ElcomSoft Verdict: Not Guilty 593
truthsearch writes "From News.com: 'A jury on Tuesday found a Russian software company not guilty of criminal copyright charges for producing a program that can crack anti-piracy protections on electronic books.' HUGE legal win against the DMCA. Thank you Lawrence Lessig."
Re:Huge legal win? I think not. - a moderate win (Score:5, Informative)
In this case the jury instructions are probably more important than the actual verdict. This establishes a key point that a product that has both legal and ilegal potential uses is not in and of itself ilegal.
Re:Great!! (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Congratulations Joe Burton (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huge legal win? I think not. (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing, since Jon isn't being tried in the US.
Re:Great!! (Score:2, Informative)
Whats important to remember here is that this verdict of Not Guilty was reached NOT because 'he didn't do it' but rather because the conclusion was reached that 'he did it and he isn't guilty.'
Therefore, on appeal, this verdict could be remanded (as opposed to overturned, because this is a jury trial) back to the lower court to try again. As a matter of 'he did it' or 'he didn't do it'
Re:Great!! (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, go read the Constitution. First of all, double jeopardy is a recent term. All the constitution says is that you can't be tried twice for the same crime. Note, however, that you can be tried twice for seperate _instances_ of the same crime. (So even the advice given to Ashley Judd, in Double Jeopardy, was wrong). For example if you rob a bank, and are tried, and acquitted, and go rob the same bank again, you can be tried again and found guilty that time.
The "double jeopardy" clause is in there to prevent the government from abusing its power. Consider Joe Blow, who prints handbills encouraging revolution. The government doesn't like this. They try him, he's acquitted. The government still doesn't like this. They try him, he's acquitted again. And so on until they bribe enough judges and prosecutors so he's found guilty. That is what "double jeopardy" is designed to prevent.
Re:Huge legal win? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
to have cracked any eBooks, who are these people to say that Russian businesses fall under the DMCA?
Yes, but they were selling the software in the United States. No matter where the software was coded or where the company was based, according to the article it is illegal to use in the US and selling it brought on the charges. Fortunately the Judge had a little wisdom and ruled that they needed to "willfully" be violating the DCMA to be found guilty. However, the software is still ruled illegal.
If a company based in Nevada opened a casino in Utah it would be illegal even though gambling is legal in Nevada.
Criminal aquittals can be appealed (sort of) (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, the Government could argue that the judge mis-instructed the jury on an incorrect definition of the word "willful," and that as a result, the jury was asked to apply incorrect law. If the appeals court found that the instruction was incorrect, the remedy would be to declare a mis-trial and re-try the case.
Appeals by the Government don't happen very often, but when an important issue is on the line, they certainly can happen. Securing a favorable interpretation of the DMCA is important to the DOJ, but at the same time, this particular case is somewhat awkward for them, what with Adobe not urging prosecution. In light of that, I'd say the odds of a Government appeal are about 1 in 3.
Re:Huge legal win? I think not. (Score:1, Informative)
This is a criminal copyright case. The burden is higher ("beyond a reasonable doubt") and intent is a necessary element that the prosectution must prove.
This jury instruction is only applicable in criminal copyright cases.... not civil lawsuits like the MPAA/RIAA bring. In a civil copyright suit, they do NOT have to prove any intent at all. Yes, Virginia, merely publishing a tool that can be used to violate the DMCA is, and always was intended to be by the people that wrote it, actionable under the DMCA by a civil lawsuit. Such a tool must have non-trivial, legitimate noninfringing uses to be legal to publish, and the defendant must prove they exist.
Re:so now... (Score:4, Informative)
Loss of livelihood, emotional trauma, yadda yadda yadda -- it would pretty much ruin the parents.
Of course, he may not want to do that to them, or they may not have enough to make it worthwhile. I'd consider suing the kid just to get her convicted of a felony, which gets to go on her permanent record and fucks her life about as squarely as she just fucked his.
But that's me, and I can be a vengeful asshole if you screw me first.
were they in russia, or a state of mind???? (Score:2, Informative)
After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word "willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said.
this was wedged into the bottom, and it is the most important part of the precedent set. its the legal ruling by the judge that the creators intent during creation determines its illegality under the DCMA. in other words, violate it all you want, as long as you truly believe that there is an allowable or "fair use" of the product you created.
say you made a decryption system to allow companies to recover data from an encrypted system in case of human tragedy (the only guy who knows the key dies), which does happen, you would not be in violation of the DCMA.
i think we all knew that it would only take a few test cases to rip this poorly written law open. this is just the first, and will hopefully discourage companies from invoking this unholy of the unholies.
of course the worst part of the law, is simply the threat of legal action. perhaps there will be popular support for making the threat of DCMA litigation a crime itsself.
on the outside, it means that there will be more suits, however, it could:
a)result in a large body of case law to stip the act of the rest of it's fangs
b)insure that companies only use it when the threat is DIRE.
c)really keep the EFF busy for a while.
my .02
Re:Huge Win? (Score:1, Informative)
The constitutionality of the DMCA is a question of law, and as such, would need to be evaluated by a higher court (read: appellete or above) to create any binding precident.
How often do you hear trial cases being quoted as precident? Never, because they never deal with issues of law, only of fact.
Re:Interesting Tactic (Score:2, Informative)
What does Lessig have to do with Elcomsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:so now... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That doesn't make sense...? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, if lower court judges regularly and consistently dismiss charges brought under a law, then eventually prosecutors will stop wasting their time.
This will lead either to amendments to the original legislation--which will then no doubt face constitutional challenge--or the law will effectively go away, because nobody bothers to enforce it.
It's not pretty, and it's not an ideal solution, but there are an awful lot of unenforced laws on the books. (This is a bad thing in and of itself, but that is a subject for another post.)
Re:so now... (Score:3, Informative)
"After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word "willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said."
Re:How can the judge instruct this way? (Score:3, Informative)
As a criminal prosecution, the court needed to focus not only on 1201, but also on 1204, which states in part):
Sec. 1204. Criminal offenses and penalties
(a) In General. - Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain -
(1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not
more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and
(2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.
That's where willful comes in, straight from the DMCA
Re:Knowledge of law? (Score:5, Informative)
So, check out the etymologies of legal terms like "breaking and entering" and "cease and desist". You'll see that one word has a French root.
"Breaking" comes from the Middle English "breken". "Entering" comes from French originally. At the time, both meant the same thing.
Re:so now... (Score:4, Informative)
Get the story here [yahoo.com]. It is only the government who saying that they failed to show intent, a self-serving smokescreen argument at best, which is unfortunately spreading via the media (I already heard it on NPR). The reality appears to be that the jury supported fair use for ebook users against the DMCA.
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ [gnu-darwin.org]