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Say Here Why Sklyarov Should Go Free
Skylarov's fate has significance far beyond encryption programs. It goes directly to the very idea of security online, of hacker exploration, the open sharing of software processes, and to the creativity and challenge that is at the heart of the Net. This process of sharing, exploring and challenging is one of the primary reasons for the Net's growth, from gaming to messaging to system software to open source. This case also involves the future of copyright and intellectual property. Sklyarov is in jail because of a poorly-conceived provision of the DMCA written by entertainment company lobbyists that goes far beyond existing copyright law.
Sklyarov violated no aspect of traditional copyright law -- only the outlandish provisions of the DMCA. His behavior is similiar to that of many journalists and critics who, over the years, have obtained secret, classified or copyrighted corporate or governmental information to expose flaws, weaknesses or more serious forms of wrongdoing. Few have been arrested and thrown in jail. The federal courts have always taken the view that the greatest threat to freedom is the unchecked power of large institutions, from governments to auto manufacturers. In a sense, the future of Net security depends on people like Skylarov probing for weaknesses and flaws. Whatever his motives, Sklyarov's behavior was in this protected tradition.
Even if Skylarov is freed tomorrow, his arrest and persecution will chill criticism of corporate products and power, and threatens the survival of individualism online. This is a major escalation for increasingly aggressive and monopolistic tech and media corporations, some of which are aggressively moving to control content and communications. Copyright is their new wedge. This criminal case should be dropped, and Sklyarov freed.
Except that MPAA v. 2600 set the precedent that says that TELLING someone how to FIND a tool that will let you circumvent methods designed to control access or duplication to a copyrighted work, is also illegal under this code.
Actually the ruling said the opposite - merely telling them is ok, but SHOWING them is not. Which is why 2600 changed the link (infringing) into a plain-text non-clickable URL (non-infringing).
The DMCA may outlaw a lot of things, but the US courts know how to deal with printed text and spoken speech, and I don't think anything in this case rises to the gravity that'd be required to form an exception to the 1st amendment (i.e. the "fire in a crowded theater" or "clear and present danger" exceptions).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Money that you spend on your computer does not count as "royalties". The record companies and artists are not in any way a party to the transaction between you and the computer vendor. A lot of people have the misconception that buying a computer and getting online entitles them to get everything for free. That's not the way it works, at least not until PC vendors become more creative with their bundling arrangements (shudder)
Not to mention the CD's that I've subsequently purchased because of this.
Again, it's not the same thing -- you paid for the CDs, but you didn't pay for the online music.
You said something to the effect that buying a computer was similar to paying royalties. Clearly, it is not. You also claimed that buying CDs legitimises otherwise illegitimate behaviour. It does not. And now you resort to silly insults.
I'm not claiming I'm entitled to mp3's. I'm claiming that mp3's increase the overall sales of artists records
That's very good news then, because if it's true, then record companies will realise that it's in their best interests to give away MP3s. The ones that don't will go out of business.
TV was developed, movie companies cried that they would go bankrupt because no one would go to the movies anymore.
Again, one word: royalties. If the online music distributors such as napster pay royalties, I'd say your analogy would have some merit.
but because they're so paranoid and retarded
Have you ever run a succesful business before ? It pays to be paranoid. The reason that the more sucessful companies are paranoid is because the ones that weren't paranoid are all dead.
The first record company that finally embraces mp3's and returns to giving them out for free and promoting free mp3 giveaways, will be the first to make a breakthrough in their profits.
Good. But you should realise that these business decisions are for the record companies to make. You may believe that it's in their best interests to give stuff away, but that doesn't justify taking what they aren't prepared to give.
Agreed totally, you seem to have misunderstood the side of the argument I was on :). My point is that in ethier of those cases the US government would (and did in the case of the US airmen) demand immediate release, loudly, and rightously. Where is this rightousness when it comes to foriegn nationals who are wrongly accused by the US (keeping in mind that I'm speaking of the US in general, and that I realize that the vast majority of /. readers probably think more.
:).
My appologies if my inital post didn't make as much sense as it should have, my blood caffine level was unusually low at the time
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Here is a radical suggestion for you: Code is speech.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Fortunately, I have a lot of friends - both online and in off, and many co-workers. You seem to have an opinion that no one agrees with. You probably represent a large company in some way, or feel the need to protect yourself. I believe your response is a troll - nothing more.
I do not represent the wolf. Life liberty and property, property in that case being tangible assets, e.g., guns, real estate, houses, possessions. He never said life, liberty and monopoly. In fact, life liberty and property was rephrased as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In my ethos I strive to achieve a more star-trek like existence, where you can serve yourself (with notoriety, money, etc) and mankind at the same time. There is no need to "milk" technologies - look what happened to TUCKER in Detroit. Fucked out of businesses by the monopolists. I want to protect against that. Milking is what petrol and car companies do, prevent fuel cells, ceramic engines, higher fuel efficiencies in motors, etc. We won't see next generation technology in cars for some time because the current has to be milked.
I am upset with you. I never said ban. Copyright. I said freedom from burdensome copyright, not freedom from all copyright.. You don't know how to read and understand this is moderate position.
Elcomsoft had stopped charging for the Ebook software before he entered the company. He had done so at Adobe's request. He is an employee of Elcomsoft and cannot be charged for what that business entity had done. We have similar laws here where companies are formed to financially and legally shield people from faults.
Of government. Your attention to picayune details is annoying. You misinterpret his words, in my opinion. Are you referring to all the monopolistic and tax payer wasting exclusive government contracts?
As far as monopoly and sacrifice. Yes, monopolies are a sacrifice. I don't shun copyright or patent, I just want them used more carefully and for fair use to be protected. You can still make a product, if it so damn good then you don't even need to patent it. People need to focus on being a better company and product and not thinking about sitting on and licensing your IP for all eternity, e.g., RAMBUS. Again, you misread, malign and come up with shoddy arguments.
I'm going to stop responding to you because you have been a troll, this is clearly someone who sits and reads and has his heart set on disagreeing with me for no apparent reason other than the sake of argument. There is always one of you in a discussion thread, so I guess you can say "YHBTYHLHAND." If you weren't trolling me, then you are very un-American in your thinking - I can't think of anyone, conservative or not, that thinks any of Jefferson's reasoning wasn't intelligent and well thought out.
- Z
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Good alternative points or a crock? You're not making much sense here.
**>>BELCH
My opinion is that the case should go to trial. I'm not for the DMCA, but this would give it a test case in court, and if the ruling goes against the DMCA (and it should by all rights) then that would help to get it changed or revoked. Eric Gearman
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
Freedom to speak should exist even when a US corporation finds such speech uncomfortable.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
At what point, if ever, does society have a right to say that the author/inventor has received enough and no longer has the right to use the police and courts to extract monopoly rents from the rest of society?
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I'm sorry, but you have completely missed the point. Do you forget that Skylarov did not break the law? He wrote a program in Russia which was legal in Russia (and most other parts of the world, for that matter). If you are part of the small Slashdot majority who believes the contrary, that Skylarov did break the law and should be thrown in jail, then that tells us where you stand. But you aren't, because you say so yourself: unfairly imprisioned [sic] people need to be freed. You can't have your cake and eat it too; you can't both believe that he did nothing wrong, and also that he should be martyred for the greater cause of putting the DMCA in the limelight. That is just completely unfair to Skylarov, his family, everyone involved. I have no problem with the prosecution and incarceration of people who really did break our laws. I really don't -- and that goes for even such travesties as the DMCA. But in this case, no laws were broken. The fact that the DMCA was ever signed into law distresses me greatly, but it's much more distressing to me that our government has essentially taken hostage a man who committed no crime. And as a responsible citizen, it should be to you too.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
No, the charges were brought for distribution of, or "trafficking in", the software.
Now, he didn't hand out copies of the stuff, so how was he trafficking? Answer: he showed people where to get it.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Given the byzantine nature of the DMCA, violating one or more of its provisions does not seem to be too difficult. If you would really like to see the DMCA put to the test, then put your money where your mouth is and violate it. Flagrantly. And be prepared to suffer the consequences, which will include separation from your friends and family, a "hacker" stigmatization that will reflect upon you and your work for at least the next decade, and, barring some 11th-hour benevolence on behalf of the EFF and prominent defense attornies, a large drain on your financial resources. I might add that you would at least have the luxury of a passing familiarity with the American judicial system, which, unfortunately, is more than can be said for Skylarov. Until you are ready to take that leap, please don't come on Slashdot expounding the abstract benefits of this case while simultaneously completely blinding yourself to the actual human story underlying it all.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
2. Fair Use: What fair use? ;-) This has been beaten to death, but I must mention it simply because it is so compelling. I am allowed to copy things for my own personal use. You can try to stop me with anti-copying measures, but if I succeed there is nothing you can do about it. Which means that a device that allows me to do this cannot be illegal. (this is all supposing that fair use rights have not been summarily thrown out the window by the DMCA).
3. Punish the crime, not the tool. This is my own personal opinion, but I think the US could really look to this when making laws. I can kill someone with a ballpoint pen, and it would still be murder. I could also do this with a gun, a knife or just about anything. It is the murder that is the crime, not the gun (or pen, etc.). I know many do not agree with me on this, but we need to draw the line somewhere. Making extra penalities for commiting a crime with a certain weapon or possessing a weapon that enables you to commit crimes is simply stupid. Similarly, just because I have the tools to commit copyright infringement doesn't mean I will do it. I used to download songs from Napster that I already owned on CD just because it was a pain to rip them all.
4. Code is Speech. If you claim that it is not, please explain how RSA encryption was exported as a book, or how DeCSS can be printed on a T-shirt. Anything that can be written in a book or on a T-shirt is speech, and is protected (as long as it isn't a death-threat or a threat to national security).
