Here is the final segment of Alexander Katalov’s testimony.
The employee from RegNow! is up next after this…
Burton presented the same license agreement that Frewing had presented up on the screen.
“Did ElcomSoft consult with a lawyer before using this license for your software?” Burton asked.
“No.” Alexander replied.
Burton showed a more recent version of the same license agreement that had been modified slightly.
“Did you consult with a lawyer?” Burton said.
“No.” Alexander replied. “I got it from the ASP (Association Software Professionals) website.”
10/10/02 Alexander Katalov – President, ElcomSoft (Part 4)
This segment follows this post.
Below is my account of the cross-examination of Alexander Katalov by the prosecuting attorney (U.S. Attorney Scott Frewing). Also included below is the subsequent re-cross by Defense Attorney Joseph Burton.
Frewing started off asking if ElcomSoft had ever experienced anyone using a stolen credit card to obtain a serial number for one of their software programs.
Alexander said that yes, this has happened to ElcomSoft several times in the past.
Frewing then presented a slide of the software license for ElcomSoft’s AEBPR product and used a pointer to highlight the paragraph that says “protected by U.S. Copyright Law and International treaties.” He made the point that ElcomSoft used this license to protect itself.
You could tell where Frewing was going with this: ElcomSoft asserts that its software is protected by U.S. Copyright law and therefore should itself be bound by copyright law, right?
Alexander wasn’t disagreeing at all with the point Frewing was trying to make.
“Most of our U.S. customers are large corporations.” Alexander said. “So it’s important.”
Frewing projected a screen shot of a webpage from the ElcomSoft website that had been taken on June 28, 2002. The text on the webpage explained that, “unfortunately, you can’t buy the AEBPR program anymore.” The text on the webpage also explained that the program could still be obtained from one of two other Russian-based (.ru) locations.
Frewing then brought up the testimony of Special Agent Daniel J. O’Connell, who testified that, as of July 3, 2001, this text remained on the ElcomSoft website (with the links to the AEBPR software).
Here’s a link to the original complaint against Dmitry Sklyarov and Elcomsoft in which O’Connell describes the same investigation described by his live testimony.
Alexander confirmed that “yes the text described by Special Agent O’Connell and shown in the screen shot was indeed what was displayed on the ElcomSoft website on July 3, 2001.
That was it. Frewing had no further questions.
Next, Defense Attorney Joseph Burton was allowed to re-cross.
Burton presented the same license agreement that Frewing had presented up on the screen.
“Did ElcomSoft consult with a lawyer before using this license for your software?” Burton asked.
“No.” Alexander replied.
Burton showed a more recent version of the same license agreement that had been modified slightly.
“Did you consult with a lawyer?” Burton said.
“No.” Alexander replied. “I got it from the ASP (Association Software Professionals) website.”
Burton thanked Alexander and he stepped down from the witness stand.
Next up: my account of the testimony from a RegNow! employee.