A day after he gave a speech at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, ElcomSoft employee Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested and charged by the FBI under the criminal provisions of the DMCA, which prohibits trafficking in software and devices that break the informational locks on digital content.
Sklyarov is one of the authors of a program known as the Advanced eBook Processor that strips the copy protection from Adobe's eBook format and converts the files to unprotected PDF format. A conviction could yield five years in prison and fines of up to US$500,000.
"The prosecution of this individual in this particular case is not conducive to the best interests of any of the parties involved or the industry," Colleen Pouliot, general counsel for Adobe, said in a statement. "Adobe will continue to protect its copyright interests and those of its customers."
Adobe backed down from the case after protesters in several US cities demanded the release of Sklyarov and after a meeting with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group that agreed to represent Sklyarov.
"In a large part, this is in response to the public outcry," said Robin Gross, an EFF staff attorney working on the case.
However, Gross quickly warned that the fight is not over; Sklyarov will remain in jail until the charges are dropped by the US government.
