Digital Copyright Law's Consequences Exceed Its Intent.

LAWS are often rewritten because they result in unintended consequences.

But the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act is being questioned because its supporters made the mistake of using it exactly as it was designed.

The 1998 federal law was drafted to help publishers, record labels, software makers and other content owners get over their fear of the Internet. It greatly expanded their control over digital copies of their work and enhanced the punishment for those who violated these new rules.

Critics of the so-called DMCA complained that it unfairly limited the fair use of copyright-material. But their concerns were ignored by members of Congress who placed more value in the bottom lines of American media companies than in the trifling concerns of free expression.

The bill has proven useful in pursuit of Napster and other who trade in unlicensed copies of copyrighted work. But the DMCA's dark side came into full view last month with the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. As one of the first people charged criminally under the DMCA, the 26-year-old faces up to 5 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for conducting what his own government and many in this country would consider a perfectly legitimate business.

Sklyarov worked for a Moscow company that sold a program designed to crack Adobe System's e-book encryption software. The program sounds rather malicious, since it allows users to make copies of digital novels that can be swapped online. But the program also serves a valuable purpose for legitimate e-book buyers, allowing them to make copies of their book to read on other machines or to use for backup.

The program also should have been useful to Adobe. The only way to be sure a copy protection scheme is valid is set it free in the marketplace and wait to see if it's cracked. If that happens, you're supposed to go back to the drawing board and try a little harder.

But Adobe went straight to the FBI and urged the agency to prosecute the company under the DMCA. Traditional copyright law allowed people to probe encryption schemes for weaknesses. But the new law outlaws the creation or use of any product that cracks a copy protection scheme, and it makes it a crime to distribute such a product to the public.

Never mind that Sklyarov's company stopped selling, the program when Adobe protested. The content industry wanted a high-profile prosecution to deter would-be hackers from ever trying such a stunt again. The FBI gladly complied, swooping in and arresting Sklyarov after he delivered a presentation at a computer programming conference, in Las Vegas.

Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, told The New York Times she was "pleased to see the federal government weigh in and enforce this seriously. That's what we had dreamed of."

But that dream quickly turned to a nightmare as news of the arrest spread. Net users called for boycotts of Adobe, organized protests and attracted criticism of the law from around the world. The pressure got so intense that after a few days, Adobe itself reversed course and began pleading for Sklyarov's freedom.

"We strongly support the DMCA and the enforcement of copyright protection of digital content," said Colleen Pouliot, a senior vice president and general counsel for Adobe. "However, the prosecution of this individual in this particular case is not conducive to the best interests of any of the parties involved or the industry."

No kidding. Imagine how United States residents might feel if an American were sentenced to prison in Afghanistan for doing something in his own country -- like posting pictures of the Buddha -- that happened to be illegal there.

The DMCA already faces a court challenge that threatens to overturn it on First Amendment grounds. Now it faces political problems from a prosecution launched by the bill's most ardent supporters.

If the FBI presses its case against Sklyarov, the draconian nature of the DMCA would be made clear to Net users around the world, and Congress might feel pressure to scale back the protections content companies hold so dear. But if the FBI backs off, it would be subject to criticism that it's merely acting as a puppet for the powerful content industry.

It seems clear the real problem is the law itself, which outlaws conduct that has always been allowed under traditional copyright law. The DMCA doesn't stop crime -- it just creates criminals.