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ElcomSoft Verdict: Not Guilty
truthsearch writes "From News.com: 'A jury on Tuesday found a Russian software company not guilty of criminal copyright charges for producing a program that can crack anti-piracy protections on electronic books.' HUGE legal win against the DMCA. Thank you Lawrence Lessig."
"After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word "willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said."
In this case the jury instructions are probably more important than the actual verdict. This establishes a key point that a product that has both legal and ilegal potential uses is not in and of itself ilegal.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Intent is something that, in this case, was determined by a jury, presumably on the balance of evidence rather than on a reasonable-doubt basis, so someone producing something that allows you to make copies of DVDs for friends, or of DVDs you've rented, would appear to be unlikely to get away with doing so if there's any suggestion that they saw that as being the major application of the program.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but my mother is.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Much of the accolade goes to defense attorney Joe Burton and his dogged determination to defend Dmitry and Elcomsoft at considerable burden to himself. As a senior partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris LLP, he had to get the firm to buy into the importance of this case, because I believe they were paid very little. He sold it to the firm because he believed in this case, and that it was unfair to apply the DMCA criminal charges against this company. Well done Joe! And thanks for taking up this fight! And thank you Duane Morris for picking up much of the tab. Who said big law firms have no heart?
Nothing, since Jon isn't being tried in the US.
If true, then he has one hell of a slander case, and it's pretty much open-and-shut.
Loss of livelihood, emotional trauma, yadda yadda yadda -- it would pretty much ruin the parents.
Of course, he may not want to do that to them, or they may not have enough to make it worthwhile. I'd consider suing the kid just to get her convicted of a felony, which gets to go on her permanent record and fucks her life about as squarely as she just fucked his.
But that's me, and I can be a vengeful asshole if you screw me first.
Slander actually, as it was of the spoken word, not the written. Also the girl can face criminal charges, should he choose to press the issue. It is illegal to knowingly falsely accuse someone else of a crime.
Get the story here. It is only the government who saying that they failed to show intent, a self-serving smokescreen argument at best, which is unfortunately spreading via the media (I already heard it on NPR). The reality appears to be that the jury supported fair use for ebook users against the DMCA.
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/