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."

Comments

Ok, someone fill me in

[Raul654]

How much closer does this get us to overturning the law? What exactly did we win?

Re:Ok, someone fill me in

[EricWright]

Nowhere. The judge actually had some sense and instructed the jury that, to find Elcomsoft guilty, they needed to decide that the company knowingly commited an illegal act, and intended to do so.

Secondly, there is NO proof of pirated eBooks out there, even after 2 independant groups were paid to troll the web looking for them. No proof of copyright violation, no DMCA-offense.

It really came down to whether or not there was a reasonable legal use for the tool or not. The jury found that there was, ie, fair use applications. Not guilty, case closed, proceed with appeals.

Huge legal win? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. Elcomsoft removed the software and claimed they didn't realize their software was illegal. They prosecution also could not find any illegal ebooks on the web that had been cracked by Elcomsoft's software. This doesn't mean they can start selling the software again. Nor does it mean the DMCA cannot be used in future cases. Essentially they could not provide that Elcomsoft willfully violated copyright, which is necessary in criminal copyright violation cases. This is not a "huge legal win" by any stretch of the word.

How can the judge instruct this way?

[gsfprez]

"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. "

i don't read the word "wilfull" in the DMCA, so i have no idea of how this case could have come out this way.

The DMCA was written to prevent ALL forms of copyright breaking devices (with the well known supposed caveats of research, etc.) This judge's jury instructions seem to fly in the face of the DMCA's whole point... that any device which circumvents copyright protection is illegal.

This judge has effectively rewritten the law from the bench... the law now reads - providing this is what he actually instructed the jury to do..

"Any device which circumvents copyright protections for the use of w4r3z d00dz and pirates (arrgh, me maties) is illegal, but if its not intended to do that and only perform those acts which constitute normal fair use, then it is okay, and you are not criminally liable of any offense."

i'm sorry.. but what the fsck?

(scum sucking hellbound) Lawyers, please help us to understand this... .this appears to make no logical legal sense to me.

i'm not arguing with the judge's decision.. i'm questioning his legal position.. please don't get me wrong

Re:so now...

[Chaswell]

this always shakes me to my core. It is by far one of the scarier things about our legal system.

Example:
An aguantance of mine ("Tom") is a guidance counselor. Tom would not give a female student a late pass to class, even though she begged because she would get detention. He refused and she stormed off to class. When asked by her teacher why she was late she started crying hysterically. The teacher and her stepped outside and she explained that Tom had made her undress and begged her to have sex with him. He said he wouldn't let her go to class unless she did. (the story is bigger and longer but anyway).
Police are called in, Tom is suspended with pay (go unions) and told to get a lawyer (union said it would cover cost and then backed out).

The girl later confessed to the police that she made the whole thing up and she just didn't want detention and wanted Tom fired.

Get this, her mother said that the whole thing was too shady and that her daughter was too young to decide and she wanted to continue to press charges so that everything could be worked out in court!

Tom has now been asked to please find a job elsewhere (union prevents him from being fired outright), but this has been in the papers, so good luck. He had to sell his house to have money for the lawyer. And when all this is said and done, he will have no way to recover where he once was in life and career.

It makes me very, very ill.

My concerns

[mmol_6453]

I'm concerned over the fact that the judge's instruction could apparently have so much weight in the outcome.

Could the prosecutors claim the judge was biased and interfered, and demand a retrial?

Regardless of the outcome, a retrial would be a disasterous effect on subsequent juries, since it implies that the original outcome may very well have been faulty. And a lot of people assume may==is.

Re:so now...

[Codifex Maximus]

Yeah, US suit laws (Tort?) are really messed up.

There are people who make a living suing other people. That's ALL THEY DO. They can file a suit for a pittance. Oftentimes, the defendant just settles. If not then the plaintiff goes to court and complains. Winning about half the time.

Bottom line: Win/Lose for the plaintiff and Lose/Lose for the defendant.

I also hear that in Europe, if the plaintiff in a suit loses, they foot the bill. I think it's high time the US adopted such a plan.

That doesn't make sense...?

[Gorimek]

So if a law is bad enough that it will be routinely dismissed in the lower courts, it will never get to the SC, and will never get overturned?? Only borderline bad laws get challenged constitutionally?

Sure, this is law, not logic, so it could well be like this. But I hope not.

Re:so now...

[theguru]

Sure he does. It's called libel. In the civil courts he can sue the girl's family, the school district, the teacher the girl cryed to if she ran around telling everyone the story as fact, etc..

Re:Huge legal win? I think not.

[raresilk]

I think you've misinterpreted the decision completely, and I agree with those who are calling it a "huge legal win." The judge instructed the jury that unless ElcomSoft's product was intended to be used for copyright violation, ElcomSoft had not committed a crime under the DMCA. This principle, known as "mens rea," is supposed to apply to all criminal statutes, but the media and software cartels have been acting as though it did not apply to the DMCA. Instead, the cartels insisted that software or hardware is criminal if it might be used to violate a copyright, even if it is never used for that purpose, or if the legitimate uses far outweigh copyright-violating ones. The judge's instruction to the jury, and the jury's application of that instruction to reach an acquittal, is an unequivocal smackdown to the cartel position.

I am certain that glasses of champagne are being raised all over the US by manufacturers of DVD and CD-recorders, portable media devices such as IPod and Rio, personal computers, digital video recorders such as Tivo, and any other device that "might" be used to violate someone's copyright. The cartels' position that any slight chance of copyright violation makes these devices criminal under the DMCA has been used to strongarm these companies into accepting intrusive, restrictive DRM schemes that will be highly unpopular with their own customers. Although the tech companies (rightly) suspected that this was only the first step in the cartels' campaign to make the internet and other digital tools so unpalatable for consumers that they would gladly return to the forcefed industry gruel, they had to step to the RIAA/Disney beat or risk a high profile, expensive DMCA trial. Now that the threat of DMCA prosecution for products with an intended legal use has been greatly lessened (if not removed) by the judge's decision, these companies may feel they can shrug off the pressure from the cartels and give their customers the freedom and flexibility they want.