5. The DMCA sucks. :-) The above are most of the reasons. It is a law that was passed after huge lobbying efforts by enormous corporations for one purpose only: their own bottom line. It was not passed to protect the artists or writers, give me a break. It was passed to protect the publishers. They need to get the message that if widespread pirating is being done, they need to focus on quality of service and ease of distribution. Why didn't the VCR kill television or movies? Because it is easier to pay for cable and a better experience to go to the movies. Plus you can RENT tapes. As long as a CD costs $18 there will be a poor college kid trying to pirate it because he DOESN'T HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY.
Those are most of the reasons I could think of off the top of my head.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Not that this is particularly a new view point, I will post it to be heard; for what that is worth.
My first point is that the DMCA overrides many of the copyright issues that people have lived with for years, in fact, they take them for granted. Issues like so called "fair use," although tricky, is a major issue that the DMCA throws out the window. Also is the issue of the expiration dates on copyrights. I think this is required, not only because the earlier laws require it, but it is required for an innovative country. Without this, I think America wouldn't be what it is today.
Secondly, the DMCA was passed without the knowledge or consent of the people of the United States. I know that we live in a representative government, where our elected officials speak for the people at large, but this particular law, and alarmingly, many like it, were passed on behalf of the recording industry, movie making industry, etc. This is not the will of the people. In fact, how can someone say that the people are benefited by this law? I say that they are not. Their rights are being trampled by this abomination. In most, if not all states, if a contract is signed that isn't beneficial to both parties, it can be easily contested as invalid. This law is similar, I think it would be over-turned, because it doesn't have the best interests of the American people at heart.
Thirdly, in what way is Adobe hurt by Dmitri Sklyarov's actions that it would have been able to avoid if this didn't contain one of the political buzzwords like "encryption" or "hacker"? In the past, when a company was guilty of lying or committing a crime, it is usually up to a private citizen (American or otherwise) to point it out before the public at large and the Judicial system would take notice? Adobe tried to tie something to a single instance of computer hardware, making it non-copyable. This is shaky legal ground without the DMCA, as it probably violates "fair use." Furthermore, the encryption used is flimsy and easily breakable. If I am betting my company on the quality of this encryption, the low quality of the Adobe product constituted a defective product. Only because it is illegal now (under the DMCA and no other law) to try to break encryption, would this even have the possibility of not being broken and turned into a copyable medium. What Mr. Sklyarov did was to enable people and corporations to understand the risk of using Adobe's defective eBook product. This has never been a crime, and it shouldn't be a crime. Without this type of "expose," we are in the position of the king in the children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes." We know that there are problems, but they are never fixed, because no one is allowed to talk about the problems, thus Adobe--or any other company--has no reason to improve, thus killing the innovation that I mentioned in my first paragraph.
Lastly, it is a crime to talk about encryption subversion under the DMCA. This treads on dangerous territory, that being free speech. Yes, there are instances where we give up free speech for the greater good (the classic yelling "fire" in a crowded theater for example), but this isn't one of them. There is no greater good, only the good of a few wealthy companies, the ones which lobbied this law into existence. In fact, I believe that the criminalization of talking about this if a disservice to America. It is only by talking about things among peers that real scientific advances come.
I still think a run-of-the-mill petition would be in order as well. I think until we actually take action that the "old school" politicians will recognize, we are just shouting to the converted.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Dmitry also writes and sells spamware.
...how can the DMCA have anything to do with this case?
(on a side-note: is it me or did
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Moderator's essentials
Check out Roger Parloff of Inside.com's column on why Dmitry should not be freed. I don't necessarily agree but it's good to play devils advocate.
While ours was a small group (I believe there were 33 of us who made it to the embassy), we encountered a lot of Londoners and tourists on the way from Hyde Park corner. Some were perplexed by a parade of geeks attempting to chant things like "Free Speech! Free Dmitry!". There was no hostility; however, it was clear that some American tourists were rather upset by the banner we were carrying that read "Visit America, Go to jail". But despite being a small protest, the organiser was interviewed by Newsnight (the UK equivelant of Larry King Live) and we're going to get the second spot tonight.
I don't know if these protests will actually help Dmitry, but I do think they're raising the awareness of the absurdity of the DCMA. With Europe and Canada about to vote on DMCA-type laws, the protests come at the right time.
Copyright laws were introduced to make sure that people did not sell items with copied material in them, originating from someone else. However, if someone publishes a book on how something works, based on their research and their disassembly and their reverse engineering, they should be free to do so. Copyright is the idea protecting ideas from illict reproduction, not from informative deconstruction.
The equivalent is Chilton's Car Maintience guide company being sued because they explain how a GM 305 engine works.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
A court case like this over the DMCA would almost certainly get overturned (of course, IANAL, but this is IMO). However, a Russian would have to wait in our federal jails until the whole process is complete. We could be talking years. I would be more inclined to want the case to go to trial if an American were in jail. And no, it's not so an American can be the hero, but because he/she will be closer to home and would most certainly be treated better.
FBI web readers take note: I am almost inclined to heavily study encryption, reverse engineer some stuff, and publish it on the web just to say, "Come and get me, let's go to trial and get this sh*t over with." I have no immediate family, so I'm almost tempted to do it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Unfortuneately, he who can afford the biggest lawyer generally wins. Money is known as the universal lubricant for good reason. The war between legality and "basic human rights" (or what keeps the most people from living like slaves), has been historically lost with phrases like "for the good of the people". That said, the main reason that this should be thrown out BEFORE it gets to the criminal trial stage is that having the trial in the first place would lend legitimacy to the charges. The laws of ANY country are supposed to reflect the will of its citizens. Individual citizens (in this and other countries) are being sidelined in favor of corporate citizens (not people, but legel entities). Remember that our legel system can bring justice just as easily as it can fortify oppression. My two centi-Euro's(TM)...
You're gaining an insignificant amount of security, at the cost of a immense amount of bad will on the part of people who can really hurt you. Your duty to your shareholders should compel you to drop this matter ASAFP. Develop better security, and thank the people who find the problems; better them than your competitors.
This isn't a troll. Elcomsoft's major products are spamware. Dmitry and Elcomsoft are not the kind of people worth defending, they are a pox on the whole internet. If you don't believe me, look at THIS web page:
http://www.mailutilities.com/aee/
and then scroll down to the bottom and note the Elcomsoft copyright message. This software is designed to help spammers extract addresses from email and websites. Every copy of this spamware that Elcomsoft sells means you and I get more spam. They should ALL be in jail, if there was any justice on this earth.
And when those laws are unjust, its every citizens responsibility to disobey those laws.
I agree that Skylerov is not being served justice, but perhaps his sacrifice can bring about change to the ill-devised DMCA.
This needs to go to a court where technolegy isn't veiwed as a yoke to assist in our daily lives. My hope is that the lawyers and judges on this case can see technolegy as the last great American Freedom. Skylerov's actions were to free restrictive and narrowminded technolegy to empower people to use the product in question, not to promote pirecy or theft of a product.
I can only hope that thi is the death knel for the DMCA I hear on the horizon and not the sound of the big business gestapo making sure that their power isn't lost.
Case 1: Sklyarov writes a program which demonstrates the lack of security in a programs piece of software. This shows that the developers of the software have to rewrite their code to fix this problem, this also prevents consumers from buying faulty software which could leak important information.
Case 2: Consumer Reports buys a car, test drives the car and tips it over. They publish a report showing that the car is defective. The cars engineers have to redesign the car and this also prevents consumers from buying a defective car and injuring themselves.
So when Consumer Reports announces that a car is defective, how come they don't get arrested and jailed? They are releasing information against the companies interests in order to protect consumers, damaging the companies reputation and sales of the car. I'm sure any company would want to prevent this information from being released. Sylyrov was not arrested for reasons of immoral acts or destructive behavior. Sklyrov was arrested because he released information that was against a companies interest in order to protect consumers, and the company used a new law which applied to this type of information to prevent it.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
We are setting a precedent that is going to come back to haunt us. Consider that we have imprisoned a foreign national, who entered the country on a Visa from the US government. His act is only illegal within the boarders of the US and the act did not occur here.
This policy puts all of us who travel abroad for business at risk. Consider that we have people setting up phone networks, running fiber, etc. in countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and a host of third world countries. Can you tell me what is illegal in those countries? Would you like it to be in the US? That is what we are saying. If you violate our laws while in your country, never come here.
Extreme example? The only people who believe the world loves the US have never traveled. While they do not dislike us individually, we are considered arrogant and inexperienced as a country. Most countries have homes older than we have existed. We think we are right most of the time and are more prone to "my way or the highway" mentality, with the view shared by many that we are a bully that needs a good thrashing.
We have now set the precedent that you can arrest an American for violating your laws while in America. This is bad on so many levels.
...and Skylarov were an American in Russia, being held after taking a trip to a conference in Moscow to present scientific research sponsored by his employer, and was arrested for spying because of that research, the American press would go apesh*t (as Slashdot has previously noted). Today on dailynews.yahoo.com:
The individuals in the USAG's office from Ashcroft on down need to be held accountable for every day of the immoral, obscene detention of Dmitri Sklyarov. His release is inevitable, but I fear it won't be soon. For it, I say SHAME!
This could seriously undermine Russian and US relations, not counting the ABM treaty that the US wants to put aside in order to build their missile system. If Russia doesn't know already about Sklyarov's plight, they'll know soon, and they will demand justice too and put some political pressure on the US.
Not to mention that he hasn't had a bail hearing yet or has even been expedited to California. I'm just glad the Cold War is over, or we'd see something far worse happen.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Sklyarov should not be summarily released. Yes, I said it.
