[free-sklyarov] Re: DMCA

[Brendan]

Declan McCullagh writes:

> That's because the DMCA only makes commercial circumvention a crime:
>
>  (a) In general. -- Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202
>  willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private
>  financial gain, (1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or
>  imprisoned for not more than 5 years or both, for the first offense
>
> Non-commercial circumvention may, of course, be a civil offense, as 2600
> found out in the New York case brought by the movie studios.
>
> This state of affairs creates a mild problem (to go back to the recent
> topic of discussion on cypherpunks) for those who strongly believe in
> the First Amendment when applied to nonprofit or not-for-profit speech
> but less so when it comes to speech that's part of a commercial
> transaction.
>
> For instance, a guy ranting on Usenet, they say, should have free
> speech rights, but the tobacco companies or pharmaceutical companies
> can properly be muzzled. Let's hope Dmitry, a budding capitalist,
> doesn't fall into that same commercial-speech-can-be-regulated
> catchall.

It appears to me that his 'violation' wasn't commercial.  I assume he was
paid to give the speech, but it isn't like he was selling
copyright-violation on the street corners.  Shouldn't Adobe be trying to
file a (albeit rediculous) lawsuit against Elcomsoft?  I fail to see where
he violated the DMCA for personal gain while in the United States.  Also, is
there any possibility that we could switch over to a message board / forum
environment, I for one would prefer it over a 'lot of e-mails format'.