WHAT should we be allowed to know? This question lies at the heart of the
arrest of a young Russian programmer, Dmitry Sklyarov, the first person to be
charged under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Sklyarov works for Elcomsoft, a Russian software company which sells the
$99 utility known as Advanced eBook Processor. This bypasses the
encryption that stops people copying Adobe鈥檚 eBooks, and converts them into
ordinary Acrobat files (PDFs).
In June, Adobe complained to the FBI, who duly arrested Sklyarov, the listed
copyright holder for the Advanced eBook Processor, when he appeared at the
Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas. Sklyarov and his employer faced five
charges: four for trafficking in and marketing 鈥渢echnology primarily designed to
circumvent technology that protects a right of a copyright owner鈥�, and one for
conspiracy.
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In Russia, Sklyarov has done nothing illegal. Immediate worldwide protests
and a meeting with the Electronic Frontier Foundation convinced Adobe to
withdraw its support for prosecuting an individual. Adobe still wants Elcomsoft
prosecuted to stop it selling its 鈥渄igital lock pick鈥�, but the US government is
determined to prosecute Sklyarov, who has been released into the custody of a
fellow Russian living in California.
Meanwhile, technical researchers and conference organisers are worried about
the US because of what happened last April, when a letter from the Recording
Industry Association of America citing DMCA stopped Princeton professor Edward
Felten from presenting a paper on the RIAA鈥檚 Secure Digital Music Initiative.
The paper is now published with permission, but Felten wants a federal ruling
that publication would be legal because 鈥渢hey [RIAA] continue to insist on veto
power over our ongoing work鈥�. Tyler Ochoa, at Whittier Law School in California,
says that Felten has strong First Amendment grounds for protest because
presenting his paper is more like speech. Software, on the other hand, has
functional鈥攁nd commercial鈥攁spects.
Everyone agrees creators of intellectual property should get paid, but
digital rights management software goes further than the law. A book can be
reread, resold, loaned, quoted or kept permanently. An eBook may be designed to
be read only once or for a limited period, and it may not be possible to copy or
paste any part of it, back it up鈥攁nd a host of other things. Copyright,
which is written into the US Constitution, has always been a balancing act
between the interests of the creators and the public. What makes DMCA so awful
is that it favours the rights-holders over the public.
The US used to criticise the Soviet Union for not permitting scientists and
researchers academic freedom. Now, the Russian government is warning its
computer experts it may not be safe for them to visit the US for precisely that
reason. Elsewhere, Britain will have to incorporate the European Copyright
Directive into national law. The result will be horribly similar to DMCA. So
don鈥檛 go getting smug.