I had a really interesting day in court Monday observing the U.S. vs. ElcomSoft trial.
Dmitry Sklyarov was cross-examined by both sides and Vladimir Katalov had just taken the stand for a bit when it was time for court to adjourn.
I’ll be posting more this evening before heading over to the big EFF party tonight.
See you there!

All in all I’d say the Jury was probably just trying to keep up with the conversation more than anything else — which did get rather confusing from time to time in the context of all of the products, technologies and acronyms flying around.
Even I had to look at the big chart provided by the defense showing the two products being discussed side by side — the APDFPR (Adobe PDF Password Recovery program) and AEBPR (Adobe Ebook Password Recovery program) — every so often in order to keep it clear in my mind which one they were talking about as they switched back and forth. And I’ve been familiar with the case for over a year — so I can’t imagine what it would be like for a juror to try to stomach all of this stuff in a couple of sittings.
One thing about the jury though: they sure looked interested in what was going on. They were paying close attention and were taking everything very seriously — yet they were also quick to laugh when things were, well, just plain funny.

I’d like to apologize ahead of time for what is undoubtedly going to be a stream of consciousness style of writing for these notes. I’m trying to write all of this up while it’s fresh in mind so I don’t fall into the trap I’ve been in for the last few weeks trying to reconstruct what happened from my notes at Eldred.
The whole point of my taking entire week to observe this trial, besides the obviously selfish reasons of wanting to experience history in the making and all that kind of stuff, was to bring the experience to those who couldn’t be there. With that in mind, it only seemed fair to enable you to share the experience with me in a timely manner — and while you’re interest is up!
Please do let me know if any of this needs further clarification. It is my intention to eventually have an online account of the trial that is linked to all of the evidence (most of which is already available online in some form or another) so that a reader can follow along and consider all of the evidence presented for and against etc., and try to understand the thought process of everyone involved as the events were taking place.
I believe it is important to have a historical account of this case because, much like the Eldred case, I believe that its outcome will greatly change the course of history.
It was Dmitry Sklyarov’s arrest in July of 2001 that got me interested in Copyright Law and the DMCA in the first place. I cared very little about either until I learned that a Russian graduate student had been arrested and was still being held without bail (only for a few days originally — but eventually he was held for over three weeks in jail and then not allowed to return home for almost six months!) — and all because a software company alleged that some software his employer had developed could have potentially infringing uses. It didn’t seem possible.
I began researching this strange “DMCA” law the technological and legal issues involved, and learned that the plot only thickened with more information I obtained. Webcasting issues became involved, and ultimately, free speech and the public domain seemed the most at risk.
I continued with my research, and decided to move back to the SF Bay Area to see if I could be of any assistance to anyone trying to help the situation. Five months later, I was working for Lawrence Lessig at Creative Commons.
One thing I know for sure — for me, none of it would have transpired as it did were it not for Dmitry’s arrest. For this reason, and the reasons mentioned earlier, I wanted to be there to experience this trial for myself.
12/09/02 – 2:00 pm San Jose Federal Court
I walked in an hour after court started, right as Dmitry Sklyarov was on the stand and Elcomsoft’s lawyer, Joseph Burton, was questioning him. (It is my understanding that the prosecution called witnesses last week and now the defense is presenting their witnesses.)
I counted only 21 people in the audience of the small courtroom in downtown San Jose, California.
Burton played a twelve minute video excerpt from Dmitry’s July, 2001 (exact date here) presentation at the Def Con conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The tape was played on a TV set placed between the witness stand where Dmitry sat and the jury box. The jurors sat with 4 in front and 8 in the back row, and all of them had note pads that they were all keeping pretty busy with.
All in all I’d say the Jury was probably just trying to keep up with the conversation more than anything else — which did get rather confusing from time to time in the context of all of the products, technologies and acronyms flying around.
Even I had to look at the big chart provided by the defense showing the two products being discussed side by side — the APDFPR (Adobe PDF Password Recovery program) and AEBPR (Adobe Ebook Password Recovery program) — every so often in order to keep it clear in my mind which one they were talking about as they switched back and forth. And I’ve been familiar with the case for over a year — so I can’t imagine what it would be like for a Juror to try to stomach all of this stuff in a couple of sittings.
One thing about the jury though: they sure looked interested in what was going on. They were paying close attention and were taking everything very seriously — yet they were also quick to laugh when things were, well, just plain funny.
For instance, during the beginning of the Def Con presentation in the video clip they were showing, when Dmitry attempted to begin his presentation, someone from the audience asks Dmitry if he can please say “where are the nuclear wessels in Alameda?” Which he finally says, reluctantly. (Note: I’m not sure how I would feel exactly if someone stopped my presentation somewhere to ask me to say “Totally Excellent Dude” or something with my American accent, but he was a good sport about it.)
Anyway, it was pretty funny — and everyone in the court room laughed loudly. It also served to loosen things up a bit.
The video clip itself was also kind of funny because it had this really Tron-like sort of outdated pseudo-flashy opening but then the footage of the presentation itself was very amateurish and low tech. Dmitry was sitting at a table up on stage with a microphone in front of him and two or three other people at the table next to him without microphones. It was very bright in the room and it looked warm. Too warm. Like, Las Vegas in July warm.
After the “talk like Checkov for us” incident, Dmitry went on with his presentation. It seemed like he was shouting into the microphone, but I couldn’t tell if it was just turned up too loud at the even itself or if perhaps whoever recorded the video had blown out the levels when they recorded the tape. Dmitry seemed to be reading from his pre-written speech for the most part.
Okay it’s midnight and I’ve got to get some sleep before court tomorrow. But I will say that I’ve somehow managed to write over 1,000 words already, although I’ve only gone through one page of the thirty or so pages of notes I took today. So suffice to say that there’s a lot more where this came from.
More tomorrow afternoon — court gets out at noon and I’m going to the EFF party at 7pm, so I’ll post as much as I can in-between.