Dmitry Sklyarov freed

Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested in July after allegedly breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, will have all charges against him dropped in return for his testimony against employer ElComSoft.

Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested in July after allegedly breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, will have all charges against him dropped in return for his testimony against employer ElComSoft.

Sklyarov, who was arrested at the behest of Adobe, helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR), a program capable of turning Adobe eBooks into PDF files. Due to Adobe's use of a 'protection method' in its eBook format and the subsequent circumvention of said method in order to change format, the FBI charged Sklyarov and his employer with violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Of course, American law enforcement ignored the fact that AEBPR was written in Russia, by a Russian national working for a Russian company, and thus did not fall within reach of the DMCA.

The development, while far from proving the invalidity of the DMCA as some are claming, is still a good one for Dmitry, who will now be able to return home to Russia while he waits for the trial to begin.