The Association for Computing Machinery is a member of the Association of American Publishers. AAP has applauded Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest (http://www.politechbot.com/p-02288.html). ACM is not happy. (Keep reading.) Politech archive on U.S. v. Sklyarov: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sklyarov Background: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/07/19/2332232 -Declan ******** Electronic Frontier Foundation For Immediate Release: July 27, 2001 EFF Rejoins Protests After Meeting with US Attorney's Office San Francisco, CA - Representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) met with representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco today. There was a productive dialog, however the U.S. Attorney's office gave no indication of dropping the prosecution against Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. "The people from the U.S. Attorney's office heard our concerns and asked probing questions about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," explained EFF's Executive Director Shari Steele. "However, they did not give any indication of their plans for Dmitry, so we encourage everyone to keep up the pressure and join the protests." Having explored good faith negotiations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation rejoins the call for nonviolent protests worldwide to secure the immediate release of Dmitry Sklyarov and drop all criminal charges against him. A protest is already scheduled in San Francisco for 11:30am this Monday, July 30, at the Federal Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. Additional July 30th protests are scheduled in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis, and future protests will likely occur in 25 or more cities worldwide in coming weeks. ******** Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 11:57:21 -0700 From: Barbara Simons <simonsat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Declan, USACM, the public policy committee of ACM, just sent a the following letter to the AAP expressing concern over the AAP's support for the DMCA in general and the arrest of Russian cryptographer Dmitry Sklyarov in particular. (ACM is a member of AAP). Links to the letter, the AAP, and USACM statements on the DMCA and other intellectual property issues can be found under Recent Activities and News at http://www.acm.org/usacm/. ------------------------------------- July 26, 2001 The Honorable Patricia S. Schroeder President & CEO Association of American Publishers 50 F Street, N.W., 4th Floor Washington, D.C. 20001 Dear Ms. Schroeder: As you know, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a member of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). As the Co-Chairs of the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM, we are concerned by the APP statement released on July 19, 2001, which hailed the U.S. Department of Justice's recent arrest of a Russian cryptographer for allegedly violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). We would like for the AAP to be aware that ACM has consistently opposed the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. In our view, the overly-broad provisions impede the progress of research in cryptography and other computer security areas by criminalizing multi-use technologies rather than narrowly penalizing infringing behavior. ACM has been shifting its publication operations from paper-only to electronic distribution and we understand the importance of reasonable copyright protections. ACM is an educational and scientific computing society comprising computing professionals from all areas of industry, academia, and government. As such, we strongly support the freedom of computer scientists to engage in research, and to exchange ideas and information fundamental to the progress of innovation. The need for free communication and fair-use of information are vital to the processes of education and research. During consideration of the DMCA by the U.S. Congress and the subsequent rulemaking process, ACM recommended that the anti-circumvention provisions of the legislation be revised to restrict only circumvention directly involved in infringement. We further elucidated other flaws of the Act, including: * failure to permit circumvention for "fair-use" purposes is inconsistent with the fundamentals of copyright law and deters individuals from conducting bona fide forms of science and technology research that is fundamental to innovation; * exempting encryption research from the anti-circumvention provisions is too limited as the majority of computer security research does not involve encryption; * permitting reverse engineering for the sole purpose of interoperability may criminalize development of software engineering tools and technology with other uses; and, * anti-circumvention exemptions that permit circumvention to obtain authorized access to a work are meaningless if access mechanisms and tools cannot be used to do so. Unfortunately, our concerns were not satisfactorily addressed as the DMCA was enacted or as the implementation rules were promulgated. As a result, scientists are now finding themselves in a position where they must consult attorneys to determine if their previously legitimate research might be in violation of the DMCA. In some instances, the threat of legal action under the DMCA has deterred scientists from publishing scholarly work or even publicly discussing their research. Certain foreign scientists and international members of ACM have indicated they will not attend conferences in the U.S. while the law is in force. We are clearly seeing evidence that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have proven to have a chilling effect on U.S. scientific and research enterprise. While we recognize that the AAP works to protect the interests of book and journal publishers by advocating strong copyright protection in digital environments, we urge you to recognize the distinction between circumvention for the purpose of obtaining unauthorized access to a work and circumvention for the purpose of making a non-infringing use of a work. In addition, we would hope you would agree that absent some clear criminal intent, technologists should not be penalized for conducting research that is crucial to developing and testing copyright protection systems, security software, and better software engineering tools. In light of your recent release indicating support for the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, we respectfully inquire if the AAP shares the concerns that ACM and other professional societies and research leaders have expressed regarding the Act's chilling effect on research and scientific freedom? We look forward to your reply. Please contact Jeff Grove, Director of the ACM Public Policy Office at (202) 659-9711, if you have any questions or wish to discuss our concerns. Sincerely, Barbara Simons, Ph.D. Eugene H. Spafford, Ph.D. Co-Chairs U.S. ACM Public Policy Committee (USACM) Association for Computing Machinery ******* Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 23:17:13 -0700 (PDT) From: PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility <pfirat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: PFIR Press Release: The DMCA and the Arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov Cc: laurenat_private, neumannat_private PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org PFIR Press Release: The DMCA and the Arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov July 26, 2001 http://www.pfir.org/dmca-arrest While the People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR) formal statement on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has yet to be released, events surrounding the recent arrest and criminal prosecution of Russian national Dmitry Sklyarov here in the U.S. demand immediate comment. (The details of the case have been widely reported and will not be repeated herein.) The ease and speed with which valuable digital materials can be duplicated and distributed internationally have created a substantive change in the structure of intellectual property rights and controls. While the legitimate concerns of content providers need to be understood and addressed, proper balance needs to be present to ensure that inappropriate pressures are not asserted that trample on the legal fair-use and free-speech rights of both individuals and organizations. When the DMCA was enacted in the United States, many observers expressed concerns that the law did not represent an appropriate balance, and that it would have profoundly negative consequences, including but not limited to international complications, inappropriate prosecutions, and the stifling of security-related research and publications. It was also feared (and recent history seems to confirm) that the DMCA would tend to encourage the implementation of technically weak, risky, and highly-vulnerable systems -- favoring the threats of lawsuits and prosecutions over the development and deployment of more robust systems. Up until now, the most widely-known DMCA-related cases have involved (1) DVD copy-protection issues, and (2) the free-speech concerns of Edward Felten, a Princeton professor who wished to publish a paper detailing flaws in digital music "anti-piracy watermarking" systems. While these cases involved actual civil lawsuits or the perceived risk of such suits, the Dmitry Sklyarov arrest and criminal prosecution has escalated DMCA enforcement to a new, and in this instance at least, highly inappropriate and alarming level. It is difficult in the extreme to postulate a reasonable rationale for Sklyarov's continued treatment in this situation. This is particularly true given that Adobe Systems (whose e-book copy-protection system is at the heart of this case) has now evidently concluded that proceeding with Sklyarov's prosecution is inappropriate (though his treatment would still be unsupportable even in the absence of such a sentiment on the part of Adobe Systems). It is imperative that both the civil and criminal provisions of the DMCA be subjected to nonpartisan and rigorous new scrutiny to help ensure that a sense of balance is restored regarding these important and controversial areas, and that the rights of everyone involved be preserved. At an absolute minimum, it is crucial that criminal sanctions not be applied to disputes that rightly belong within the sphere of civil law. In the meantime, the continued detention and criminal prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov as relates to the current case cannot be justified. His treatment has created a chilling and draconian reality to the previously theoretical concerns that the DMCA would lead to academics and scientists being led away in handcuffs and shackles for newly-created criminal offenses of highly arguable validity. Ironically for Russian programmer Dmitry, it is probably not the kind of treatment he was expecting in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Lauren Weinstein laurenat_private (818) 225-2800 Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Peter G. Neumann neumannat_private (650) 859-2375 Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Moderator, RISKS Forum - http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks Chairman, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann ******* ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: RE: Arrest of Dimitri Sklyarov Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 14:32:54 -0400 From: Amy Gwiazdowski <amygat_private> To: "'Andrew Lawrence'" <ausage@smoke-and-mirrors.net> Dear Mr. Lawrence: AAP stands by its press release of July 22 supporting the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and commending the Department of Justice for acting on its responsibility to enforce the DMCA in the matter of Dmitry Sklyarov. In response to those who attempt to justify circumventing, or trafficking in devices that circumvent, encryption and other technological measures that protect copyright in the digital environment, AAP urges them to carefully consider how their arguments would apply to precisely the same activities in connection with encryption and other technological measures used to protect privacy in that same environment. Amy Gwiazdowski AAP -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Lawrence [mailto:ausage@smoke-and-mirrors.net] Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 2:42 AM To: amygat_private Subject: Arrest of Dimitri Sklyarov I have just read the Press Release on your web site concerning the arrest of Mr. Sklyarov. What Mr Sklyarov did was perfectly legal where I live and Iin most countries in the world I consider it to a circumvention of restrictions againts legimate and fair use, to quote Adobe "To prevent unauthorized reading..." (Readme.htm file included with v2.2 of Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader). Correctly me if I am wrong, but I was always under the impression that as the purchaser of a book, I am the only person entitled to dermine who is "authorized to read it". The last time I read the Canadian Copyright Act, and even the DMCA, reading was NOT one of the rights reserved to authors. If I were to purchase an Adobe eBook, I would require Mr Sklarov's program to read it since my computer runs the Linux operating system and there is no eBook Reader for Linux. The bottom line. I have already informed Adobe that my company will no longer purchase Adobe products. Since you so strongly support Adobe in their assault against fair use, neither myself, my family nor my company will purchase works. electronic or paper, where the intelectual property rights are owned or controlled by members of the AAP, and I will strongly urge others to follow my example. This will be a considerable saving since my office budget is about $300/month for books and periodicals and my family budget about $50-100 for the same period. Furthermore, every time one of my programmers requests to purchase a book, I inform the publisher, and author if possible, why I am denying the purchase request. -- Andrew Lawrence <ausage@smoke-and-mirrors.net> President, Smoke & Mirrors http://www.smoke-and-mirrors.net 134A Leslie Street, Toronto, Ont CANADA M4M 3C7 Tel: +1 416 461 8708 Fax: +1 416 461 1758 ********* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Jul 27 2001 - 12:18:38 PDT