--- From: "Richard M. Smith" <rmsat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 13:49:34 -0500 Message-ID: <000201c2a5fc$95c2d2f0$6401a8c0@rms2> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty By Lisa M. Bowman Staff Writer, CNET News.com December 17, 2002, 10:22 AM PT http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978176.html SAN JOSE, Calif.--A jury on Tuesday found a Russian software company not guilty of criminal copyright charges for producing a program that can crack antipiracy protections on electronic books. The case against ElcomSoft is considered a crucial test of the criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a controversial law designed to extend copyright protections into the digital age. The company faced four charges related to directly designing and marketing software that could be used to crack eBook copyright protections, plus an additional charge related to conspiring to do so. The case was launched in July 2001, when ElcomSoft employee Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested during the Las Vegas Defcon hackers conference after giving a speech about his company's software, which is designed to crack protections on Adobe Systems' eBooks. Prosecutors, working with Adobe, said ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor violated the DMCA. But after protests from programmers, Adobe backed away from its support of the case against Sklyarov, and prosecutors set aside charges against Sklyarov in exchange for his testimony in the case against his employers. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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