Jury acquits Russian developers in landmark copyright case

The DMCA, among other things, created an offence of offering for sale any products that circumvent digital copy protections, including encryption schemes. This is exactly what ElcomSoft did: its software was designed to crack the protections on electronic books provided by an Adobe Systems product, allowing people to copy and distribute electronic books. Electronic books are simply digital versions of books suitable for reading on computers, PDAs or other platforms.

The jury considered that ElcomSoft's product did break the DMCA – but reasoned that the company lacked the necessary criminal intent because it did not knowingly break the law.

Jury foreman Dennis Strader, speaking after the trial, said that his panel had found the DMCA confusing, which helped convince the jurors that executives from Russia might not fully understand it.

Significantly, ElcomSoft removed its software from sale within five days of being notified that it could violate US law. Only 25 copies were sold.

The case began in July 2001 when Dmitry Sklyarov, an ElcomSoft employee, demonstrated the product at a Las Vegas conference. Sklyarov was arrested and charged under the DMCA, but quickly became a media cause celebre, prompting Adobe to urge the dropping of charges against him. The prosecutors dropped charges against Sklyarov on condition that he testified in a trial against ElcomSoft.

In the trial, 27-year-old Sklyarov and the company's president both testified that they did not think the software was illegal and did not intend for it to be used to copy and distribute electronic books that were supposed to be protected by Adobe's product.

The judge directed the jury that merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough for a finding of guilty.

One of the prosecutors said after the verdict:

"While disappointed, we are also pleased that the judge upheld the constitutionality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the jurisdiction of the United States to bring these cases."

There is no right of appeal for the prosecutors, but nor does the result bind future prosecutions under the DMCA.