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'Free Sklyarov' Protests Scheduled

Posted by michael on from the kick-it-up-a-notch dept.

After the arrest of Dmitri Sklyarov, the EFF has been busy organizing protests for next Monday - check to see if there's one near you. A Las Vegas TV station apparently managed to interview him, though I can't get their video feed to work for me. The free-sklyarov mailing list has been set up to, well, you can probably guess. Read their archives before jumping in. And website BoycottAdobe.org is an easy URL to remember. Alan Cox has resigned from the Usenix committee which organizes the annual Linux Showcase, citing concerns about DMCA enforcement in the United States. And finally, Professor Touretzky has built on his DeCSS Gallery with a Gallery of Adobe Remedies for showcasing methods to remove restrictions on PDF files.

8 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Protests? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    Protests are ineffective, if not counter-productive, in most cases. The thing to do is not shout and wave banners for a one time shot on TV, but to seek out mainstream journalists and get them to relay the Sklyarov story to a larger, more receptive audience. Here's the first mainstream opinion piece that I've seen so far. Get more attention paid to the issue this way and you won't need to dress up like turtles and attack police in riot gear.

    1. Re:Protests? by meepzorb · · Score: 5

      To hell with the media. They are owned by the very corporations which pushed for the DMCA. Honestly, how sympathetic do you expect mainstream media to be?

      WTO-style protests may be counter-productive, but peaceful, organized, and non-violent protest is one of the most effective ways of getting the public to focus on a given issue, and history is full of examples. So I must disagree with you.

      My gut feeling is that this case is the proverbial "it". An arrest has been made, charges pressed, and a foreign national has been denied access to the diplomats of his native country. So Adobe cant back out with "just kidding" tactics like the RIAA. Nor can the Feds.

      DMCA will be tested in court, with all that entails for the First Amendment. Why would we want to let the very organizations that drafted the faulty legislation in the first place set the tone of the debate???

      :Michael

    2. Re:Protests? by vidarh · · Score: 5
      I suggest you go sign up on the mailing list on www.boycottadobe.org. A lot of the traffic is concerned with getting the word to journalists, politicians and other people that may affect this directly - the demonstrations are only one of a long range of methods used.

      These aren't amateurs - a lot of people from organizations with lots of experience in activism like this are involved.

      For my part I've written a few e-mail messages do Adobe officials. Every little bit done to turn this into a PR nightmare for Adobe is a good thing.

      --

      Remove Trash+ to reach my actual inbox

  2. Don't forget to vote! by SpiceWare · · Score: 5
    At the bottom of the article is a voting box to recommend the article to other readers.

    This article is not yet in their top 10 list - only you can make it so :-)

  3. Hacker missing! by rw2 · · Score: 5
    Not only was the arrest troubling, now they don't know where he is!

    Hacker missing

    --
    Poliglut

  4. Martyr's Cause by chill · · Score: 5
    While the geek public has been ranting over DMCA since its inception, the general public was exposed only through corporte PR and spin.

    "Hackers are bad. They are the cause of the high prices on CDs, videos, DVDs, books, tapes, etc. Poor starving artists. Evil hackers."

    Adobe's insistance on the arrest has presented the opportunity to push our views of the DMCA into the more general public via the news media. What was an obscure little argument all of a sudden becomes cause celebre that needs to be exploited.

    The MSNBC article makes the wonderful point that it is not the application on the law that is the problem, but the law itself.

    America has advanced further into the realm of a corporate state than most people realized. What big business wants, big business gets.

    This opportunity shouldn't be wasted with irrational rhetoric and ranting. If the spotlight of the mainstream media continues to shine on this issue, it should be used to show the DMCA for what it is -- a frontal assault by Corporate America on the Constitution and the Freedoms of our Citizens.


    --
    Charles E. Hill

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  5. Way to go, Alan by Hilary+Rosen · · Score: 5

    Of course, this raises the issue of where Usenix should be holding its conferences. I don't think Sealand is big enough. Besides, you pretty much have to go through the UK ("please hand your crypto keys to the immigration officer") to get there.
    --

    --
    Yes, the nick is flamebait
  6. Contact Adobe by idonotexist · · Score: 5

    I think Adobe should be aware of the number of concerned individuals. Some contacts at Adobe (listed on http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/prcontac ts.html) include:

    Adobe Community Relations Ginny Babbit gbabbit@adobe.com
    Adobe Public Policy Autumn Blatchford ablatchf@adobe.com
    Adobe Investor Relations ir@adobe.com
    Adobe User Forums (located on adobe.com) may be found here: http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?.ee6b30e

    Any other contacts at Adobe I missed?

    --
    "There ought to be limits to freedom"