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
