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Sklyarov Case Opens Today

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the please-use-the-pirate's-entrance dept.

weakethics writes "The trial is scheduled to start today in the case of Adobe/DMCA versus Skylarov/Elcomsoft/right-thinking-people everywhere. The SF Chron has a story about it. It quotes a former DOJ attorney about the impact of the DMCA "I don't think it's had the effect that a lot of people have argued it would have -- with a single criminal case in four years." Who obviously (purposefully?) misses the point: it's about intimidation rather than litigation."

4 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Using the DCMA against itself by pubjames · · Score: 5, Interesting


    As I understand it the DCMA is supported by the film and music industry because it allows them to create technologies which they can wrap their content in, which are illegal to try to break.

    What happens if we create a file compression/security method that incorporates an original encryption technology, with some mechanism by which you only give out the key to people you trust? We could then put whatever material we wanted on P2P networks, and the film and music industry representatives wouldn't even be able to find out what we were sharing without breaking the law they support. Wouldn't that be a good way of demonstrating the stupidity of this law?

  2. I don't understand... by jaredcoleman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "His supporters believed -- and still do -- that Sklyarov's program represents free speech protected by the First Amendment."
    Can someone explain this argument to me? I honestly do not get it. My understanding is that free speech means that the government can't throw me in jail for saying "DMCA sucks!" But just because I have freedom of speech doesn't mean that I can do malicious things with my speech and expect no consequences. I can be prosecuted for yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, so why can't I be prosecuted if my speech is malicious in some other way? Also, how can you justify interpreting 'speech' in this broad way? I can't imagine the framers would agree. Just honestly curious, no flame please.

  3. Measuring the effects of the DMCA by asolipsist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As other posters have pointed out, the main effects of the DMCA appear through fear of litigation rather than Federal court cases. A group of us, telecom grad students, wrote a paper on quantitative effects (chilling) of the DMCA on security research. We used the bugtraq incidence list as our source of raw data. We concluded there were some measurable effects, though kinda small.

    (its an academic paper, you have to find some sort of effect right!)

    you can check it out here

    (I know .doc is bad! sorry, lost the pdf version)

  4. Re:I agree by Tom7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > The only real effect of the DMCA is that companies can't openly distribute stuff that violates the DMCA.

    I don't think that's really true. The DMCA is used to intimidate and annoy regular well-intentioned folks like myself on a weekly basis. Check out my dmca troubles over a font program I wrote, for instance.