Dmitry Sklyarov

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Dmitry Sklyarov is a Russian programmer who was arrested in the US after giving a presentation at the Defcon conference after demonstrating that various products for securing electronic books were extremely weak.[1] He and his employer, Elcomsoft, were charged under the DMCA with distributing illegal tools to circumvent publishers' encryption technology. Both he and the publisher were eventually found not guilty on all charges.[2]

Sklyarov was the first person to be charged under the DMCA.[3] The case became a cause celebre for opponents of the DMCA, and more generally for critics of DRM technology. There was a web site,[4] a mailing list, calls to action,[5] [6] demonstrations and lectures,[7] even a "Boycott Adobe" campaign since it was Adobe who were behind the charges.

The case got extensive coverage in the computer industry press,[8] and quite a bit in mainstream media.[9]

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