Newsweek on Sklyarov

Skavookie writes: "Newsweek has an article about the Sklyarov case that I'm sure a lot of Slashdotters agree with." Sort of preaching to the choir here, but in Newsweek it will reach a lot of people who wouldn't have known about the case at all otherwise. And yeah, Levy is the guy behind Crypto and Hackers.

It does reach the non-Slashdot crowd

[Eccles]

My wife read this article without my prompting, passed it to me with a deeply concerned look and said, "Have you heard about this?" (Relatively) mainstream America doesn't like this kind of crap either when they hear about it.

Re:It does reach the non-Slashdot crowd

[boskone]

Agreed, if you want to help this publicity, read the article and vote it a "7". Then it is more likely to appear on the MSN front page and other places that get loads of visitors a day. And since Newsweek is a general news magazine, not computer related, this is liable to have more impact than someone reading something on ZDNET or gosh forbid... slashdot.

While I'm glad to see it...

[Masem]

...It seems more on the part of 'catching up' rather than trying to lead the pack in terms of news reporting. I subscribe to NW , and I know that they are very good at providing a good comprehensive review of news stories that happened during the last week (unlike tv news, which tend to get the facts that they can in a short amount of time and present those, despite them possibly being one-sided).

However, it's been 3 weeks since the guy's release from jail, and nearly a month and a half since his initial arrest. I can understand waiting until a point where Adobe, the EFF, and the FBI & DOJ have made their comments, but that was still weeks ago and this is the first mention of the case at all in the magazine.

Furthermore, if you note how this story is presented, it's on the second-to-last leaf page (or 4 pages back) from the back cover, right before their typical op-ed piece. In a typical NW magazine, there's usually "You and Your Health" type of news rigth before this; "Entertainment" and "Science and Technology" are usually in the front part of the second half of the magazine. In addition, it's presented as a full-page (larger font, not necessarily more text) 'piece' instead of the normal format used for news stories.

So, IMO, this is just one of the Newsweek's editors' op-ed piece on the situation and not necessarily reporting facts. (Note that there's very little discussion of 'the other side' - RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc). I'm glad to see such an article that hopefully will make the common man realize something's amiss, but this is a not a good news article, and if it were to be one, it comes very late after things have happened.

IMO, it feels like the NW saw that papers like the NYTimes and others were sitting up and taking notice of this story shortly after the bail (possibilty waiting for an interview with the guy), and someone on the editing staff felt they had to address it. It's certainly not too little, too late, but for an article that seems to strongly believe something is seriously fscked with the DMCA, it's very late and poorly placed to be effective.

Re:While I'm glad to see it...

[Prior Restraint]

However, it's been 3 weeks since the guy's release from jail, and nearly a month and a half since his initial arrest.

No need for hyperbole. He was released on bail ten days ago (08-06), and arrested one month ago today (07-16).

Great text!

[Cardinal Biggles]

This article really is a great summary of the whole Sklyarov scandal. And what's more: it's in Newsweek! This makes the evils of the DMCA clear to more and more non-geek people.

It's a terrible deal for Dmitry, but I'm starting to believe that at least something good may be resulting from his suffering.