Word: dmca
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...arrest has sparked a firestorm of controversy over the as-yet-untested Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)--and over how far law enforcement should go to protect intellectual property like e-books. The case has provoked the first big showdown between two camps: the programmers who want to bypass security restrictions and the publishers who want to protect the words they sell...
...rule, computer geeks might best be described as laid-back libertarians--they don't like laws encroaching on their territory, but they're usually too busy to care. Sklyarov's arrest changed all that. Since the DMCA makes it a criminal offense merely to make the tools that some hacker might use to crack security on a copyrighted document, hundreds of programmers suddenly feared they might also fall afoul of it. "I've been a programmer for 10 years, and this is the kind of thing you have to do all the time," says Evan Prodromou, one of the organizers...
...rule, computer geeks might best be described as laid-back libertarians--they don't like laws encroaching on their territory, but they're usually too busy to care. Sklyarov's arrest changed all that. Since the DMCA makes it a criminal offense merely to make the tools that some hacker might use to crack security on a copyrighted document, hundreds of programmers suddenly feared they might also fall afoul of it. "I've been a programmer for 10 years, and this is the kind of thing you have to do all the time," says Evan Prodromou, one of the organizers...
...even Bingham admits the DMCA may have "trampled on" a very important part of copyright law: fair use. You have the right to lend or copy parts of any paper-and-glue book you own, but you can't do the same with an e-book without the express permission of the publisher. This is one reason, e-book veterans say, that the industry has been slow to take off. Reading on a screen is a hassle anyway; why put up with all the extra legal barriers...
...boycott is over. While Sklyarov will be arraigned on Aug. 23, most legal experts say the federal case against him will be tough to prove without Adobe's help. The charge filed by the government against Sklyarov is confusing enough: it is for "trafficking" software prohibited by the DMCA. This does not mean he went around selling it himself, but rather that Adobe was able to buy it through a third party--and his name was listed on that software's copyright page. Yes, that is as tenuous as it sounds. "I hope the government knows something...