By Ben King, 30 August 2001 17:45
NEWS Yet another protest has taken place in the UK to campaign against the incarceration of Dmitri Sklyarov, the Russian programmer accused of breaking the law by creating software which cracks some Adobe e-book copyright protection technology. What's becoming clear is that the arrest of Dmitri has helped to crystallise the movement against the worst excesses of the controversial digital millennium copyright act (DMCA). Opposition to the act was initially difficult to organise, as objections to it were based on rather abstract matters of law. But the arrest last month of Dmitri for developing software that cracks the copy protection on Adobe's eBook software is a concrete example of the flaws in this piece of legislation, which has helped to focus the opposition. The US embassy today saw another protest against his arrest. The people who organised the protest have formed a group called the "Campaign for Digital Rights" to lobby for Dmitri's acquittal. One programmer at the demonstration said: "The fact that we can be arrested for doing our jobs has brought home to us that we need to fight this act." The group will also work to focus opposition to similar legislation being prepared by the European Parliament.
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