[free-sklyarov] Wretched article at inside.com

[Doug Lay]

Thanks for the feedback, Richard.  And thanks for a wonderful article at
MSNBC yesterday.

I had a chance to cool down a bit on the ride home today, and had a couple
of thoughts about Mr. Parloff's "tour de farce.."

(1)  This man is scared, and on the defensive.  A calm lawyer at the top of
his game would not be adopting such a bitter, sarcastic tone.  And he
certainly wouldn't use a racially charged term like "maumauing" to describe
the behavior of his opponents.

(2) Looks like it might be possible to foster some serious "internal strife"
between the Feds and the AAP crowd regarding the handling of this case.  If
the whole thing weren't so dead serious, I would be tempted to laugh out
loud at Parloff's suggestion that ElcomSoft president Katalov should offer
himself for prosecution in exchange for Sklyarov's release.  I mean, what is
this, hostage negotiations!?!?

At any rate, I believe Mr. Parloff's message boils down to this:  "We will
protect our revenue model by any means necessary, certainly including
throwing those who threaten our model in jail.  We will not be so naive as
to focus on those who actually pirate our work, because there are too many
of them,  and anyway, many of them are also our paying customers.  Rather,
we will focus our wrath on you, the technologists, because you have the
ability to empower many people at once, for purposes both good and ill."

That is his message, but I perceive a quavering in his voice.

-Doug

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard M. Smith <rms at privacyfoundation.org>
To: <free-sklyarov at zork.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 3:36 PM
Subject: RE: [free-sklyarov] Wretched article at inside.com


> Yep what a perfectly awful article.  What bothers me so much about it is
> that the author presents his assumptions as fact.  Some of the more wild
> examples are:
>
>    - "Most of the people coming to Sklyarov's defense fully
>      appreciate that some sort of anti-circumvention legislation
>      like the DMCA is crucial to maintaining meaningful copyright
>      protection in the digital world."
>
>    - "Nor should Sklyarov's July 16 arrest have come as a surprise
>      to either ElcomSoft or Sklyarov, unless ElcomSoft was cruelly
>      keeping Sklyarov in the dark about Adobe's dissatisfaction with
>      ElcomSoft's business operations."
>
>    - "The cat is then out of the bag and any attempt to bring a
>      copyright infringement charge against the individual who
>      originally uploaded it becomes laughably futile, even assuming
>      it were possible to identify that individual, which it usually
> isn't."
>
> What's interesting is that the software industry has had to deal the
> challenges of copyright protection in the "digital world" now for 20
> years.  The industry has thrived in spite of the difficult of preventing
> the wholesale copying of software.  Just ask Bill Gates, the richest man
> in the world.  The book publishing industry is now getting ready to face
> these same challenges as they tried to create a marketplace for eBooks.
> Wholesale copying of books seem to be their "bogey man in closet".
>
> Richard
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: free-sklyarov-admin at zork.net [mailto:free-sklyarov-admin at zork.net]
> On Behalf Of douglay at relicorp.com
> Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 5:23 PM
> To: free-sklyarov at zork.net
> Subject: [free-sklyarov] Wretched article at inside.com
>
>
>
> Anyone interested a quick puke should click here:
>
> http://www.inside.com/product/product.asp?entity=&pf_ID=E8EECFA3-CBD1-
> 447E-952C-CC16283D266C
>
> If it wasn't clear before, this article should make it crystal-
> clear:
>
> The publishing industry, and its allies in the music and film
> industries, cannot tolerate the free exchange of digital information
> across the Internet, and are willing to go to any lengths whatsoever
> to see that the free exchange of digital information is squelched.
>
> Anyone for a march on the AAP offices during Usenix?  These people
> have basically declared war on programmers.
>
> -Doug
>
>
> --
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