Russian programmer faces 5 indictments

Dmitry Sklyarov, the 27-year-old Russian computer programmer who was recently arrested and jailed by the FBI during a hacker convention in Las Vegas was formally charged with five counts of copyright violations under the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act. His employer, ElcomSoft of Moscow was also charged with five violations. If convicted, Sklyarov faces up to five years in federal prison and a 4250,000 fine. ElcomSoft faces a $500,000 penalty.

Sklyarov and ElcomSoft are accused of producing a $99 program that let computer users disable certain access restrictions imposed by electronic-book publishers. Adobe Systems had complained to the FBI ElcomSoft was selling a program that lets users manipulate Adobe's e-book software so the books can be read on more than one computer or transferred to someone else's system, a direct violation of e-book copyrights. The five-count indictment said the programmer and his company wrote the program for "commercial advantage and private financial gain.''

Sklyarov was arrested in Las Vegas on July 16 as he was preparing to return to Moscow after speaking the hackers convention. While ElcomSoft's program is legal in Russia it violates the American law that was enacted to fight software and other digital content piracy.

Sklyarov is free on $50,000 bail but must remain in Northern California. He is scheduled to be arraigned in court later this week. The indictments show the US government is not interested in any kind of plea bargain agreement, which Sklyarov's lawyer has been trying to negotiate. Instead federal prosecutors appear interested mainly in setting a legal precedent in an effort to discourage other software pirates. It is the first case tried under the recently adopted law.