Why? Because the DMCA is fatally flawed. Its concepts make dangerous and possibly unconstitutional precedent, and criminalize the rights of invention ('freedom to innovate') in ways previously relegated to dark-future fiction.
Will Congress repeal the DMCA? Unlikely. Political pressure from lobbyists is far greater to keep it in place, and that's where the money is.
Will the president do anything about it? This president? Not likely. (Besides, he's going on vacation for a month.)
The courts are the only arena where the DMCA will be chipped away until it falls apart, but that can't happen if we stage 'free hacker-x' demonstrations every time the DMCA is to be put on trial.
This case is perfect. It's highly public, it hits upon the core of the DMCA, and it's one where the victimized party (Adobe) also feels that the defendant should not be prosecuted. If there's another test case that stands a better chance of chinking the DMCA's multi-platinum armor, I don't know what it is.
But none of this can happen if we don't push the trial through. Look at the big picture. Free Sklyarov, and next month there will be another Sklyarov in his place (anyone want to publish a paper on DeCSS?), but break the DMCA in court, and all Sklyarovs will be free.
Kevin Fox
For those of you with "The Law is the Law" attitude, I believe this law undermines our fundamental laws here which are regarded as inalienable. Thomas Jefferson and others should clear this up.
/ 21/990621opmetcalfe.xml
Intro:
I feel the need with all the horrible rights violations going recently to highlight Thomas Jefferson's views on copyright. In the writing to ensue, there will be much opinion and conjecture surrounded by a more valued and respected sets of opinions by none other than Thomas Jefferson. Without a doubt, Thomas Jefferson has already covered most of what gets rehashed, particularly when it comes to fair use and the DMCA.
I feel it is important to this case, especially from the American prospective, to point out that one of the most ingenious, prolific and outspoken forefathers of the USA, where the DMCA and other vile laws live, believe firmly that the bill of rights should have included and explicit reference to freedom from burdensome and unfair copyrights and legislation thereof.
Thomas Jefferson was concerned about you and me. The people that read periodicals. He was concerned with everyone as a singular entity. You yourself may not know what's best for you if you belong to something bigger. Our [United States] laws are supposed to protect the little people.
While I'm not suggesting an armed standoff against federal agents necessary in this case, something must be done. We are railroading an expatriate to whom our laws do not bind. Furthermore, our own forefathers, particularly Jefferson, BELIEVE me he is YOUR friend (not the big monopolies like Energy/Petroleum Companies, Microsoft, etc.)
I'm going to excerpt his beliefs below. Realize that even 200 years ago, the pitfalls of burdensome copyright and the legislation that ensues would erode our freedoms.
...
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), in his correspondence with James Madison (1751-1836) was initially hostile to the provision for copyright and patent law in the United States Constitution. On Dec. 20, 1787, Jefferson wrote to Madison from France concerning the recently-drafted Constitution:
"I do not like... the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land..."
Note, here IMHO, Thomas Jefferson wants to, along with our other inalienable rights, establish a freedom from Monopoly. These rights, not excluding freedom from monopoly, were to him as core as the rest of our bill of rights. He repeated this view in his letter to Madison dated July 31, 1788:
"I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new constitution by nine states. It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want re-touching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from North to South, which calls for a bill of rights. It seems pretty generally understood that this should go to juries, habeas corpus, standing armies, printing, religion and monopolies. I conceive there may be difficulty in finding general modification of these suited to the habits of all the states. But if such cannot be found then it is better to establish trials by jury, the right of Habeas corpus, freedom of the press and freedom of religion in all cases, and to abolish standing armies in time of peace, and monopolies, in all cases, than not to do it in any... The saying there shall be no monopolies lessens the incitements to ingenuity, which is spurred on by the hope of a monopoly for a limited time, as of 14 years; but the benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression."
Madison, in a letter dated October 17, 1788, responded,
"With regard to monopolies they are justly classed among the greatest nuisances in government. But is it clear that as encouragements to literary works and ingenious discoveries, they are not too valuable to be wholly renounced? Would it not suffice to reserve in all cases a right to the public to abolish the privilege at a price to be specified in the grant of it? Is there not also infinitely less danger of this abuse in our governments than in most others? Monopolies are sacrifices of the many to the few. Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored. It is much more to be dreaded that the few will be unnecessarily sacrificed to the many.
I hold the recent copyright extension as an example of what Madison thought there was little danger of. There it was said, even by Madison, the proponent of the said directives, that there would likely be no "a sacrifice of the many to the "partialities and corruptions" of a powerful few."
I firmly believe the DMCA is both a corruption and a partiality. Anyone with Macrovision stock will try and convince you otherwise.
Jefferson probably saw that there is some purpose in having intellectual property be protected in some fashion or more likely, IMHO, probably decided that he would rather be a part of creating the ground rules for this countries operations and decided to cut bait at this point. He subsequently said to Madison in a letter on August 28, 1789:
"I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose."
The blank was to be filled in at some future date, obviously. The law is written with the sense that this right would be the right of the people to protect themselves against intellectual fraudulence by companies, e.g., the theft of the 'little man's' ideas. In addition to which, there is always the stance that the people of the fledgling USA would be safeguarded in the Bill of Rights against unduly long copyrights.
Jefferson's preference for the term of copyright was submitted to Madison a few days afterward, in a letter of September 6, 1789. The proposed term was that of 19 years, based on actuarial calculations:
"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another seems never to have been started on this [i.e., the European side -- Jefferson was writing from France] or our [American] side of the water... that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. -- I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it... A generation coming in and going out entire... would have a right on the first year of their self-dominion to contract a debt for 33 years, in the 10th for 24, in the 20th for 14, in the 30th for 4, whereas generations, changing daily by daily deaths and births, have one constant term, beginning at the date of their contract, and ending when a majority of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The length of that term may be estimated from the tables of mortality. Take, for instance, the tables of M. de Buffon... [according to which] half of those of 21 years [of age] and upwards living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18 years 8 months, or say 19 years as the nearest integral number. Then 19 years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt... This principle that the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead, is of very extensive application... Turn this subject in your mind, my dear Sir... Your station in the councils of our country gives you an opportunity for producing it to public consideration... Establish the principle... in the new law to be passed for protecting copyrights and new inventions, by securing the exclusive right for 19 instead of 14 years."
A Jeffersonian computation using life tables from 1992 gives a Jeffersonian copyright term of 30-35 years. (Vital Statistics of the United States 1992, Volume II--Mortality, Part A, Public Health Service, Hyattsville, 1996, Section 6, Table 6-1.) Note, however, that at least one edition of Jefferson's works has a much abridged version of this letter, in which the 19-year computation and the proposal for the term of copyright do not occur.
One of Jefferson's most famous statements on patent law was in his often-quoted letter of August 13, 1813 to Isaac McPherson, in which he wrote that, since there is no natural right to property in land, how much less is there a natural right to a property in ideas. I think Jefferson's words apply equally well to copyrights as to patents; to "expression" as well as to "ideas": "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
A random set of impressions of these laws with which I agree:
"The scary thing about the DMCA is that it affects everyone, but only a subset of the country realizes it exists, of which a subset understands what it means, of which a subset understands why its so wrong. " quote, kstumpf (ken@stumpf.com).
"Is there a "voice" amongst this subset that has any power to inflict any change here? Kind of spooky. It makes you wonder where things are headed." quote, kstumpf (ken@stumpf.com).
As someone pointed out in a discussion, be sure to realize that copyright is referred to at this point as monopoly in Jefferson's letters.
Its fairly clear that Jefferson uses Monopoly in reference to copyright, which is what it is, you can monopolize on your intellectual property for a set period of time. He was willing to give IP of the day 19 years, but he was very much verbal about fair use, and that public fair use was of the utmost importance.
Even cursory inspection of Jefferson's views shows his distrust of allowing monopolies run rampant.
Even Madison has said:
"With regard to monopolies they are justly classed among the greatest nuisances in government."
They both realized that in order for Monopolies of any sort to be protected by the government, that undue amounts of arbitration would be necessary.
Jefferson also affords a Monopoly to the Individual, not a corporate entity:
"Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose."
Surely he isn't suggesting that one person could create a monopoly on, lets say, corn. He was referring to copyright. He certainly isn't suggesting that corn could only be sold by one person for 19 years.
Another thing, imagine if the copyrights were in fact awarded to the people who invented them, not the companies who subsidized them. It would be interesting to see a world where companies like DuPont and Merck (and every other chemical and drug exploitation companies, because that's what they are, the money is in the treatments, not the cure) are made to treat their patent holding scientists with the utmost respect and regard, even more so than the greedy shareholders, because if they left for another company, so leaves their patents!
The most important of all the Jefferson arguments is this: If IP is so unique, so wonderful and so great, why does it need protection? I don't believe I had quoted this particular argument above, I will work to find it, but the statement is true. If something is obvious, then it really isn't IP. Would you like Bob Metcalfe, the Linux is a piece of crap Windows 2000 rules moron who founded 3COM to hold the patent on 'ethernet'?
Link: http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/06
Don't you think its nice that other companies compete with 3COM for the ethernet space, such as Intel, CISCO, et al? Doesn't the standard referred to as "ethernet" get better and better because these companies compete for your business in the same segment?
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
Thomas Jefferson, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6, H.A. Washington, Ed.,1854, pp. 180-181. Link: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/copyright/
The message in this passage is clear: an idea is not matter but energy; it cannot be owned, and it isn't diminished by being shared. In any discussion of copyright, it is useful to begin by reminding ourselves that ideas can't be copyrighted and can't be owned--only expression can. Furthermore, even when expression is copyrighted, academics ought to bear in mind their right to Fair Use, a crucial exception to copyright that exists in order to enable teaching, research, and news reporting.
