Background: For those of you that don’t know who Elcomsoft is by now, they are a Russian software company and defendants in the first major case to test the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in U.S. federal courts. In July 2001, Elcomsoft programmer Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and charged with creating and trafficking a copyright circumvention device, the company’s Advanced eBook Processor, which breaks the encryption scheme of Adobe’s e-books.
Currently: On Wednesday, May 8, 2002, “A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the copyright infringement case against the Russian software company Elcomsoft can go on, dismissing the defense’s claim that key provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose said that the DMCA was neither vague nor did it violate the First Amendment, as Elcomsoft had argued. Although the judge agreed with Elcomsoft that computer code is speech, he said that the DMCA does not unconstitutionally ban that speech. His ruling allows the first criminal prosecution under the DMCA to continue in the courts; neither the government nor Elcomsoft were available for comment regarding whether they may pursue any settlement negotiations.”
Why is this important here?: Because any legal case that challenges the DMCA is important to all P2P users, and to all consumers of music and movies, audio and video electronics.
Sources for this latest story:
- Wired.com: Judge: Elcomsoft Case Can Proceed
- ZDnet.com: Judge: Russians will be tried
- Boston.com’s DigitalMass: U.S. judge rules Russia software firm can be tried
Previous articles on this court case:
