He's an unlikely poster child for a movement to change a major U.S. law. But the plight of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested last week, is again shining the spotlight on a controversial law designed to expand copyright protections into the digital age.. . .
He's an unlikely poster child for a movement to change a major U.S. law. But the plight of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested last week, is again shining the spotlight on a controversial law designed to expand copyright protections into the digital age.

Federal agents nabbed Sklyarov at the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas after he talked about a program that can crack Adobe Systems' e-book encryption. Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against him because they say the program violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law designed to protect copyrights in the digital age.

The arrest has prompted protesters to march on Adobe headquarters and free-speech groups to swoop in and take his case. The Electronic Frontier Foundation met Friday with federal prosecutors in an attempt to get them to drop the charges, but the group did not succeed. And some lawmakers are taking a new look at the DMCA.

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