A few more quotes to muse upon:
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their choice, if the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they... undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow "
-- James Madison
And finally:
"The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. "
Thomas Jefferson To Edward Carrington
Paris, Jan. 16, 1787
- B. Howes, 2001, California "Amerika"
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Friends, Geeks, Script Kiddies, Lend me your ears!
Seriously, while I support the actions taken against the DCMA and believe the charges he's jailed under to be illegal under our own constitution, as well as ill founded and unevenly applied, I still think he's a crook who should rot in jail.
It's like the Mafia - so we got him on tax charges, he still belongs there.
But is the DCMA right? Should the feds be able to do this? Should Adobe get off scot free by saying "oh, gee, wish we could help, but after we signed the death warrant it's all out of our hands and we really think he shouldn't die, but we won't do anything about it"?
No.
So, fight the good fight. Win against the forces that oppose you. I support the cause, but not the man.
Meanwhile, Texas continues to execute poor black men for the crime of not being rich enough to afford lawyers, and DNA evidence to prove innocence is still the exception after commital and sentencing, not the rule.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I think the answer is obvious: we all need to supposrt the Free Speech Protection Act.
One of the primary injustices of Sklyarov's arrest is that US law enforcement officials have no jurisdiction over this matter. Even if his actions did violate US laws, he broke Adobe's encryption while living and working in Russia. It is absurd that the United States government should arrest him while travelling in the United States for a his (legal) actions in another country. Arresting a Russian citizen for an alleged violation of the DMCA, which occured in Russia, if at all, is analogous to arresting a Dutch citizen for smoking marijuana while at home in the Netherlands, where such activity is perfectly legal.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0
discusses the resignation of Alan Cox, a major force behind open software, from the USENIX organization for fear of unconstitutional seizure by the FBI while traveling in the US...
Dmitri should be free. It's a violation of human rights in my opinion.
I moved to the US to get away from things like this. In Northern Ireland in the early 1970's they passed an . This was just like the DMCA in that it was very badly worded and horribly abused; it was meant to stop violence but just created worse problems instead. Internment meant imprisonment without trail for people just suspected of terrorism. In the loyalist thinking of that time, it meant anyone who was catholic and outspoken.
The DMCA is about laws that protect corporate stupidity. If I was running a company that wrote software as badly as Adobe et al did, I'd shake Dmitri's hand, and go and write software with proper encryption. It's a stupid law passed by stupid politicians, enforced by stupid companies that dictate to showboating law officials what should be done.
This country is really starting to piss me off. A hundred years ago the US was where people came to get away from things like this. Now it's become a country where those who pay the most win.
Sklyarov did nothing beneficial for society
Tell that to the blind kids who couldn't read/hear Adobe's books.
Nice troll.
So we can just selectively decide who has rights and who doesn't because of their citizenship? That's absurd.
The majority of my objection to this is that it should be a civil matter and not a criminal one.
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
You'll see that the comments are forwarded to the appropriate federal officials? My understanding is that officials like to hear directly from his/her constituents and they ignore all other contacts. Wouldn't it be best to have a place for automated contact with our own officials (i.e.: I enter my letter and then my name and address is automatically affixed to the letterhead and envelope).
/. could work with Russian counterparts who would apply similar to pressure to their local officials, who then would pressure U.S. officials?
Moreover, I hope you are printing out this information and sending it via snail mail --- government officials tend to also ignore email.
Finally, I recently read of a U.S. citizen freed in Russia after a conviction for drug possession. The Russian government was pressured by U.S. officials --- who were written to and called upon by constituents in the U.S. Wouldn't it be helpful if
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
WHAT!!!
Those rights apply to EVERYONE while in the US. Otherwise it would be perfectly legal to have private citizens hang out along the US/Mexico border and shoot everyone who comes across illegally. Illegal aliens, criminals, tourists, business people, diplomats etc. Once in the US the constitution protects them equally, regardless of their citizenship.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Adobe's implementation of the EBook standard allowed publishers to prohibit the printing of validly purchased EBooks. Obviously printing a lawful copy of an EBook for reading while in the bath or on the patio is a Fair Use. Adobe's scheme prohibited that fair use. The Advanced EBook Processor broke Adobe's encryption scheme and allowed lawful owners of EBooks to print them for reading someplace else other than at the computer.
Napster was popular for the sole reason that it allowed people to steal. DeCSS is a somewhat more gray area, but it still basically allowed people to steal. Sklyarov did nothing beneficial for society, he merely found yet another way to steal and publicized it.
People stealing on Napster, eh? Wow, we've got a lot of thieves out there (probably in the millions!). If so much stealing was going on (millions were doing it), then why did the industry they were stealing from actually have increased profits during such a reviled time of evil and thievery?
So it is now illegal for me to copy something for my own personal use (backups) which I have already purchased? That's what fair use clauses in American copyright law are all about, but you're telling me that just because a newer law invalidated a previous law, that the new law is more fair? Read through the Bill of Rights and you'll realize that laws are made because someone gets screwed and wants to protect themselves from the same screwing in the future. I would think that new laws that go against time tested ones are usually an attempt at an end-run around not being able to re-screw someone over. That's what the DMCA looks like to me.
Don't believe me? When was the last time someone actually practiced what they preached and downloaded some songs by the independent artists on MP3.com? Those few who have actually done it know that independent artists generally produce crap, and go back to trying to find their Eminem and Metallica mp3s.
Just because a distribution method sucks, doesn't mean the ideas behind it are not good. MP3.com sucked, but mp3's are a great way to listen to more than one currently popular song from a band. And yes, after downloading songs from Napster, I have then gone out and purchased several CD's because I liked what I heard. And not crap from no name bad artists on MP3.com; I'm talking about mainstream techno artists like The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Fatboy Slim, etc. (Yes, I'm a techno freak).
To sum it all up:
I think Dmitri Skylarov should be released because he has done nothing wrong. According to the DMCA, *maybe*, but only in his own country, and only in an effort to provide people purchasing eBook Adobe software a way to back up their ALREADY purchased literature. The beauty of technology should be to make our lives easier. If I drop a paper book in the pool, well, I'd better go out and buy a new one. That sucks. But if I accidentally drop my eBook in the pool, sure, I may have lost my eBook Reader, but with Dmitri's software, I was able to store all of the actual literature to a backup computer inside my house. Therefore, my life has been made easier. Certainly this tool could be used for illegally distributing copies of an eBook, but we shouldn't penalize people using the tool correctly for other's misuse of the tool (Yes, I know it's been said already in above posts, but it needs to be reiterated). Besides, it's primarily people in other parts of the world (NOT the USA) where software is being illegally copied and resold for profit (like in China). Let's address the 'piracy' of software where it's at its worst, first. Do not penalize the law-abiding US citizen because Microsoft, Adobe, and other MULTI-BILLION dollar companies are losing money to cheap skates in China. Companies do not *NEED* to profit off of my misfortune. Unfortunately, that's what lawyers are for...
writ of habeas corpus
...cause if they don't free him, Katz is gonna continue writing these articles.
Please, for the love of God, let him go!
The arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov has brought to light a serious imbalance in current copyright law. This case shows why the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), while conceived for a noble purpose, was overreacting and has the potential to hit at the core ideas of Americans.
Copyrights are a necessity. Authors deserve the right to know that their work will be protected for a short amount of time. However, copyright is not an end unto itself, nor is it absolute. If copyright were absolute, copyright holders could use their copyright to exploit the people. The DMCA tips the balance towards this latter end. The DMCA has protected copyright holders, but at the expense of the masses. The DMCA has become a tool for copyright holders to tyrannize the masses of people who have no interest in denying copyright holders compensation for their works, and it this that makes the DMCA unbalanced.
Dmitry wrote a program to enable the purchasers of e-books to exercise the fair use privileges that Americans are accustomed. Consumers deserve the right to be able to back up materials they have purchased or convert information they have bought to a different format. Copyright law has put a stranglehold on these freedoms.
The DMCA needs to be re-written in such a way that both consumers and publishers are protected. Tools themselves should not be illegal, but the use of those tools for illegal purposes should be. In other words, don't go after software writers and scientists, go after the people who use tools to circumvent the law. People are afraid to talk about subjects that might be covered by someone else's copyright; we cannot allow copyright to inhibit free discussion. Punish the people who would use tools in an illegal way and go after violators rather then the professionals who create these tools for legitimate and necessary purposes.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Juristiction part 2: Even though the act of speaking on the research into the cracking was done inside the US, the FBI complaint was sworn to the actual cracking itself. The arrest was illegal to begin with.
Legality: Because of the First Admendment, such research done anywhere on Sol 3 (Earth) and it's resulting report can not generate a legal arrest. The crime of speaking publically about an encription method is not a crime at all. Even ITAR export regulations say that printed source code of PGP is legal to export, while the source on a disk is illegal.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
It's basically pretty simple; just not as simple as your average lawmaker. When I drive in a car, operate a microwave, or do almost anything potentially dangerous in the year 2001, I want to know that the product I'm trusting my life with is safe. I want to know that, while I personally didn't have time to reverse engineer the Automatic Braking System (ABS) Software, somebody probably did, and I could if I was so inclined without the threat of Jail. I want to know that if I do so, and I discover that millions of people are in danger becasue of a flaw in that software, I don't have to choose between Jail and saving lives.
What does all this mean? It means that the DMCA could not have possibly been passed by a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people', and that also means that the DMCA is not a valid US law. It doesn't take a lawyer or judge - indeed it seems it may take the lack thereof. Henry David Thoreau must be rolling in his grave to see how peacably we US citizens hand over all of our rights with a smile to an oligarchy calling itself a democracy! 8^{
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Those who wish to keep Dmitry in jail so this can go to court, think for a few minutes. Dmitry did not ask for this, he was unprepared/unaware of the consequences, and he is not a US citizen. Dmitry should go back to his home and be with his wife and children. If he wants to come back here and file civil suits, that's fine.
