Dimitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer jailed for alleged violation of the 1998 U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was released from a San Jose jail Monday after his company posted the $50,000 bail.

His arrest originally drew criticisms by free speech rights advocates, but groups of protesters outside the court, made up mostly from the members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cheered the release.

"As of 11:45am, they were still waiting outside the courthouse for Dmitry to emerge, once the bond was paid," says one EFF alert. "Katina Bishop reported that there were a good 50 protesters outside, and the courtroom was packed."

The 26-year-old Russian and ElcomSoft employee was arrested July 16 at a major hacker's convention in Las Vegas hours after giving a speech about software that gets around embedded copyright controls in Adobe's (Nasdaq: ADBE) eBook Reader. The software is legal under Russian law, but U.S. prosecutors say it is a violation of the DMCA. After learning the software was being sold in the U.S., Adobe dropped its support of the case on July 23.

As part of the bail release, the U.S. Attorney will continue to hold Dmitry's passport, which was confiscated after his arrested.

According to reports, Sklyarov was released to Cupertino, Calif. resident Sergei Osokine, but otherwise there is no electronic monitoring or otherwise invasive limitation on Sklyarov.

Reuters helped contribute to this report.

LATEST NEWS

UCSD Plans First Flash-Based Supercomputer
Digging Into N.Y.'s Antitrust Suit Against Intel
Analyst: Sony-Ericsson's Android Bid Is Late
Coupon Site Targets Black Friday, Cyber Monday
Microsoft Sites Up Big in Time Spent Online