US District Judge Ronald Whyte yesterday refused to dismiss a
criminal case against Russian software developers ElcomSoft, ruling
that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is not
unconstitutional.
The Moscow-based company is accused of writing software to
circumvent the anti-copying security in Adobe’s e-book software in
breach of the DMCA. Its lawyers tried to argue that the 1998 law is
too vague because it does not clearly spell out the conduct that it
prohibits.
However, Judge Whyte wrote:
“The language is not difficult to decipher
and is all encompassing: it includes any tool, no matter its form,
that is primarily designed or produced to circumvent technological
protection.”
Whyte agreed with prosecutors that the DMCA does not distinguish
between tools used to infringe copyrights and those that enable
constitutionally protected fair uses, but that in doing so it is
not too restrictive under the Constitution’s protection of free
speech.