The best case for proving the DMCA is someone ready to break the law, accept the consequences, and is willing to take the case to court. Are you ready to go to jail for your beliefs and see the DMCA gets overturned? Then go violate the law and be prepared for what happens.
Leading and working in government is not a right, it is not even a right if you do your job and play by all the rules, it is not a right even if you are backed by majority vote. The preamble of the consitiution makes it very clear that government is justified only to the extent of its ability to uphold certain basic inaliable rights.
With this programmer, the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happyness has clearly been denied - and there seems to be little intent of restoring it. By doing this, it will obligate civil people to deny those in government any authority over them - even at the cost of personal safety and life.
America has been thru nearly 2 centuries of people dying to uphold these basic rights, esp the freedom of speech, people will simply not let be done what is trying to be done. As me a free citizen, and you (government) a public servent - I demand that you release him because you are bound to.
We have a situation in this country where the Klan, neo-Nazis and hate groups of every stripe routinely and regularly exercise their freedom of speech and assembly, often on courthouse steps, with police protection. They are able to do this thanks to our society's long-held belief, codified in the First Amendment, that despite the offensive nature of someone's beliefs, we need to uphold their right of expression so that the rest of us can enjoy the same rights when we choose to exercise them. The courts have upheld this principle time and again. At the least, a federal judge needs to determine that Sklyarov's talk about the Adobe protection scheme, in and of itself, should be afforded constitutional protection. Simply TALKING about a means of circumvention should not rise to the level of a felony, particularly when the interests represented by the DMCA are corporate, and not civil. Certainly his talk doesn't equate to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. The Constitution was written to protect the People last time I checked. Unless I am mistaken, he did not get up in Las Vegas and perform a literal demonstration of the software (Even if he had, we then get into the issue of fair use, which is another ball of wax altogether). His arrest IMHO should be judged to be a form of prior restraint, and the FBI should be ordered to find another avenue to pursue Sklyarov's company, pending a challenge to the DMCA.
8 bit computing - It may be 2007 out there, but it's 1983 in here!!
The question of whether there was probable cause that Sklyarov was personally responsible for distribution of an alleged circumvention device at the time of his arrest is certainly beyond my legal expertise and I suspect that most people who are stating an opinion on the subject are equally clueless.
That being said, the main reason this man should be released is that the supposed injured party and original source of the complaint, Adobe, has withdrawn its complaint and expressed its desire that Sklyarov be released. Yes, yes, someone will say, you don't need to take the "victim's" desires/feelings into account for there to be a crime. But it helps. We have enough serious criminals that need to be in jail without filling cells with people like Sklyarov.
The real story here is why Sklyarov is sitting in jail still at all, not being indicted, not having a bail hearing. I suspect the simple answer is the FBI is trying to figure out what to do with him that will not A)further embarrass them in the middle of their most shameful year in recent memory or B)wind up getting the DMCA thrown out of the law books on appeal. Headline: Russian Hacker Brings Down Landmark Intellectual Property Law. Nice one, Feds.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
While I feel incredibly sorry for Dmitry and his family, there's absolutely nothing about this incident which couldn't be fully predicted from the DMCA itself, and the general legal trend in the US for the past 50+ years. Corporations are in the business of maximizing profit and minimizing risk, and governments are in the business of maximizing order, increasing control, and growing their headcount, prestige, and budgets. This is the logical result of evolution through time.
Without strong protections, enshrined in contracts like the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and in the everyday behavior and norms expected by a well-educated, informed, and active citizenry, things will naturally become more and more authoritarian. We've seen it in the US with DMCA, CALEA, and other new laws, as well as administrative actions taken by government agencies. We've seen it in the UK, with abominations like the RIP Act. We've seen it in the EU, which passes laws which ostensibly protect individual privacy but in fact create new bureaucracy. And Asia and Australia are even worse in a lot of ways.
Absent a major change in public perception (which I think is highly unlikely), the only path to individual liberty is technical. Perhaps it is now the case that security researchers, mathematicians, and pro-liberty activists must go underground, communicating using anonymous remailers, pseudonyms, and strong cryptography. Certainly groups have been forced underground in the past, but given certain conditions, it is impossible for them to be totally silenced. There are plenty of places in the world where people can live in freedom, due to a policy (intentional or unintentional) of tolerance -- Holland, Costa Rica, islands in the Caribbean, the Pacific -- for those who can't live underground in their own lands. Hopefully, HavenCo and Sealand can play some role in safeguarding liberty for those who live in other nations, by hosting servers for sensitive projects, remailers, and other infrastructure, as well as serving as an example of rational security policy for other nations. However, systems like Mojonation, Gnutella, Napster, ZKS Freedom, Mixmaster remailers, OpenPGP, and BitTorrent are perhaps more important for enabling this kind of research to be conducted, if not openly, at least securely.
If you're going to campaign for political change, don't just campaign for Dmitry to be released, or the DMCA to be overturned -- the core issue here is the continued erosion of individual liberty, at the hands of government, "well-intentioned do-gooders", and corporations.
I look forward to seeing people at HAL 2001, which thankfully is being held in a fairly free country.
Ryan Lackey
http://www.venona.com/rdl/
http://www.havenco.com/
It should exist especially when they find it uncomfortable.
Nope, no sig
Whew. Now that I have that aside:
This is absurd. We would not so glorify those who would publish plans for robbing bank vaults, and yet we take men like Sklyarov who delight in playing a sort of twisted Robin Hood and turn them into our heroes. We rationalize the crimes ("Free speech", "Information wants to be free", blah blah blah) and then laugh ourselves giddy because we get what we want without having to pay for it.
If your bank decided to hold all of your deposited money, and not allow you to withdrawl it, how much would you appreciate plans for robbing this bank? People are fucking evil. Groups of evil people are dangerous. If you do not defend yourself from your government, from the police, from corporations (both vendors and employers), you will be bled. Blind faith in humanity leads to revolution.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Reason: Skylarov works for a /company/, right?
/employee/ of a /company/ that produces the the code that is under question. Apart from the obvious that Elcomsoft is a Russian company, since when are employees of a company criminally liable for what their company does? Since he's been arrested does this create a precendent that programmers working for a company could be jailed if their /company/ products "violate" the DMCA?
If I understand correctly, Sklyarov is an
If he can be jailed for writing an E-book format reader, can programmers at Corel, Sun, etc be jailed for writing an MSWord reader? (If modified rot13 can be called encryption, one would certainly imagine that a binary format like msWord would fall under the "encryption" category - how is "encryption" defined in the DMCA?)
This could set some scary precendents.
Then the cheaply-made cutting board breaks. Or you move. Suddenly your knife doesn't work, and you have to buy all-new cutlery so you can do your basic cooking tasks. Not so good any more, is it? Thing is, if you had $200 invested in a good set of knives, wouldn't it be worth $99 to get a gadget that would let you use the knives as you want to? Aren't the people really bent on mayhem (or theft) going to find a way to do their dirty work no matter how many silly legal obstacles you put in their way?
I know you're playing Devil's Advocate, but I'd take issue with this. I subscribe to Sturgeon's Law, with Spamalamadingdong's corollary: Sturgeon was an optimist (an hour listening to Top 40 radio will confirm this to any open-minded person). I don't see that the work of Mozart, or Beethoven, or Debussie, or Ellington was impaired in the slightest by the lack of the DMCA, and I don't think we need such absurd hoarding of authority by publishers today any more than we did then.Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
But there is more to Adobe's encryption then ROT13. It also uses ROT13, but that's not all it uses.
Free Mac Mini
You're a troll. Adobe doesn't have your money. The RIAA doesn't have your money. The artists who create the music you download don't have your money. The companies who create the software you download from warez sites don't have your money. The comparison is absurd.
Got Rhinos?
Not exactly. As a general rule, foreign nationals on US soil are entitled to the protections the Constitution affords to citizens. On the other hand, foreign nationals NOT on US soil are not entitled to the protections of the Constitution. There was a SCOTUS case a few years ago which decided essentially that - the cite escapes me at the moment, but I'm sure I can find it again.
While in the US, Skylarov was entitled to First Amendment protections for his speech. However, he is almost certainly not going to be prosecuted for anything he said here or in Russia. Rather, his distribution of this circumvention tool in the US is the crime that will be prosecuted. And the government will point to the fact that he had an American payment agent set up and that he only (AFAIK) accepted payment in US dollars as proof that he/Elcomsoft intended to distribute it in the US. And so they find one copy of it in the US to establish the act, and make the case for his intent to commit the act, and they've got him dead to rights. I don't see that his lawyers will have any choice but to attack the law itself, because if the law stands, he's toast...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Well, I live in the USA. Hopefully not too much longer. This country sucks for more reasons than the DMCA. I had planned to take my kids out of this unhealthy society already anyways, but particularly after this incident I want to get the hell out of this backwards country that has gone on it's own little with hunt again. Talking here about the DMCA obfuscates the more important question "Why were Dmytri's rights under the Vienna Convention trampled by the USA?". Nobody in the rest of the world cares about faulty USA laws, most of the people abroad KNOW the USA is fsck'ed. I wonder if I will have to go wear a yellow star or something sometime soon because I'm a computer programmer and know a fair bit about security. For you who don't know what the Vienna Convention is: It is the international law proposed by the USA and signed unanimously by all countries that when somebody gets imprisoned in a foreign country, he/she has a right to have consular contact. And that doesn't mean he can run to his embassy and not be put in jail or anything. It means somebody from the Russian embassy can assist and help him dealing with this foreign country's law as well as possible. Somebody can explain to him what's the issue IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE. Now he gets an American Attorney through the EFF. The EFF has the right intention, nothing bad about them, but how do you think Dmytri will feel about being represented by an American attorney? Barbarians.
