ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
                                                         
                                                        

For Immediate Release: July 27, 2001

EFF Rejoins "Free Dmitry" Protests

After Meeting with US Attorney's Office

Contact:

Robin Gross, EFF Staff Attorney - Intellectual Property,
  +1 415-436-9333 x112,
  robin@eff.org

[NOTE: Will Doherty will be out of the office until
August 8, so please direct media requests to Robin
or to press@eff.org]

San Francisco, CA - Representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) met with representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco today. There was a productive dialog, however the U.S. Attorney's office did not agree to drop the prosecution against Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov.

"The people from the U.S. Attorney's office heard our concerns and asked probing questions about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," explained EFF's Executive Director Shari Steele. "However, they did not give any indication of their plans for Dmitry, so we encourage everyone to keep up the pressure and join the protests."

Having explored good faith negotiations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation rejoins the call for nonviolent protests worldwide to secure the immediate release of Dmitry Sklyarov and drop all criminal charges against him.

A protest is already scheduled in San Francisco for 11:30am this coming Monday, July 30, at the Federal Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. Additional July 30th protests are scheduled in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis, and future protests will likely occur in 25 or more cities worldwide in coming weeks.


For the latest information on the Sklyarov case, including media releases and legal filings, updated on a regular basis, see:
  http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/US_v_Sklyarov/

For information on related DMCA cases, see:
&nbps; http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/
  http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/

Two sites that are organizing protests:
  http://www.freesklyarov.org/
  http://www.freedmitry.org/

To join the free-sklyarov mailing list, see:
  http://zork.net/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov/

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to Web sites in the world:
  http://www.eff.org/

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