U.S. protesters seek release of Russian programmer

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 (Reuters) - Protesters carrying Russian and U.S. flags and chanting "code is free speech" marched outside the California headquarters of software giant Adobe Systems Inc. on Monday seeking release of a Russian programmer arrested on charges of violating U.S. copyright law.

Inside the offices of the software company, lawyers from Electronic Freedom Foundation, a San Francisco-based group focused on free speech issues on the Internet, met with Adobe officials to discuss the case of Dmitry Sklyarov.

"We want to secure his release and get the U.S. Department of Justice to drop the charges," Robin Gross, staff attorney for the EFF, told Reuters before the meeting started.

Sklyarov, 26, was arrested a week ago in Las Vegas after he spoke at a major hackers convention and is being held there without bail until he is transferred to San Jose, California.

Sklyarov, the first person to be prosecuted under the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, wrote software that Adobe claims violates the law, which bans the creation or distribution of technology that circumvents copyright protections.

Sklyarov's program allows people who purchase books in digital form, known as eBooks, to circumvent protections in Adobe's eBook Reader, make copies of the book and read it on other computers.

About 100 people gathered late Monday morning and marched two blocks in downtown San Jose to Adobe's offices, many carrying photos of Sklyarov and signs with slogans like "Visit U.S. Go to Jail," said Don Marti, one of the organizers.

"Dmitry has been arrested and put in jail for doing something that is legal in his home country," said Marti, vice president of the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group.

"And the law that was used to arrest him is an unjust law that can be used to shift the balance of copyright away from the reader and give the publisher total control."

Marcher Kathryn Myronuk said the Sklyarov case was setting a dangerous precedent. "The ability to read eBooks is something you'll have to buy from the company," said Myronuk, a freelance research analyst.

"Free Dmitry" rallies were also scheduled for Monday in Boston, Denver, Chicago, Seattle and Portland, Oregon and Reno, Nevada, as well as in Moscow, according to the BoycottAdobe.com Web site.

The EFF, founded by Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow and Mitchell Kapor, founder of the software company Lotus, argues that the new U.S. copyright law is flawed because it outlaws technologies instead of conduct.

Sklyarov discussed his program in a presentation July 15 at the DefCon hacker conference in a talk entitled "eBook Security: Theory and Practice." He was arrested in his Las Vegas hotel as he prepared to check out and return to Moscow.

Sklyarov's employer, Moscow-based ElcomSoft Co., began selling the program a month ago but pulled it off the market after Adobe complained.