Adobe Has Programmer Arrested

For the last couple of weeks there has been a drama going on in the eBook industry. Like the previous one I've written about, it concerns DRM (digital rights management). The subject is going to get more and more ink as the eBook industry matures and becomes a real profit area for publishers.

Last month, Adobe (the creators of Adobe Acrobat Reader) filed a complaint with the F.B. I. against the Moscow-based computer programming company, Elcomsoft. Elcomsoft creates and sells software that removes password protection from electronic books. Its latest development, called Advanced Ebook Processor, removes the protection from encrypted Adobe eBooks, ergo, the complaint to the FBI

On July 16, 2001, after giving a presentation on eBook security at the Defcon-9 conference in Las Vegas, Dimitry Sklyarov, a 27-year-old computer programmer and Ph.D. candidate at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, was arrested for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA prohibits from making available to the public for use or the manufacture, importation, of any technology, product or service, which is designed to circumvent a protective copyright control.

Sklyarov is one of the authors of Advanced Ebook Processor. If convicted he could face five years in jail and a $500,000 fine. This is the first criminal prosecution under the 1998 copyright bill. This case is very similar to a civil lawsuit filed by eight movie studios against 2600 Magazine. The studios claim that the underground hacker zine was distributing DVD-descrambling software in violation of the DMCA.

Programmers turned out in at least 10 cities to protest the arrest of Sklyarov. The largest crowd was in San Jose, where Adobe Systems headquarters are located. Board members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group, which has taken up Sklyarov's cause met with Adobe and after two hours of discussion, convinced Adobe to recommend Sklyarov's release. Robin Gross, an EFF staff attorney working on the case said, "In a large part, this is in response to the public outcry." On its web-site, Adobe tried to present its side of the story. "Adobe's goal is to receive assurance from Elcomsoft that they will not sell or distribute their illegal digital lock pick. Adobe's concern is that a digital lock pick is being distributed to enable others to compromise the copyrighted works of authors, artists, developers and publishers, which is why Adobe alerted the US Attorney's office." This puts the ball in the court of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California and on President Bush's candidate to head the FBI, Robert S. Mueller III.

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