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Sklyarov Bail Hearing Monday
mr_don't writes: "I just saw that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has just posted an Action Alert entitled "What YOU Can Do To Help Set Dmitry Sklyarov Free"
... Around 11am on August 6, 2001, at the San Jose Federal Building, Dmitry is set to have another bail hearing in front of Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante. Protests are planned to coincide with the hearing. I hope as many people as possible can come to the demonstration... Help the EFF pack the courtroom during the hearing." A short article in the Mercury News mentions the hearing too, as well as the half-million dollar, five-year penalty that could be imposed.
As angry as people may be, understand that while showing up and showing support is great, doing so improperly will only hurt Dmitry, the EFF and the cause you may be trying to support. Don't provide ammunition for companies like Adobe, no matter how tempting it is. Be civil, be courteous and be well spoken if given the opportunity to speak on television, radio or even to the public. Don't alienate the public. Most of them couldn't care less about this case. If people can appear as reasonable citizens then the publics support has a better chance of swinging our way.
Ultimately this is a case for the courts I suppose, but public opinion is important.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I do not understand, as much as I've tried, how it can possibly be conceived that encrypting something prevents it from being copied. It doesn't. Therefore I do not see how something that unencrypts something can be considered a "copyright circumvention device".
Let's say that Mary has an e-book and she wants to share it with John. How does she do this? She makes a copy of it. Now the supposed problem here is that her e-book is encrypted right? Wrong. There is no problem. When she makes a copy is encrypted but when John loads it into his e-book ta-da! He can read it because his e-book unencrypts it in order to display it!
Encrypted or not you can still make copies so how is software that unencrypts a piece of data considered a "copyright circumvention device"?
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Garett
Seeing as how these hearings will be held in San Jose, and what with all the recent industry blood-letting, I'm sure it will be no difficulty whatsoever gathering as many geeks as possible with time to spare on a Monday morning to go fight the power.
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$ chown -R us:us yourbase
Dimitri broke no law, American, Russian or otherwise. One simple reason: the DMCA is not a law.
The U.S. Constitution lays out clearly the process for something to become law. It also gives a specific set of powers and a specific set of limits to what things can become law by proclamation of the U.S. congress.
Some of the things in the DMCA are outside of what the U.S. congress has the power to declare law.
Talking to Congress about repealing the DMCA is nonsense; they have no such jurisdiction either to declare the DMCA void or true. It is outside of the scope of their powers.
The judiciary branch is what should be concentrated on right now, because they are the ones charged with interpreting what is and what is not law. Clearly, several segments of the DMCA (either through vagueness or malice) go outside of the bounds of what the U.S. congress has the powers to do, and it is thus the jurisdiction and the obligation of the U.S. courts to strike the bill down.
Congress should be talked to, but mainly for the purpose of ensuring that they do not attempt to pass such non-legally-valid bills in the future. Not to undo the damage caused by the DMCA, because there is no damage. That isn't their business. There is no law.
And if the courts and the american people decide to lie to themselves and say that the DMCA is a law, then we are all doomed.
Oh well.