eBook hacker brought to book

Dmitri Sklyarov, the Russian programmer who broke the encryption on Adobe's eBook software, will be in court on Monday morning for a pretrial hearing.

Sklyarov was arrested this summer at hacker fest, Def Con, for breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). He created a tool that was capable of copying documents protected by Adobe's eBook software, by circumventing the encryption system.

A federal court will meet in California on Monday to set a schedule for the lawyers to file their motions. As of yet no details have been released on the current state of negotiations between the parties.

Adobe backed down from prosecuting the programmer after his arrest caused uproar among the internet community. But the US government went ahead with the prosecution, making Sklyarov the first person ever to be tried under the DMCA.

The aftermath of the arrest has spread fear among the programming and security industries, even prompting some experts to pull their projects off the net, fearing that tools they developed may fall foul of the Act.

The Russian government even advised software engineers against travelling to the US in a bid to avoid similar incidents, as some countries do not have equivalent legislation.

The actual trial is expected to begin early next year.