Sklyarov Indicted

Nutcase was the first to write with news from the AP that "Dmitry Sklyarov, 27 and ElComSoft Co. Ltd. of Moscow were charged with five counts of copyright violations for writing a program that lets users of Adobe Systems' eBook Reader get around copyright protections imposed by electronic-book publishers." Here's a link to the AP story at the Washington Post. Here is the story at Salon as well. Update: 08/29 01:57 AM GMT by T : Here's the EFF's release on the indictment, too -- including information about where to go if you'd like to demonstrate your reaction publicly.

Comments

Re:where's my checkbook?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I've yet to see one news story cover this case that even goes so far as to mention the said act. And guess what? We never will.

Well, how about:

• New York Times, 2001 Jul 18 and 2001 Jul 23
  
• Wired, 2001 Jul 25
  
• Yahoo!, echoing Reuters, 2001 Jul 25
  
• The Chicago Tribune, 2001 Aug 13
  

Every one of these includes a line like "first prosecution under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act". So I guess the mainstream media is noticing the case and they're even using the name of the "said act".
Those are just the ones I pulled off the page I'm keeping following the case. It's hardly an exhaustive list, either.

My point is, all this bellyaching -- "No one is paying attention" -- is simply not true. It's just an excuse to sit on one's behind and do nothing, because "the System" is allegedly ignoring the issue and "the people" allegedly don't care.

Fact is, people do care. Copyright law is arcane and obscure, so perhaps it's understandable that there aren't mass protests in the streets. Yet. But the allegation that the mainstream media is completely ignoring this is hooey.