[wordup] Verdict's in: Elcomsoft NOT GUILTY of criminal DMCA violations

[Adam Shand]

Via: politech at politechbot.com
From: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978176.html

ElcomSoft Verdict: Not guilty

By Lisa M. Bowman
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
December 17, 2002, 10:22 AM PT

SAN JOSE, Calif.-- A jury on Tuesday found a Russian software company 
not guilty of criminal copyright charges for producing a program that 
can crack antipiracy protections on electronic books.

The case against ElcomSoft is considered a crucial test of the criminal 
provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 
controversial law designed to extend copyright protections into the 
digital age.

The company faced four charges related to directly designing and 
marketing software that could be used to crack eBook copyright 
protections, plus an additional charge related to conspiring to do so.

The case was launched in July 2001, when ElcomSoft employee Dmitry 
Sklyarov was arrested during the Las Vegas Defcon hackers conference 
after giving a speech about his company's software, which is designed to 
crack protections on Adobe Systems' eBooks. Prosecutors, working with 
Adobe, said ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor violated the DMCA.

But after protests from programmers, Adobe backed away from its support 
of the case against Sklyarov, and prosecutors set aside charges against 
Sklyarov in exchange for his testimony in the case against his employers.

During the trial, which lasted two weeks, the government said ElcomSoft 
created a tool for burglars and characterized the company as an 
affiliate of hacker networks that was determined to sell the Advanced 
eBook Processor despite its questionable legality. U.S. Assistant 
Attorney Scott Frewing charged that company representatives knew all 
along that they were violating the DMCA by designing and offering the 
software to the public.

The defense, in turn, argued that ElcomSoft acted responsibly, removing 
the software from the Web just days after learning of Adobe's concerns. 
Both Sklyarov and ElcomSoft president Alexander Katalov testified that 
they did not think their software was illicit and did not intend for it 
to be used on books that had not been legally purchased. Under cross- 
examination by the defense, an Adobe engineer acknowledged that his 
company did not find any illegal eBooks even after hiring two firms to 
search the Web for unauthorized copies.

Because both the defense and prosecution agreed that ElcomSoft sold 
software designed to crack copyright protections, the case essentially 
turned on ElcomSoft's state of mind during the period it was offering 
the software.

After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word 
"willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company 
guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions 
were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product 
that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, 
the jury instructions said.