Attendance varied as people came and went from work, with a core of 25-30 protesters, probably peaking somewhere between 35 and 40 on the initial march through Hyde Park (or, more accurately, the yoyoing back and forth in front of the BBC's camera in Hyde Park, for several takes). I estimate that we handed out over a thousand flyers. There were several renditions of the DMCA song ( http://freesklyarov.org/dmca-song.html) , the last few really beginning to get quite tuneful, and a couple of performances of the DMCA playlet ( http://lm.lcs.mit.edu/%7Ecananian/hypermail/dmitry-boston/0328.html) in Grosvenor Square. All in all, a very successful day.

See www.ntk.net for a typically amusing report of the protest.

The protest and the issues surrounding Dmitry Sklyarov's imprisonment were covered in some depth on Newsnight on BBC2 in a ten minute piece including interviews with Caspar Bowden of the FIPR ( http://www.fipr.org) and Robin Gross (briefly, before the satellite link failed) of the EFF. The programme can be viewed in Real Video here -  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/newsnight/newsid_248000/248099.stm

The protest was announced in a press release, a copy of which can be found here

Images
Some photographs ( http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/kozak) taken by John Kozak are available. There are also some high resolution versions, although I wouldn't recommend trying to download them if you have anything less than ADSL or a cable modem - the thumbnails are 40K each (1.6 MB for the whole page), and the images themselves weigh in at 700K a pop. Those suitably equipped can find them here:  http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/kozak_hires/

Anton Chterenlikt took some more photographs, mostly of the closing stages of the protest, when we moved into Grosvenor Square and performed a little street theatre:  http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/anton/

Contact Details
Protest Lead: Dan Ackroyd Email:  DAckroyd@igl.co.uk
Press Liaison: Julian Midgley Email:  jtjm@xenoclast.org Phone: 07713 166000

Corporate Press Reporting Listing at:  http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/press_coverage.html



PRESS RELEASE:

For Immediate Release:

There will be a protest held outside the US Embassy in London, at 1300on Friday 3 August, calling for the immediate release of Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian programmer who was arrested by the FBI for creating software which circumvented the copyright protection mechanism in Adobe's eBook Reader.

Adobe has since issued a joint statement with the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling for Mr Sklyarov's release, but the US Department of Justice still has Mr Sklyarov in custody, and appears to intend to proceed
with the trial.

The UK protestors strongly believe that Mr Sklyarov's arrest was unlawful and unnecessary. He is charged with trafficking in a copyright circumvention mechanism, despite the fact that the software, which he helped to write, was sold by the company he worked for(through a US reseller) and not by him directly. Furthermore, the law
he is alleged to have broken, the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) makes illegal in the US activities considered entirely lawful in most other nations, including Mr Sklyarov's native Russia.

The DMCA destroys the right to fair use, and makes those who point out flaws in the security algorithms and protocols of other companies liable to prosecution. It is clear that the DMCA needs revision (in a separate case, a Professor Felten is suing to have parts of it declared
unconstitutional), and it is quite unreasonable to leave Dmitry Sklyarov languishing in a US prison whilst the Americans resolve the problems with this ill-thought law. Dmitry Sklyarov should not be a test case, he should be a free man!

Those interested in joining the protest on Friday will find more details on the web at:

 http://uk.freesklyarov.org/

and are encouraged to join the UK Free Sklyarov mailing list at:

 http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk