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| Technology - Reuters - updated 9:24 PM ET Jul 30 |
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| Reuters | CNET | Internet Rep= ort | ZDNet | TechWeb | N= ewsFactor | The New Yo= rk Times | More ... |
Artists, Scientists Protest U.S. Copyright Arrest
By Elinor Mills Abreu SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Artists joined softw= are programmers and free speech advocates on Monday in protesting the arrest of a Russian man on charges of violating a controversial new copyright law. About 100 people gathered under cloudy= skies carrying a large ``Free Dmitry'' banner, placards proclaiming ``Reading is a Right, not a Feature,'' and chanting slogans. The group walked two bloc= ks from a civic plaza across from the public library and City Hall to the federal building where the U.S. Attorney's office is building its case against Dmitry Sklyarov. A federal official said Sklyarov, 26, is being held in an Oklahoma City federal detention center, awaiting transfer to San Jose, Calif., on charges of violating the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites). = That law prohibits creating or distributing technology that can be used to circumvent copyright protections. Protesters said the government is using the new = law, enacted last year, to expand the rights of copyright holders and publishers at the expense of the free speech rights granted under the U.S. Constitution. Sklyarov was arrested in Las Vegas July 16= on charges that a program he wrote, which was temporarily sold by his employer, ElcomSoft Co. of Moscow, violates the new copyright law. It was the fir= st arrest under the new law. Sklyarov's program allows people purchasin= g electronic books in digital form to get around controls in Adobe Systems Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:AD= BE - news) eBook Rea= der and make copies of them as well as read them on computers and devices other than the one used to make the purchase. ``Fair use allows people to make use of things freel= y without the permission of the copyright holder,'' Robin Gross, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation, told the group. The new copyright law interferes with the fair use provision of existing copyright law, which allows people to copy and re-use limited amounts of copyrighted material for artistic and educational purposes, Gross said. CASE HARKS BACK TO VIDEO= TAPE RECORDERS ``I'm a (computer) systems administrator and I'm interes= ted in fair use issues,'' said 27-year-old Ian Kasley, who said he creates audio collages from ``found sounds'' for radio shows. The new c= opyright law is ``poisoning the atmosphere for the exchange of free ideas,'' said Philippe Tapon, a 33-year-old novelist. ``I'm interested in freedom of speech and trying to redress the balance between copyright holders to control information and the lack of the individual's right to challenge that.'' The situation is analogous to the protests by movie studios made when videotape recorders were introduced in the 1980s, said Seth Schoen, a programmer, computer consultant and member of the Coalition to Free Dmitry. In a landmark case, the U.S. Supreme C= ourt (news - web sites) ruled that videotaping television shows and movies for personal viewing was constituted fair use. ``There are legitimate uses of this technolog= y,'' Schoen said of the Sklyarov program. ``Publishers just want total control.'' Resear= chers are also hindered by the new law, according to security guru Richard Smith. The new law is ``a legal minefield that ca= n trip up anyone investigating the security and privacy features of commercial software products,'' Smith wrote in an essay published on the Privacy Foundation Web site on Monday. ``The Russian people are very an= gry that one of their programmers is being locked up over a stupid trade dispute with an American company,'' said Alexander Udalov, a freelance writer covering the protest for Computerra, a weekly computer publication based in Moscow. People in Russia are worried that the U.S.= government will go after ElcomSoft for other programs it sells, most of which allow people to recover lost passwords, including software for Microsoft Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news= ) Office program, Udalov said. Sklyarov claims his program is not only = legal, but required under Russian law. After initially complaining, Adobe backed off its support last week for the lawsuit against Sklyarov. Sklyarov wa= s arrested after speaking at the DefCon hacker convention about his program. Earlier Stories<=
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California Backers Push to Free Russian Hacker (=
July 27)
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