Sklyarov Released On $50,000 Bail

Mike Schiraldi was the first to write about Dmitry Sklyarov's release from jail, even before it happened: "According to this live report from the courtroom, Dmitri will probably be out of jail real soon now. Of course, he still won't be allowed to leave Northern California, but it's a start ..." Soon after, inaneboy pointed out this Reuters story on yahoo which says that Sklyarov has been released, on 50,000 dollars bail, raised by his employer, ElcomSoft. phalse phace wrote to say that the EFF has just posted an announcement as well as some background.

Comments

Congrats to reuters

[bricriu]

... for pointing something that should get hyped in every dealing that anyone sympathetic to Sklyarov's plight has with anyone else: that this was legal under Russian law.

Seriously, the fact that he's a Russian (read "commie") coder (read "hacker") can, and may, get played against him in the press to no end, so it's nice just to see those little words, "legal in Russia," that should humble the cretins who pushed this misguided law.

"Ah, for the freedoms of Mother Russia..." *sigh*

Party

[cnkeller]

Probably only applicable to those of us in Silicon Valley, but is anyone else interested in taking him out for a beer and some decent food? Show him the parts of the US that don't suck....

Good.

[r_j_prahad]

A bit off-topic, but an article in my local paper this morning tells of the sentencing of an attempted rapist who beat the living crap out of his would-be victim, knocking out several of her teeth and putting her in the hospital for a week. He got two-and-a-half years. He'll probably serve only half of that. But Dimitry could get five years for his e-book program.

The message our lawmakers are sending to hackers is clear; leave the copy protection alone and instead just beat the f*cking shit out of the copyright holder.

I hope Dimitry flees. There won't be any justice for him here.

Re:Adobe

[zhensel]

Or, more appropriately, why doesn't Sklyarov turn around and sue them for 50k plus a bit more for causing his detainment with a false afidavit. I think the fact that they refused to prosecute in civil court is exceptional evidence that they perjured themselves.

Perpetual copyright and "Happy Birthday to You"

[Robin Lionheart]

>> She just didn't get it and even said that Disney should get perpetual copyright protection.

My favorite example of the absurdity of perpetual copyright is the song "Happy Birthday to You", composed by Kentucky schoolteacher Mildred Hill in 1859. Her sister Patty wrote lyrics and first published it as "Good Morning to All" in "Song Stories of the Kindergarten" in 1893. Mildred died penniless in 1916.

In 1924, Robert H. Coleman republished the song without permission, adding a second "Happy Birthday to You" verse. The surviving Hill sisters sued and the song was finally copyrighted in 1935.

Of course, the sisters aren't collecting royalties any longer. The copyright is now owned by AOL/Time Warner, and still garnerting about $2 million in royalties each year as of about 5 years ago (which is why television programs usually resort to "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" instead). If Disney continues to get copyright extension bills passed every 20 years, the copyright on this simple 19th century folksong will never expire.

The Constitution originally intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". But death plus 95 years? To what end, encouraging Mildred Hill to compose more songs?

>> I knew that she had totally lost it when I suggested that the heirs of William Shakespear might complain and demand royalties for plays written by the great bard. She thought it was a good idea and was trying to decide how we should go about paying those royalties...

Good job getting your mother to think about the logistics of awarding Shakespeare's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-gr andchildren. However, if Shakespeare's works were still covered under death plus 315 year copyrights, surely a media conglomerate would be collecting the royalties now, not the putatively deserving 10th generation heirs.