On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 10:39:06PM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
An unconstitutional law. A law which limits freedom in a country which is ultimately governed by "Congress shall make no law..."
If you can't catch that clue, there is no hope.
The interesting thing in this case is that Dmitry was not arrested for discussing or revealing information about Adobe's arguably-sucky copy protection system. If you read the FBI affidavit (http://cryptome.org/usa-v-sklyarov.htm), you'll note that the FBI seems only concerned about his commercial activities: Diaz affirmed that he believes the Elcomsoft Software program, coupled with the Elcomsoft unlocking key, circumvents protection afforded by a technological measure developed by Adobe for its Acrobat eBook Reader either by avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactiviating, or otherwise impairing the technological measure. I believe Dmitry Sklyarov, employee of Elcomsoft and the individual listed on the Elcomsoft software products as the copyright holder of the program sold and produced by Elcomsoft, known as the Advanced eBook Processor, has willfully and for financial gain (etc.) That's because the DMCA only makes commercial circumvention a crime: (a) In general. -- Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, (1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years or both, for the first offense Non-commercial circumvention may, of course, be a civil offense, as 2600 found out in the New York case brought by the movie studios. This state of affairs creates a mild problem (to go back to the recent topic of discussion on cypherpunks) for those who strongly believe in the First Amendment when applied to nonprofit or not-for-profit speech but less so when it comes to speech that's part of a commercial transaction. For instance, a guy ranting on Usenet, they say, should have free speech rights, but the tobacco companies or pharmaceutical companies can properly be muzzled. Let's hope Dmitry, a budding capitalist, doesn't fall into that same commercial-speech-can-be-regulated catchall. -Declan