Russian Foreign Ministry warns country's programmers of DMCA

Moscow closely watching case of ElcomSoft programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, says RFM statement

By Kurt Foss
August 31, 2001

DMCA Warning

In an official Russian government statement (original Russian version), the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.mid.ru) has issued a warning to the country's software programmers and other technology specialists to be leery about the possibility of being entrapped while in, or while working with companies from, the United States. The statement is a direct result of the arrest and indictment of software programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, an employee of Moscow-based ElcomSoft Ltd., for alleged violations of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Click on image (right) to download Russian MFA statement with an UNOFFICIAL English translation [PDF: 93kb]

An MFA spokesman issued the official government warning to "all Russian specialists cooperating with American companies in the sphere of computer software and programming to the fact that the bill of 1998 may be applied to them on the U.S. territory regardless the outcome of Sklyarov's trial."

Enacted in 1998, the DMCA "causes a mixed reaction in the community of legal experts, in particular in the United States," the statement explains. "Many of them think that the bill violates the users' right to free transfer of electronic data."

The Russian government and its foreign missions continue to closely watch the Sklyarov/ElcomSoft case, according to the ministry representative, and "are keeping a permanent contact with the American authorities, the accused and his lawyers."

The Foreign Ministry has issued at least two previous statements on the Sklyarov case.

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