What Yoj said
Sec. 501. Infringement of copyright
(a) Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 121 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be. For purposes of this chapter (other than section 506), any reference to copyright shall be deemed to include the rights conferred by section 106A(a). As used in this subsection, the term ''anyone'' includes any State, any instrumentality of a State, and any officer or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity. Any State, and any such instrumentality, officer, or employee, shall be subject to the provisions of this title in the same manner and to the same extent as any nongovernmental entity.
(b) The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the requirements of section 411, to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it. The court may require such owner to serve written notice of the action with a copy of the complaint upon any person shown, by the records of the Copyright Office or otherwise, to have or claim an interest in the copyright, and shall require that such notice be served upon any person whose interest is likely to be affected by a decision in the case. The court may require the joinder, and shall permit the intervention, of any person having or claiming an interest in the copyright
a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. - Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an
essential step in the utilization of the computer program in
conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other
manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes
only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that
continued possession of the computer program should cease to be
rightful.
In other words, it is not an infringement of copyright to make a copy for your own use.
(b) Additional Violations. - (1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that -
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.
(2) As used in this subsection -
(A) to ''circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure'' means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and
(B) a technological measure ''effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.
In other words, you can't sell something that is almost soley for the purpose of infringing copyright, but making a copy for yourself is not infringing copyright. Making a copy for yourself is specifically allowed.
Banning something that prevents you from making a copy for your own use violates your rights to make a copy.
This isn't the law that Dmitry is being held under. He is being held under the provisions of the DMCA, which makes a specific offense of enabling someone to defeat encryption on a digital work. The act covers devices like zip password crackers, and makes it illegal even to tell someone how to defeat the encryption.
Yes you can give it to him. What you cannot do is photocopy the book and give that to him
You are allowed to photocopy a book for your own use.
Selling general-use lockpicks and guns may be quite legal.
Copying a key to a person's house without his permission and selling copies is not. There is quite a difference.
If Dimitry's tools were not general code breakers but specific adobe code breakers (even if adobe's code is based on some general algotithm), then he is as gulty.
No, Adobe do not own copyright to the works encrypted with their software. It is not a key to Adobe's house, it is a key to all locks Adobe makes.
Adobe encrypts books and sells them, but the copyright remains with the author/publisher.
You can sell people hammers that can be used to smash doors, but if you personally smash someone else's door and let thiefs in for a small charge, you will be found guilty even if you do not steal anything.
That's the point I am making. Dmitry sells the hammer. Whose door people choose to smash in, and the reason they choose to smash it in, is entirely up to them.
Like I said, this case is the tip of the iceberg. The Adobe ebook format is not widely used (I wonder if they have been telling authors/publishers it secure even when they knew it wasn't?), but a good example is DVD, with it's region encoding and supported players. The MPAA can effectively dictate where a DVD is sold, decide when to stop licensing players thus killing the market, and decide which formats it can be played on. It is only in April this year that a legal DVD player was finally licensed on Linux. There is still only 1 player licensed, so if you want choice, forget it.
Note that court rulings in the past have said that when a copyrighted item like a book has been sold, the copyright holder has no right to prevent it's resale at any price, anywhere. The new protections being used on DVD, and soon on music, software, books etc, mean that despite those rulings, copyright holders will have the power to decide where an item is resold, when, who can use it etc.
As a quick example, if I buy a piece of software and no longer want it, I can sell it. With the new systems that tie software to hardware, after I have bought a book or piece of music or software, I can't resell it. The courts say I have the right to, but the encryption prevents me from doing so.
