Grand Jury Charges Russian Company and Programmer

Adds Conspiracy to Circumvention Trafficking Charge

San Jose, California - A United States grand jury this
afternoon indicted Russian company Elcomsoft along with
previously jailed programmer Dmitry Sklyarov on charges
of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in a copyright
circumvention device.

Since the grand jury handed down a five-count indictment,
Sklyarov -- who is out of custody on โ,000 bail -- could
face a prison term of up to twenty-five years and a US
Ū,250,000 fine. As a corporation, Elcomsoft faces a
potential US Ū,500,000 fine.

"We have been hearing from many people about lawful
uses of Elcomsoft's computer program," explained Cindy
Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director.
"It's outrageous that the unconstitutional Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) could put this young man
away for much of the rest of his life."

"We were hoping that the government would see the wisdom
and justice in not pursuing a case against Sklyarov,"
said his attorney, Joseph M. Burton of Duane Morris in
San Francisco. "Even if one were to ignore the serious
legal questions involving the DMCA, this case hardly
cries out for criminal prosecution. Sklyarov's and
Elcomsoft's actions are not conduct that Congress
intended to criminalize. We will vigorously contest these
charges."

Sklyarov and his attorneys will appear at an arraignment
scheduled for 9:30 AM Pacific time this Thursday,
August 30, with US Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg
presiding, in courtroom 4, 5th floor of the Federal
District Court for the Northern District of California,
San Jose Branch, 280 South 1st Street, in San Jose,
California.

Well-dressed observers plan to attend the arraignment
and nonviolent protests are scheduled in Moscow (Russia),
London (England), Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
and Black Rock City, Nevada.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RenegadeSnark:
If you have a problem with the average IQ around here, don't do things to lower it.

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Firstly, good luck getting much financial support from this group... most of us (not myself) are unable.

Secondly, congressmen don't read letters anymore. Even less, they don't read form letters. It's a futile effort that will only make ourselves feel better.

We could wait until he is convicted, and it gets appealed up to the US Supreme Court. Then, the law can be overturned. Unfortunately, that's one of the only ways this system works.

The other thing that can happen is that lawmakers see how crazy this case is and that a law, created to protect some evil organizations, is being applied to the letter to send an innocent man up the river. Not sure how to do that, unless you're able to branch out to other media and impact people's opinions. Getting a bunch of geeks pissed off is not political suicide... yet.

http://www.cryogenius.com/dmca.htm

not a lot of people are involved, or even know how the DMCA works, but if its not appealed and thrown out, its gonna fuck up alot of stuff.

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I'm not living, I'm just killing time.

1) In his country its legal.
2) HE DID THIS "CRIME" IN HIS OWN COUNTRY!
3) Even Adobe doesn't want to prosecute him.
4) THE DMCA HAS REPEATEDLY BEEN SHOWN TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

IDEA!!!!!
FUCKING IDEA!!!!
Someone made a thread about the detneters banding together to do something.
I present 2 options.
1) We all chip in some money (cr0bar, you'd need to make a paypal account or a PO box or something) and donate all this money to the EFF specifically for anti-DMCA cases.
or
2) We all write letters to every member of congress and senate, with the SAME EXACT BODY.

Please, don't do any of these before we decide what to do. Instead of flooding this thread with your feedback, please contact me via email. Tell me what you wanna do (option 1 or 2 or both).

SLATE(at)detonate.net

Our best bet, I think, is to contact Sen. Orrin Hatch. He is the author of the DMCA. He has also publicly denounced the way it's being used, and said that he now thinks it's a bad law.

I looked at his website, and he seems to be an intelligent and reasonable human being. Perhaps the best thing to do is to petition him directly, explain our problems with it, and propose an elegant solution. Senators don't read all their mail, but it DOES get read by someone who filters out the crap from the good ones.

A form letter is going to get dismissed out of hand, but a petition explaining our problems with the DMCA and an intelligent explanation of how we think copyright should work might get his attention.

This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on August 29, 2001 at 12:32 PM