to the iPod, it is normal to tackle him.

The first time that I broke this protection, I was in France, at the Central School of Paris, to participate in the design of multimedia playback software, the VideoLan project. This software was to read all formats, including those protected by Apple. The company then sent us an e-mail asking us to remove this feature. In return, we wanted to know the case of the group to justify this request, but he has never responded.

You are now working for a company who wishes to make systems interoperable digital file protection. This is a little ironic coming from someone who spends his time broken

(Laughs.) I would prefer that there is any system of protection. But to allow people to use the content as they wish, it is necessary to develop interoperability. The majors have an almost religious position on the use of technical protection measures. Me, I pay my music on the Internet. But I want to be able to listen as I want. However, when I buy a piece legally, there are so restriction that is attempting to download it for free on a peer-to-peer network to have no use constraint. The position of the studios encourages piracy. The development of interoperability will take some time, but it is necessary for the consumer.