[free-sklyarov] FWD: ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Arrest fuels Adobe copyright fight

[karee at tstonramp.com]

This message was forwarded to you from ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com) by karee at tstonramp.com.

Comment from sender:
If it hasn't been posted already.  The Article was mildly accurate, got better towards the end. 

   

   To print   :    Click here       or    Select    File    and then    Print    from your browser's menu

   	--------------------------------------------------------------
   	This story was printed from    ZDNN   ,
   	located at    http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn   . 
   	--------------------------------------------------------------
   	     

     Arrest fuels Adobe copyright fight
     By Robert Lemos, ZDNN
     July 18, 2001 8:05 AM PT
     URL:

     Attention, software pirates, security researchers and those out to
     prove a point: Adobe Systems doesn't pull its punches.

     That's the lesson Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian software programmer,
     learned Monday when FBI agents arrested him in Las Vegas for
     allegedly publishing a program that removes the security
     protections from Adobe eBook files. The bureau said such activity
     was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

     Sklyarov, who has been moved to San Jose, Calif., for trial, has
     become the latest casualty in a fight between software maker Adobe
     and Elcom, a 20-person company in Moscow.

     The jailed programmer is one of the authors of the Advanced eBook
     Processor, an application designed to strip various security
     measures from Adobe's eBook format, a function that Elcom claims
     is necessary to allow backups required by Russian law and that
     Adobe claims is tantamount to software piracy.

     "Adobe would like to make great money on the eBook market, but
     used an absolutely improper format for that: PDF," Vladamir
     Katalov, managing director of Elcom, said in an e-mail interview
     with CNET News.com. That's "really nice, but not secure. And by
     pushing it, they simply create a lot of trouble (for) publishers
     and authors."

     The jailed programmer Sklyarov had outlined problems with Adobe
     eBook and PDF security in a paper presented at the Def Con hacker
     convention.

     Elcom's claim that the company had benign intentions is dodging
     the issue, said Adobe spokeswoman Susan Altman Prescott.

     "The truth is that piracy is not a new issue, and copy protection
     of digital content is not a new issue," she said. "No software on
     the market is 100 percent secure against a determined hacker. We
     are not new to this business. We understand the nature of
     copyright violation and how to prevent it."

     Sklyarov's arrest comes three weeks after Adobe sent notices
     requesting Elcom stop selling the program and demanding that
     Verio, Elcom's Internet service provider, disconnect the company's
     Web site.

     The notice sent to Elcom on June 25 gave the company five days to
     remove the software from its site, but Verio removed the site the
     next day. While Elcom's Katalov said the company complied with
     Adobe's demands--selling fewer than 10 copies of its program
     before the software was pulled--its credit-card service was soon
     suspended as well.

     On June 26, according to the affidavit filed in the Northern
     District of California, Adobe requested an investigation by the
     FBI into Elcom's activities. After several demonstrations that the
     program did indeed remove the security of eBook files, FBI agent
     Daniel O'Connell filed his affidavit on July 11, a day before
     registration opened at Def Con.

     Adobe, for its part, would not confirm its role in the
     investigation.

     "The issue is not one of Adobe vs. a software hacker," said Susan
     Altman Prescott, a spokeswoman for the San Jose, Calif.-based
     software maker. "At issue is copyright protection for artists and
     publishers."

     While Prescott first portrayed Adobe as somewhat removed from the
     investigation, she later acknowledged that the company "brought it
     to the attention of the U.S. government." The FBI affidavit,
     however, shows that Adobe seems to be the only victim in the case
     and had at least three people working on gathering information
     about Elcom's software for investigators.

     Only the second case to be filed under the criminal provisions of
     the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the strongest law to date
     supporting publishers of copyrighted content, the trial could be
     an important testing ground for the DMCA, said Jennifer Granick,
     clinical director of Stanford University's Center for Internet and
     Society.

     "It's the DeCSS case but criminal," she said, referring to the New
     York case that is trying Web sites that linked to code that could
     break the encryption surrounding DVD movies. "The fact that it is
     someone from outside the country highlights the problems with the
     law, because this is the U.S. enforcing its laws on another
     country."

     Granick believes the case highlights an important weakness in the
     DMCA.

     "Companies are allowed to take fair use away with our technology,"
     she said, "but we are not allowed to take fair use back with
     technology."