The “Chilling Effect” on Digital Development: US v. ElcomSoft
The “Chilling Effect” on Digital Development: US v. ElcomSoft
Dmitry Sklyarov, a 27-year-old programmer for ElcomSoft Co. Ltd., was arrested after giving a speech at DEFCon, a major annual technical conference. He was arrested for trafficking software, which could circumvent the technological protection on eBooks in Adobe’s eBook format. He was charged with five criminal offensives. With his arrest came the first criminal challenge to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). This paper will study why he was charged and later acquitted. It will also show how “fair use” has been defined in the terms of the DMCA. Mainly, it will observe the failures in the DMCA. This paper will also show the effect that the DMCA, according to several experts in the field of software, has had on current research in the field of digital media. My presentation associated with “The ‘Chilling Effect’ on Digital Development: US v. ElcomSoft” was originally presented at the 2006 AEJMC Midwestern Conference in Bowling Green, Ohio.