Slashdot Mirror
Still in DMCA Prison
Let's go over the Sklyarov situation. Sklyarov is still in jail. In fact, he's still in Las Vegas, where he is being held without even a bail hearing, much less bail. The excuse given for not having a bail hearing when he was arrested on July 16 was that he was being immediately transferred to San Jose and would get a hearing there. Anyway, a recap of the protests: San Jose, more San Jose, New York, Seattle, Chicago writeup and Chicago pictures, Moscow writeup and Moscow photo and news coverage: New York Times, Business2.com. Wired has Washington's viewpoint - Representative Coble says "there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders". Well, duh. Linuxplanet has an opinion piece exploring the Digital Millennium Rape Act. Finally EFF has written a letter to U.S. Attorney Mueller, asking for the U.S. to drop the charges against Sklyarov. It seems pretty doubtful that he will, since he won't want to be seen as soft on crime during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Habeas Corpus is Latin for "Produce the body". In legal terms, it means that the government can't imprison someone for more that a couple days without charging him with a crime. I do believe that Sklyarov has already had an arraignment hearing where he was formally charged, then denied bail, so he already had his Habeas Corpus rights fulfilled.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Boston write-up and pictures, Wired article on the protests, On-line petition, IDG story, CNN copy of the original Reuters story (better late than never!), ironic page on the AAP website (the AAP issued a press release defending Adobe and the DMCA).
[
Boston Globe:
Adobe shifts, urges hacker's release
CBS News:
Hacker Held Under New Law
ABC News:
Russian programmer arrested at hacker convention for alleged violation of copyright law
MSNBC:
Adobe seeks release of Russian programmer arrested at Def Con
New York Times:
U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator
Arrest Raises Stakes in Battle Over Copyright
Protesters Target FBI Nominee Over Russian Arrest
Adobe Opposes Prosecution in Hacking Case
Those all seem pretty mainstream to me.
--
Free Mac Mini
But why are we playing by their rules? If we really want to be heard, we should use our abilities to make ourselves heard. America needs the developers, techies, and computer savvy people who oppose the DMCA to function as a country, to remain economically viable, and to remain internationally competetive.
Personally, I think we should show the nation just how much power they've inadvertantly given us. We should strike, or perform some equivalant that cripples the software and internet infrastructure that runs this economy. We should make a statement that shows that unless America listens to the very people who have created this Digital World, we're not going to give it to them anymore.
Sure, we'll get initially labeled as "evil hackers" and social miscreants, but we're educated enough to know that that's the price of freedom. And we're also the only people who can bail the country out of a technical catastrophe. The fact is that America needs us much more than America needs bogus laws that protect the wealthiest of companies. And we're everywhere, in every industry, and influencing every aspect of life.
Like the Patriots who threw tea overboard in Boston Harbor to protest unjust laws, we shall show that without the foundation technology upon which the Nation depends, no law prohibiting it's advancement and the open table research thereof shall survive or be tolerated.
When Howard Coble says:
"The law is performing the way we hoped... As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders."
what he means is
"My customers are very happy with their purchase."
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
For those of you who are webmastering (and who isn't, at least on the side), think about placing EFF's blue ribbon on the front page of your site. Besides being really cool, it helps get out the message that the DMCA is curtailing OUR freedom of speech and keeping an innocent man in jail.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
So you're saying that the proven fact that gun crime in Britain jumped 40% in one year after enacting laws to ban regular citizens from owning guns is not relevant? The fact that enforcing a law that is fundamentally foolish and flawed (DMCA kills fair use copyright law already in place) is therefore a good thing, just because it is now law? That's ridiculous! The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The British didn't remember that, and today they've got a 40% increase in gun crime (not just crime overall, specifically crimes involving guns). I find that quite relavant considering the DMCA flies in the face of our own Constitutionally granted freedoms.
I'm sure his wife and kids would disagree. I've never read that he wants to be a martyr for the anti-DMCA cause, and until I do I'm all for getting him out of prison ASAP.
This
Ok, and you would not mind to be Dmitry and sit in prison during the duration of such a judgment? I doubt it. This man is not even a U.S. citizen, this is our problem --- this is America's problem that must be settled within our borders and subjecting a non-American to the worse attributes (prison) of such a test is a disgust. Yes, DMCA should be tested. But, not with this case. Dmitry needs to return to Russia to his family.
Let DMCA be tested by Americans. This nation we live in is responsible for this damn law; we should be the ones who deal with it; who correct the wrong.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
How will people see what a ridiculous thing the DMCA is if they never hear about this? Few people other than slashdotters and people who have witnessed the protests actually have heard of the DMCA, let alone Sklyarov! In fact, I went to a political gathering last evening, where there were numerous citizens and several politicians, both local and otherwise. Only one of them had heard of the DMCA, and none knew about the Sklyarov issue. The major newspaper here hasn't run a single story on the issue. The media was what was pushing for this dumb act! It's in their best interest to maintain it, to keep the public in ignorance... Anyway, unless this is taken to the Supreme Court, it seems unlikely the courts could find the jurisdiction to squash the DMCA.
________
"And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion...." -- J.S. Mill
I find it ironic that the current chairman and former CEO of Adobe was quoted as saying that one of the worst parts of being kidnapped is the forced separation from ones family. Isn't that what he has ( in part ) done to Sklyarov ?
Unfortunately, instead of an American patriot, we arrested a foreign national, a man with a family, who is paying the price for the Law purchased by big business in our country.
Sadly, the people responsible for this law will probably never suffer for their abrogation of duties, and they obviously don't qualify as patriots, at least from my perspective.
I know we don't have the votes to really hurt the politicians who voted this law into effect, but we should generate as much attention as we can, and remind people that the Chinese government isn't the only one that detains foreign nationals without due process, as this case shows!