Corporate-Controlled America:
Our Future?

Release Dmitry Sklyarov
Decriminalize Software Research
Repeal Overextending Copyright Laws

We are here to protest the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, a visiting Russian software programmer who was arrested July 16 by the FBI under the charge of
"...trafficking in software to circumvent [encrypted] copyrighted materials..."
This became a crime in 1999, when Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (cf: US Code 1201), a piece of legislation designed by large computer companies, media agencies, publishers, and the recording industry, and encouraged to be made into law by effective corporate lobbying and deliberately inaccurate technical information.

So far the DMCA has been used by these corporations and the government to do the following:

  • Censor an online and print magazine for telling its readers where to find copies of a program that would allow them to play DVDs on their computers (cf: MPAA v. 2600 Magazine),
  • Silence a Princeton University professor and prevent him from releasing a scientific paper on the topic of music encryption technology by threatening him with a lawsuit (cf: Edward Felten v. RIAA, complaint for declaratory judgement),
  • Arrest a visiting Russian national and valuable computer expert for distributing a piece of software designed to make legal copies of electronic books (cf: United States v. Dmitry Sklyarov, court date pending, defendant currently in prison).

    Many computer professionals and other technical experts have opposed the DMCA since before its passage into law, because, among other things:

  • The law is overbroad, criminalizing acts in the computer world which are otherwise legal if computers are not involved,
  • The law is vague, making it unclear how courts are supposed to judge damages from, punishment for, and even criminality of an action brought to court under this law,
  • The law is anti-technology, establishing disproportionate punishments for acts performed with computers in comparison with the same acts performed without modern technology,
  • The law is anti-public interest, unfairly biased and giving undue benefit of the doubt to corporations and groups bringing claims against individual defendants under this law,
  • The law is anti-personal freedom, making it a crime for researchers and individuals to examine, investigate, and alter many of the software programs and files on their own computers,
  • The law, as written, could be used to sue or arrest an individual for circumventing a technological lock on their own original material, and to allow plaintiffs to use the court to control works they do not have copyright on.

    Historically, copyright was intended as a means to ensure proper credit for the author of an original work, and while no one debates that this is a good thing, copyright was not intended to ensure profit, or to hamper technological progress, or to jail individuals for legal uses of copyrighted works, including fair use (cf: www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html). Copyright was intended to establish punishments for passing off another's work as one's own, and provide authors with control over the act of duplicating their work -- with certain provisions (e.g. fair use by teachers, critics, and other artists). Given the growth and success of many media companies, most copyrights are not held by individuals, but by large corporations which purchase those copyrights in whole from the original authors (who often relinquish their own copyright on their own works as part of such an agreement), usually for a flat sum. These companies, which sponsored and lobbied for the DMCA, own the copyright to most of the artistic, literary, and musical works which form our modern culture, and thereby created a business model which required Congressional influence to be maximally profitable.

    For these reasons, we oppose the DMCA and urge the release of jailed programmer Dmitry Sklyarov.
    www.freesklyarov.org
    Free Dmitry Sklyarov     		www.eff.org
    Electronic Frontier Foundation     		www.fsf.org
    Free Software Foundation     		www.anti-dmca.org
    Oppose the DMCA