[free-sklyarov] Noon Monday 23 July 2001: Rally to Free Dmitry Sklyarov

[Jay Sulzberger]

Noon Monday 23 July 2001 at 41st Street and Fifth Avenue, before the
New York Public Library, on the Island of Manhattan, there will be a rally
to free Dmitry Sklyarov.

Note that this is not an LXNY event, but rather a special rally, whose
Lead Organizer is

Leonid Gorkin
lgorkin at excite.com or lgorkin1 at nyc.rr.com

A press release will be issued shortly.

There will be rallies in about twenty cities.

http://www.boycottadobe.com/pages/rallies.html

To download a flyer in jpg form go to:

http://zork.net/~sexpot

Below is Mr. Bad's notice.

Jay Sulzberger <secretary at lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org


>From Mr. Bad's note at

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/20/34741/3199

<blockquote>

   Inforights Activists Unite To Free Dmitry Sklyarov
   By MisterBad
   Fri Jul 20th, 2001 at 08:28:30 AM EST

A loose coalition of cypherpunks, cyberrights groups, Free Software
activists, hacker organizations, and civil rights advocates have united
under the umbrella of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) to protest
the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov on July 16th by the FBI in
Las Vegas.

___________________________________________________________________________


Dmitry Sklyarov, an employee of ElcomSoft of Moscow, is the author of a
software utility called Advanced eBook Processor. The AEPR allows
legitimate purchasers of a digital book format called eBooks to exercise
their fair use rights (such as making backup copies or reading eBooks on a
Linux machine) with eBook files. These rights are normally impeded by the
eBook security system.

Adobe Systems, makers of the eBook, filed a complaint with the FBI about
Sklyarov under the criminal section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). Based on this complaint, the FBI arrested Dmitry in Las Vegas on
July 16th. Sklyarov had given a presentation at Defcon, a convention for
security experts, hackers, and cyberrights groups in Las Vegas,
about weaknesses in the security system of the Adobe eBook platform.

More coverage of the Sklyarov arrest and information about the legal
foundations of the DMCA can be found here:

     http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?MenuID=2&WebPageID=1

Concerned cyberrights activists have concentrated around an email list
called free-sklyarov. Within days, they have organized a world-wide network
of protests scheduled for Monday, July 23rd, 2001. Held outside Adobe
Systems' offices, US federal buildings, and US embassies, the protests will
raise public awareness of the issues in the case and demand action from
Adobe and the US government to free Dmitry Sklyarov and drop all charges.

Already, demonstrations have been scheduled for San Francisco, Seattle,
Denver, Chicago, Moscow, Boston, and other cities. In the Bay Area,
protesters will be meeting in downtown San Jose at 11:00AM and march to
Adobe Systems global headquarters. There, they will demand that Adobe
withdraw its complaint and refrain from filing similar complaints under the
DMCA.

More information on the Free Sklyarov protests in San Jose and elsewhere is
available here:

     http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010719_eff_sklyarov_alert.html

Fair use, an important doctrine in US copyright law that allows purchasers
of copyrighted material limited rights to quote and archive information,
has been continually eroded by the DMCA in recent years. Notable cases
include the RIAA vs. Napster and the MPAA vs. 2600 Magazine. Those cases,
however, were civil suits between industry groups and individuals. It is
believed that Sklyarov's is only the second case under the DMCA criminal
sections, which went into effect in October of 2000.

</blockquote>