Arresting a Russian citizen for an alleged violation of the DMCA, which occured in Russia, if at all, is analogous to arresting a Dutch citizen for smoking marijuana while at home in the Netherlands, where such activity is perfectly legal.
Not exactly. They'll draw a much finer line than that. They'll prosecute him for distributing his tool in the US, which is a crime under the DMCA. Following your analogy, it's the same as if a Dutch citizen arranged for a hundred pounds of hash to be shipped to the US - even if he never leaves his house to do it, it's still a crime under US law the instant that stuff touches US soil, and therefore falls under US jurisdiction.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Jon asks "why [Dmitry] should go free" and not why the DMCA is bad law, so I will restrict my comments to this limited question, and target them towards the US policymakers who have the power NOW to change the government's course.
Dmitry was arrested under the provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). It has been argued that Dmitry did not violate this law - but I will not make that argument; assume instead that he did. It has also been argued that the DMCA (or part of it) is bad law - but I will not make that argument either. Instead, I will argue that even granted these points, Dmitry should go free.
To make this argument I assert, first, that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA - those that Dmitry is accused of violating - are controversial law. Specifically, these provisions of the law may be unconstitutional. As evidence I offer up, first, Constitutional Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's Op-Ed piece in the New York Times; and second, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's essay on their web site. Note that one does not have to agree with all or even most of these arguments to accept that the law is controversial - one merely has to accept that some of these arguments are reasonable.
Second, I assert that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, and particularly their criminal remedies, are currently untested law. This point is almost self-evident, as nearly every media story about the case has referred to its ground-breaking nature. It suffices merely to point out that in addition (1) the two other cases brought under the DMCA, DeCSS (2600 magazine) and SDMI (Prof. Edward Felten) are civil actions; and (2) Neither of those cases are yet resolved in the courts.
Finally, I assert that it is not in the US government's interest to make Dmitry Sklyarov the test case for these controversial, untested provisions of the DMCA. There are several reasons for this. First, Dmitry is a working graduate student and not clearly either criminally responsible for the software or wealthy because of it; therefore he is a sympathetic defendant for judge or jury. Second, the chief complainant in the case, Adobe, has recommended dropping the charges. Third, he is a foreign national who is accused of breaking this controversial, untested American law while in his home country, which adds needless complexity (and diplomatic ramifications) to the case, and threatens to deprive the US of the expertise of foreign programmers (c.f. Alan Cox).
Rather than pursue the risky brute-force prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov, then, US policymakers should tell the FBI to pick on someone their own size - that is, a US citizen who has clearly broken these provisions of the law while on American soil.
Free Dmitry Sklyarov!
-Renard
An ebook publisher on why Dmitry should go free
I've added a recent list of points about what turns out to be the main technical point even if you believe in the DMCA. The DMCA crime alleged here is trafficking in the software in the USA. He didn't do this, his employer/publisher did. There is a big difference. If there are to be info-crimes, should employees be put in jail if their employers use their (legal where they did it) work in illegal ways in other lands?
Of course, as chairman of the EFF I may have some bias here.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Placing Dmitri in jail for explaining how bad software algorithms work, is akin to placing someone in jail for explaining how a car works, dna replicates, or how the checks and balances system of government works.
But that's not what they're going to prosecute him for. That case - prosecuting him for his speech - is a total piece of shit that nobody in DOJ is fool enough to touch with a ten-foot pole. Rather, what they'll prosecute him for is distributing this circumvention device in the US, which is - like it or not - currently a crime in the US. And as long as the law stands, I'm sorry to say that it appears they've got him dead to rights.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I think that citing support from The Economist would be beneficial.
Tell that to the blind kids who couldn't read/hear Adobe's books.
Oh, give me a break. What, all two of them?
Are we going to bitch now that they can't drive either? Since when is the audible reading of a e-book some sort of fundamental right?
Nice troll, yourself.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Essay on a Historical Perspective on the DMCA
l if fe.htm
b ib le.htm
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is hardly the first attempt to use obfuscation of writings as an attempt to control how the masses access works. The reasons why the supposed new right of access authorization must be facially rejected have not changed in the 600 years since its original use. In a nutshell, legal enforcement of access controls violates the "right to read", a principle that literally lead to the foundation of our country.
History records that in the year 1377, John Wycliffe was brought before the Roman Catholic Church to answer for his beliefs that the common man had the right to read the bible, which he had translated from the Church's sanctioned latin into English. The position of the Church on common vernacular translation was known from the time of the Spanish inquisition. Spanish bible translators were often beaten, tortured, and burned alive during the spanish inquisition by the Catholic Church that sponsored it. Spanish clergyman Alfonso de Castro gave the opinion of Church in these words: "the translation of the scriptures into the vernacular tongues, with the reading of them by the vulgar, is the true fountain of all heresies." The hypocracy in his statement is profound: the fountain of all heresy is, in fact, the attempt to restrict or limit the public's access to ideas.
Wycliffe was lucky to merely be arrested and excommunicated. His work survies, although the church did eventually dig him up from the grave and burn his bones. Because of John Wycliffe, the English Bible now exists.
In 2001, cryptography and computer code have replaced latin, while encrypted content like eBooks and DVD's are the container of choice for influential works of art and science. The "Copyright Industry" and their special interest driven politics have replaced the pre-reform Catholic Church as the organization that uses secret languages to maintain their self-maintaining control. Make no mistake, the DMCA is about thought control in its most base form: the copyright industry would like to control how you experience the works they sell, just as the medieval Church wanted to control how you experienced religeon.
After John Wycliffe asserted the right of the people to read, this principle became a central tenent of all church reformers. As people were able to have unfettered access to the information in the Bible, they came to understand that it was not the information itself, but the metering of its access that was the source of their oppression. It cannot be denied that direct access to the Bible and the correspond right to read was a cornerstone belief in the protestant groups that fled Europe seeking a new life in what eventually became the United States of America.
Copyright exists precisely to enhance this "right to read". Copyright inherently must increase public access to works. The abandonment of such control by authors is the quid-pro-quo of accepting reward in the marketplace, and it is completely irrational to believe that the public would empower Congress to grant commercial monopolies to authors without demanding as compensation that they forego all forms of use control on their products.
Today, as in medieval times, the right of the people to access the raw text of documents that affect the public psyche, without regard to "technological protection measures", such as latin, object code, cryptography, or obfuscation, is inherent in the First Amendment and the fundamental human rights which transcend government. It is also a simple property right, when copies of the work are purchased in the free market. To think and to examine and to decipher and to ponder the meaning, however cryptic, of raw data is the essence of the free mind and of liberty.
Conversely, the supposed right to control access to copyrighted works against circumvention, asserted by the DMCA is a false right and it must be facially rejected because it conflicts inescapably with the right to read. This "right" is completely distinct from the one it was supposedly created to protect, which is the right of authors to authorize the first sale of their works.
Citations for Bible Translation History:
http://www.whidbey.net/~dcloud/articles/johnwyc
http://www.whidbey.net/~dcloud/articles/spanish
well, this case just cracked it for me. I'll not be going to the US. why? Because I don't feel safe. I'm a programmer, and I've done my share of heinous crimes: I'm smoking pot, I've been drinking since before I was 21, did some DeCSS mirroring, made copies of CDs. Oh, I drew extremely violent pictures when I was n school too involving ropes, knives, guns, bullets and strange apparati (andsometimes a teacher or two..). I feel I could be arrested for breaking any number of american laws the moment I step from the plane. OK, maybe I'm paranoid.. but think about it, I may not be the only one...
Nobody expected the american inquisition.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Is the only response I can think of. My understanding is that he was arrested for actually selling the software at defcon. If so, that is a violation of the DMCA. Like it or not I think we would all agree on that.
It's a bad law. What can you do about a bad law? Since it's an unconstitutional law what we can do is put forth a test case that gets to the high court where it gets thrown out. that requires someone to be arrested, charged and supported all the way to the supreme court. We could also get it repealed by congress, but I don't think that is likely. Congress no longer represents US citizens and and has already showed their distain for the constitution.
Dimitri is a cruel test case. He's a foriegn national. He wrote a program that not only is legal where he lives, but without which the Adobe software is itself illegal in Russia. Most important, this is not his fight - it's ours. Send him home. This behaviour makes many of us ashamed to be Americans. Send him home. Use any excuse you have to to cover your collective asses. Say you are releasing him as a gesture of goodwill to Russia for releaseing that drug dealer they sent back to the US this morning. Just let him go.
You can take me instead. I don't think I've violated the DCMA recently but I'm willing to. Get me a copy of this software and I'll happily sell it to an FBI agent. I'm a US citizen, even when you make me ashamed to be. It *is* my fight, for good or ill. I've got a wife and kids that depend on me, just like Dimitri, but that's the way it shakes out sometimes.
Who's with me? The Ghost of Henry Thoreau is calling.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
If this were a corporation, it might be tied up in court, but not in Jail.
Is the only response I can think of. My understanding is that he was arrested for actually selling the software at defcon. If so, that is a violation of the DMCA. Like it or not I think we would all agree on that.
It's a bad law. What can you do about a bad law? Since it's an unconstitutional law what we can do is put forth a test case that gets to the high
court where it gets thrown out. that requires someone to be arrested, charged and supported all the way to the supreme court. We could also
get it repealed by congress, but I don't think that is likely. Congress no longer represents US citizens and and has already showed their distain
for the constitution.
