Publish and Perish

[Jim]

Everyone has read about the Sklyarov arrest by now.  What is interesting is 
that the FBI met with Adobe personnel and were convinced to arrest a Russian 
national for what Adobe terms violation of the DMCA.

One extremely interesting point on the record is that Kevin Nathansson, 
Adobe's group manager for its eBooks project told the FBI agent can "purchase 
a book title in an electronic format known as eBook".  I think that by 
admitting that the consumer purchases the item, the fair use doctrines of 
U.S. copyright law may cause Adobe some problems.  They did not tell the FBI 
that the customer licenses the eBook.  I hope this hangs Adobe out to dry.

Interesting to know that a company, not the government, initiated this 
investigation and is ultimately responsible for any actions that the 
government takes.  Also, Adobe software is illegal in Russia because Russian 
law requires that purchasers have the right to make archival backups of all 
software and data used by that software.

The DMCA is gonna get you - if Adobe has anything to say about it!