October 9, 2024

ElcomSoft Acquitted

Lisa Bowman at news.com reports that the jury has found ElcomSoft not guilty of criminally violating the DMCA.

It will be interesting to watch the reaction to this. Some people may try to read a lot into the verdict, but this is probably a mistake. Apparently, the verdict relied not on the drawbacks of the DMCA, and not on whether ElcomSoft’s actions were morally justified, but on the narrow question of what ElcomSoft knew about the DMCA when they sold their product. Not knowing the precise limits of the DMCA, ElcomSoft could not knowingly violate it.