Dimitri is a cruel test case. He's a foriegn national. He wrote a program that not only is legal where he lives, but without which the Adobe
software is itself illegal in Russia. Most important, this is not his fight - it's ours. Send him home. This behaviour makes many of us ashamed to be Americans. Send him home. Use any excuse you have to to cover your collective asses. Say you are releasing him as a gesture of goodwill to Russia for releaseing that drug dealer they sent back to the US this morning. Just let him go.
You can take me instead. I don't think I've violated the DCMA recently but I'm willing to. Get me a copy of this software and I'll happily sell it to an FBI agent. I'm a US citizen, even when you make me ashamed to be. It *is* my fight, for good or ill. I've got a wife and kids that depend on me, just like Dimitri, but that's the way it shakes out sometimes.
Who's with me? The Ghost of Henry Thoreau is calling.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
p are being reasonable, people should NOT bend over.
:-) and Putin might feel a little different about one of his citizens being snatched, jailed, and threatened with death over his being helpful to Adobe.
The trick is to ask for punishment so draconian, so outrageous and so indefensible that it can't possibly get accepted. It can't even be considered.
If I was Putin, I'd've put in a call or two to Bush asking for the kid. He's only in jail on technicalities that aren't worth bothering about..
But he's only in jail on technicalities that aren't worth bothering about. For all we know, he may get off with time served and get a ticket home on the next Aeroflot.
But threaten to have him sit in the "big chair" (a fitting punishment involving electrons, don't cha think?
That might also cause a BIG chill in overseas software sales. Nobody wants to buy American since M$ will reverse-engineer everything. bundle it into Windows and then haul your ass from Nor-fuckin'-way and throw it in jail under threat of death if you try the same thing.
That would get Linux adpoted everywhere that Windows isn't and where programmers are.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Everybody, think real hard about how much money you can part with. Surely most people here can let go of at least $100, without blinking. Hell, a lot of you wouldn't blink at spending $500 on a night out. or maybe you can only spare $20, you can still help with that. Now do two things with that money:
1) Donate to the EFF, or Join the EFF. They're a great organization, and they can use your help. You, on the other hand, can use the tax break.
2) Purchase Elcomsoft software.
I keep hearing people say that, but it is wrong. If I write a virus that deletes the victim's harddrive and distribute it, taking out hundreds of thousands of vital business and government computers, can I claim "Free Speech"? No.
As many have said before, whether or not the DMCA is a fair law is debatable, but it is a law, and therefore must be enforced. The correct course of action is not to complain to other slashdot readers, but to the people who made and have the power to unmake the law.
yep. Too pissed off to preview.
I think, by analogy, that it should only be illegal to develop copyright circumvention technology in special circumstances for limited times. Specifically, when it is clear that there is substantial harm from the circumvention technology and when there are no legitimate uses of the circumvention technology.
No, because you never intended for it to be transported to the US - assuming you just sold it to some random guy, and didn't arrange for him to transport it for you.
But, Skylarov isn't free just yet. The Justice Department will point to the fact that he set up an agent in the US to receive payment, and that he only accepted payment in US dollars as proof that he fully intended to distribute his circumvention device (I hate that term, but that's what they'll use) in the US. They'll have evidence of the act of distributing the device and evidence of the necessary intent to do so, which is how you convict someone of something. And then Dmitry goes to jail, unless his lawyers can successfully attack the law itself.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Napster is as much theft as listening to the radio is 'theft.' I could make tapes off the radio and then copy those tapes and give 'em to my friends. But that's not very convenient and pretty time-consuming. Remember that I've paid at least $700 for my computer in the first place, plus a monthly access fee to d/l all the mp3's I want, so that's not all that cheap either. The benefit in mp3's versus radio recordings is quality of sound, longevity of the data (digitally stored on my hard drive, not analog on a tape), and actually knowing the artist's name, album name, song title, year published, etc. (if the mp3 has the ID3 tags set properly). So you see, I can do the exact same thing thru the radio, it's just that the computer makes it easier for me to do it on my own time, with the music I want to listen to (not some of the crap the radio stations dictate I listen to). Are you actually advocating doing away with analogue and/or digitally broadcast radio signals because we could all copy the music for 'illegal' uses?
I'm stating this so that it's appropriate for people who are less involved with the DMCA backlash and want to know what's going on.
There's a particular provision in the DMCA that bans circumvention devices. A circumvention device is effectively declared to be something that breaks encryption. Distributing such devices is illegal. Hence, court battle.
The DMCA is supposed to update copyright law for the digital age, in the efforts to continue to protect copyright holders.
Not a single one of us disagrees with that. Copyright law is good! We support copyright law and we support the rights of the person who created the work to be allowed to do what they want.
All instances where people have been sued for violating the DMCA, in not one case was anyone's copyright being harmed. It's interesting to note that the copyright holders are not the ones suing, despite claiming that they are acting on copyright holders behalf.
Take the MPAA's DVD lobby, whose members include most major DVD technology vendors. They created the Content Scrambling System to "protect" DVDs. There is no case on record where a copyright holder has used the DMCA to protect their work distributed on DVD from being stolen. What HAS been happening is that the MPAA has sued individuals who want to make independent DVD players. They are using the DMCA to make it impossible to create a competing player without a license from the member group. The damning evidence is that the CSS uses an extremely trivial algorithm (ie, laughable, pathetic, would never be approved by even inexperienced cryptographers), rather than any one of the proven, secure, public domain, military grade algorithms out there to protect their content!
The only thing this does is stifle competition. If a startup came up with a DVD player that cost 1/10th the price of current market DVD players, do you think the DVD group would give them a license that would put all of their member groups out of business? Of course they wouldn't. That would be very bad business. The innovator cannot release the new product. The consumer loses.
Adobe moved to have Dmitry jailed not because he violated anyones copyright, but because he figured out how Adobe's cryptosystem works. This means that competitors could in theory develop technology that can read eBooks, cutting Adobe entirely out of their exclusive market.
Adobe did not develop anything original-- their content protection system was laughable, but they had the power to act as if they had a patent on it, granted by the DMCA. Adobe naturally moved quickly to jail what would have been a real competitor.
RealNetworks, Inc. just won a case against Streambox, Inc. using the DMCA. Streambox, Inc. sought to compete against RealNetworks by providing an alternative player capable of using RealNetwork's technology. RealNetworks countered this by "encrypting" their content streams, which meant that if StreamBox was able to read it, they would be using a circumvention device.
What "encryption" did they use? They set a single bit in the header that signified a stream was encrypted! The rest of the packet remained cleartext, but the encrypted bit was set. This is analogous to sending a letter to someone by postal mail and checking a box in the upper right corner of the envelope that says "[ ] Encrypted!", and suing anyone who saw the contents of the letter, or more amusingly, suing people who make letter openers.
In all of these cases, the DMCA was used by companies as an alternative to patenting their technologies. And why not? With the DMCA, you don't need to have an original idea. You don't have to even use a good idea. You can use the DMCA for criminal prosecution! You don't even need to sue!
The DMCA is not protecting the copyright holder, piracy continues and will always continue, especially outside of areas where the United States laws do not apply (like China, and Russia, where you can buy pirated software/music on store shelves). Every one of them is violating age old copyright law, and none of them are suffering. The DMCA will do nothing to stop this.
The DMCA is stifling innovation, hurting competition, and jailing innocent people. Researchers, scientists, technology lovers, programmers, etc are being threatened for providing a public service. The DMCA needs to be fixed.
Your arrogance is overwhelming if you think I actually believe that you would use it for anything other than theft.
Some people will use ElcomSoft's utility for cracking illegally copied content. The relevance is lost to me. I'm sorry; it really is. I disagree with your statement. Making cracking software does not preclude teaching or aiding in the fight against copyright perversion, even if it can be used to break the law.
While I'm sure Sklyarov's story has changed after a while in jail, I doubt that his original rhetoric involved anything other than "Hey, look! I made software for cracking so you don't have to pay Adobe for their products!"
Not in North America.
Actually, it applies in North America more than anywhere else in the world. Companies are here to serve their own interests, not yours. They have no obligation whatsoever to please you. If they choose to do that, which seems like good business sense, then bully for them. If not, then don't buy their products.
No, I have circumvention technology.
And so that you could have it, a man rots in jail. Are eBooks (which I doubt you even read) worth that much to you?
One can only hope. :)
That's the sort of rubbish that leads to these inane debates. "Hope" is worthless. You have to do something to change the world, not have silly online arguments about the virtues of various criminals.
Got Rhinos?
One of the problems here with Sklyarov is trying to find the appropriate analogy with non-techie folks, espeically those who don't even have a clue what a programming language is at all, much less why telling a programmer that they can't read in a data file and convert that data to another format (because it is illegal, not because it is technically challenging or impossible).
One analogy that I've come up with is something like this:
Imagine somebody who for fun in another country (say, for example, Russia) has decided to counterfit US Currency (they like the looks of Ben Franklin on the $100 bill). In the country where they live it is perfectly legal, as long as it is the currency of another country (and in this case no treaties regarding this either... I know this is a stretch of the imagination.)
Now imagine that this same printer decided that he wanted to come to the United States on a conference regarding legal document ingravings, and presented a discussion regarding the inadequacies of the US currency system and why it is so easy to counterfit US money. (For a side note, imagine that US currency was printed on construction paper with a mimeograph machine... but don't let the analogy get carried too far.)
Now imagine that the US Secret Service arrested this same printer for printing the money, even though none of it ever even came to the United States. (BTW.... IANAL but my gut feeling is the Secret Service would indeed arrest somebody in this same situation, and I'm curious if you could get arrested as a foreign national for counterfiting even if it is done somewhere else.)
***********
I would like to see a killer analogy that could be given to representatives of the US news media to show just how rediculous this arrest really has been.
