Johansen came to international attention as the front man in a Norwegian trial and retrial, accused by the American film industry for copyright infringement for his role in developing software that allowed users to play DVDs on computers running the Unix operating system.

Current Norwegian law allows users the right to make copies of material they own and Johansen was twice acquitted. He has since devoted his efforts to new schemes that defeat copy protection that prevents consumers from freely using what they have purchased.

Johansen's current solution does not defeat copy-protection in the usual sense, but avoids it. Sæmund Fiskvik of IFPI (International Federation of Phonogram & Videogram Producers) Norway is opposed to protection-cracking, but does not have any problem with the latest innovation to make iTunes music easier to copy.

The popular music download service from Apple, iTunes, results in a file that cannot be further copied for use on MP3-players and is only for use on Apple's trendy iPod.

Johansen and others have developed the program PyMusique to buy music from iTunes without the protection coming along, making the songs playable in other formats and on other types of devices.

Despite Apple's success in establishing legal, commercial music downloading, Fiskvik is not enthusiastic about such tunes only being playable on the iPod.

"To the degree that iTunes sells music based on proprietary barriers, this is not something that has happened with the recording industry's blessing and celebration. We are skeptical to this. This is a problem Apple has to solve," Fiskvik said.

Fiskvik wants Apple to rely on DRM (Digital Rights Management) with iTunes. Pending legislation will likely make cracking DRM illegal, but even here the latest Johansen effort is probably on safe ground.

"As far as I can see PyMusique does not vilate the DRM system in iTunes, it only keeps the music away from the (iTunes) program," Fiskvik said.

Apple's music is currently downloaded unprotected and copy protection is applied by the user's iTunes program - PyMusique intercepts the music before the process is implemented.