Interesting article. I have to say that while I agree with most of what you said here, in light of what happened to Skylarov, I can't blame anyone for wanting to be cautious. This is essentially the first major repercussion of the passing of such short-sighted legislation as the DMCA. There's going to be a lot of other situations like this one, I think. Non-American software developers are going to think twice before releasing *anything* to US developers.

After all, after seeing what Adobe and the FBI did, would you want to release anything that might even be possibly interpreted (even if it's unlikely) as in violation of the DMCA? I sure wouldn't. Even if 99% of people are of the opinion that it wouldn't be prosecutable or that it doesn't fall under the language of the DMCA, the problem is that the only opinion that matters is the Fed's, and there's no reason to think they'll share the reasoning of anyone in the technical community, American or not.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

Corey

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