They prosecuted an employee of a company that sells a program that undermines the security (not sure you can even call it that) of their product, even though that company had ceased selling it in the US. Since then Adobe has backed down from their charges, yet he still does not go free.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Nice try, chief, but you ought to read Title III before spouting off. E-books are not a public accomodation, nor are they a commercial facility. Nor are they an employer, or a state or local government.
Or perhaps you'd like to discuss how publishers of traditional books are required to print Braille editions.
Don't quit your day job.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Yeah, but officers of companies can be, and are, held criminally responsible for the criminal activities of the companies they work for. All they have to do is show that he participated in the distribution, and profited from it. I don't know how deeply tied into such decisions he was, but the fact that the company set up an agent in the US to receive payments says that they fully intended to distribute the thing in the US. We'll see how it shakes out, anyway...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Yes. Yes I do. :P
Got Rhinos?
It's an intelligent counter to a lot of otherwise Passionate Nonsense.
**>>BELCH
That's a recent quote from U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, regarding an academic being held by the government. I've obscured a couple of words only to remove any identification, because in this case it's the Chinese government and the academic in question is someone the Chinese have accused of spying.
So is the double standard apparent yet? When other countries imprison foreigners without promptly filing charges, they're "detainees" and the media coverage in the U.S. is spun accordingly. When the U.S. government imprisons a foreigner, nobody pays attention.
What purpose could you possibly have for inventing OCR other than to steal people's copyrighted works? If something is not made available in digital form, it's because they didn't want it made available in that form. I would guess that 99% of the uses of OCR have to do with copyrighted works.
So... Do we make OCR illegal? It's certainly getting better and faster all the time. In the forseeable future, a machine could be invented where you drop in a few pages, or an entire book, and it converts it to digital form. Would the creator then be arrested? It's obviously very easy to get to that final step now, just like the DeCSS T-shirt I'm wearing could easily be used to spread copyrighted DVD's over the Internet. Right? That's what is being alleged, anyway.
Ok, the answer is that OCR does not circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. Or does it? Think about this long and hard. If OCR is not "a technological measure" and if pages stamped on books do not "effectively control access to a copyrighted work" then why are these books not immediately available in digital form? Of course it effectively controls access! I would consider this a form of analog encryption, which fortunately still allows our eyes to read it.
Finally, I've come across a product that that decrypts this form of analog encryption. I hope they don't get sued by someone like Adobe...
"Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 Personal Edition is a professional production tool for turning paper-based information into high-quality knowledge documents optimized for electronic distribution." http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/main.html
Except the accussation is that the US is charging Sklyarov with a bogus crime that they never intend to prosecute - in effect kidnapping him to use in exchange for Tobin. And besides, Tobin was arrested in relation to possession of pot and alleged espionage - two charges that, together, go beyond breaking the DMCA (at least in the US).
Somehow, bogus US accusations get more credit than ones in other countries. When US citizens in foreign countries are charged with espionage (in China, Russia), it's an outrage. When we expell 50+ russians for alleged espionage, we applaud the president for avenging Russia's heinous crime of turning Robert Hansen. Read this to see just how bogus Russia's charges are. Call me crazy, but they seem a little more well-founded than those against Sklyarov. And seeing how the US is pulling out all the stops to get him back, as opposed to say, that kid in Singapore, I'd imagine there is a good chance that he actually was engaging in some form of espionage. And hell, look at his training.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
And as long as the MS person didn't violate the foriegn country's law WHILE HE WAS THERE, they shouldn't be able to arrest him for it.
And the spy plane incident is the same as well. The spying occurred JUST OUTSIDE Chineese territory. At worst, the Chineese could nab the crew on airspace laws violated after they crossed the border and did their landing.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
...then the next Edmund Pope will die of bone cancer in a Russian jail.
If a new kind of padlock technology is invented, surely locksmiths will study it and discuss it and work to understand it? That's what they do.
I lost my house key once and I called a locksmith and he picked the lock in a few seconds. I was pretty happy at the time to get into my house, but I remember thinking "Wow, who knew it was that easy to get into a locked house?!" The illusion of invulnerability is shattered. Deal with it. It was only an illusion in the first place. A lock is only a deterrant. If my landlord had had the locksmith arrested for violating a law about not messing with his company's locks, then we would have a similar situation to the Skylarov case, except that my landlord would have to be in another country. People could not get into their own eBooks to have them read aloud by screen-readers and such. Dmitri's company helped them to access their own information. Dmitri himself just talked about locks with other locksmiths at a locksmith convention.
Is a locksmith a good guy for answering my call and letting me into my house for a reasonable fee, or is he a bad guy for just plain picking a lock? Is there absolutely no possible reason, under any circumstances, for ever picking a lock? Is our technology so advanced?
I am amazed and saddened at the ignorance that is being displayed by the US government about technology, in this case, and also with Microsoft Outlook and Office viruses, and Code Red and others. How many times can suits and cops get up in public and display their complete ignorance about a matter before they learn just a little bit of humility at least? Not to mention learning about technology. I mean, get more than one opinion on a subject. Do some research. I fear that suits and cops will only continue to ask other suits and cops for answers about technology, instead of asking geeks. Geeks and regular Joes and Janes will pay the price for that. Atlas Shrugged looks better every day.
Try to separate your annoyance at a trivial problem - spam - from something which threatens all our freedom - the freedom to read, listen, and watch without paying a toll on every occasion, for example. The freedom to not have every detail of our lives controlled by global corporate monopolies. In the face of these threats, so clearly demonstrated by Sklayrov's current predicament, spam doesn't even belong in the dicussion.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin
You want to give up our freedoms in exchange for safety from spammers? You're incredibly lucky to be living in an environment where you can afford to believe that spam is the worst thing you have to worry about. If history is any guide, it won't always be that way. Laws like the DMCA are one of the ways in which societies can change for the worse. A little law called "apartheid" in South Africa ultimately led to the ravaging of that country, in political, economic and human terms. It doesn't take the imagination of a Neal Stephenson or a William Gibson to project what the DMCA can result in - in fact, RMS has already written one such near-future sci-fi piece, "The Right to Read", and Sklyarov is busy living the prelude to that story.
There is a subtle difference -- raido stations pay royalties. HTH,
Woohoo, Dr. Anonymous. You've discovered that public universities are public accomodations. Congrats, that means that they have to provide facilities accessible to all. If universities provide texts in the form of e-books, then those texts must be accessible to the disabled also. But - and here's the fun part - the responsibility belongs to the university, not Adobe.
Thanks for playing, though.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
But that's exactly the case the government is going to try to make - he distributed ("shipped") it, or caused it to be distributed, to the US in contravention of the DMCA.
Look, a few people seem to be getting the wrong impression here - I don't like the law any more than the next person. But this is the case the feds have before them, and as long as that law stands, Dmitry is in serious trouble.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Right, in the sense that they'll have to show that he was aware of its distribution in the US - or that he occupied a position in the company such that he should have known. It really depends on the structure of the company. If it's him and 300 other people, and he just happens to be the lead programmer with demonstrably no input into how and where it's marketed, he might have a way out. If Elcomsoft is him, his brother, and their friend from college, he's in trouble.
The trouble he's got is that officers of companies can be, and are, held criminally liable for the criminal activities of their companies. Otherwise, you'd have perverse situations where the corporate executives blame the ethereal "company" for bad acts, without any actual person being responsible. And the law doesn't recognize that - Union Carbide was collectively responsible for Bhopal, but in a legal sense, so were the executives that made the decisions that led to that. I don't know if any faced criminal charges, but they certainly should have if evidence of criminal negligence presented itself.
As for holding him, at his arraignment, the charges should have been read to him, so his defense team should be well aware of them by now. But you don't have to be Kreskin to see it coming - Skylarov wrote this tool to circumvent a copyright protection device, Skylarov distributed it in the US willfully and intentionally, thereby violating the DCMA. As for what law he broke, that's it right there - he distributed it, or caused it to be distributed in the US. I'd bet money that the government's case will be almost that simple - A, B, C, go to jail.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
2. Fair Use: What fair use? ;-) This has been beaten to death, but I must mention it simply because it is so compelling. I am allowed to copy things for my own personal use. You can try to stop me with anti-copying measures, but if I succeed there is nothing you can do about it. Which means that a device that allows me to do this cannot be illegal. (this is all supposing that fair use rights have not been summarily thrown out the window by the DMCA).
3. Punish the crime, not the tool. This is my own personal opinion, but I think the US could really look to this when making laws. I can kill someone with a ballpoint pen, and it would still be murder. I could also do this with a gun, a knife or just about anything. It is the murder that is the crime, not the gun (or pen, etc.). I know many do not agree with me on this, but we need to draw the line somewhere. Making extra penalities for commiting a crime with a certain weapon or possessing a weapon that enables you to commit crimes is simply stupid. Similarly, just because I have the tools to commit copyright infringement doesn't mean I will do it. I used to download songs from Napster that I already owned on CD just because it was a pain to rip them all.
4. Code is Speech. If you claim that it is not, please explain how RSA encryption was exported as a book, or how DeCSS can be printed on a T-shirt. Anything that can be written in a book or on a T-shirt is speech, and is protected (as long as it isn't a death-threat or a threat to national security).
5. The DMCA sucks. :-) The above are most of the reasons. It is a law that was passed after huge lobbying efforts by enormous corporations for one purpose only: their own bottom line. It was not passed to protect the artists or writers, give me a break. It was passed to protect the publishers. They need to get the message that if widespread pirating is being done, they need to focus on quality of service and ease of distribution. Why didn't the VCR kill television or movies? Because it is easier to pay for cable and a better experience to go to the movies. Plus you can RENT tapes. As long as a CD costs $18 there will be a poor college kid trying to pirate it because he DOESN'T HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY.
Those are most of the reasons I could think of off the top of my head.