Landmark copyright case begins

The first outing for the much-maligned Digital Millennium Copyright Act has begun in the US with the trial of Elcomsoft, the employer of controversial hacker Dmitri Sklyarov.

Elcomsoft is accused of selling a program which enabled users to copy and distribute copyright protected e-books - a feature which evoked a particularly angry and litigious response from Adobe whose protective technology had been by-passed by the Elcomsoft product.

A jury has been selected for the trial and the presiding judge said he expects deliberations to begin on 12 December.

The trial is the first test of the 1998 legislation which has drawn support from the entertainment and media sector while attracting criticism from academics and advocates of free speech.

Sklyarov became an unlikely hero last July following his arrest in the US by the FBI who were investigating the Adobe case. 'Free Dmitri' campaigns called for his immediate release and protests took place outside the US Embassy in London.

silicon.com will be keeping you up to date with any developments in the case. Following a dispute over Visas with US immigration, it is believed Russian Sklyarov will now testify in the case.