Adobe and the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act :: Hackers Hacking Computers Technology Essays

Adobe and the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1. The Background. In July of 2001 a Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov , an employee of ElcomSoft arrived at DefCon9 hacker conference which was held in Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas. DefCon conferences were designed for hackers from around the world to meet in Las Vegas and display their skills, while checking the innovations and techniques of other hackers (www.defcon.com). ElcomSoft is a privately owned software development company with headquarters in Moscow, Russia which specializes in Password Recovery software, Advanced Disk catalog, Advanced Registry Tracker and E-Book Processing software. (note: the e-book processing software is still advertised on the company's website: www.elcomsoft.com). Dmitry Sklyarov gave a speech, titled "eBooks security - theory and practice" about ElcomSoft's software which was designed to crack protections on Adobe Systems' eBooks. Here is what the software was doing: "Advanced eBook Inscriber, or simply AEBIN, is a program to convert Sealed eBooks in Microsoft Reader (.LIT) format to Inscribed ones. Sealed eBooks can be created with Microsoft Reader Content SDK (available for free) or various 3rd party tools; AEBIN allows to add any purchaser-specific information (such as purchaser's name or order number) to the Sealed eBook, so that information will be shown on the cover page of the book when it is opened in Microsoft Reader. This reinforces honest usage by consumers." 1. Adobe charged Sklyarov and ElcomSoft with violating a 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) was the foundation of an effort by Congress to implement United States treaty obligations and to move the nation's copyright law into the digital age... Key among the topics included in the DMCA are provisions concerning the circumvention of copyright protection systems, fair use in a digital environment, and online service provider (OSP) liability (including details on safe harbors, damages, and "notice and takedown" practices). Resources on these and other topics are included below." 2. (note: while I was opening an Adobe PDF format document with DMCA, my computer froze twice, causing me to loose most of my essay). FBI agents arrested Sklyarov on July 17, 2001 after his presentation and charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures (the AEBPR) (www.freesklyarov.org). He was booked in jail and then released on $50,000 bail, but was not allowed to go back to his family in Russia, or leave United States for that matter.