I don't give them a free pass if the activity is explicitly illegal under a solid statute.
These guys' activities were only illegal because of the DMCA, which I might add is constantly being appealed because there is no constitutional basis to support the law (meaning it simply defaults back to being yet another shredding of the First Amendment).
Evenso, the DMCA requires you profit from it. These guys didn't make a penny from it.
Thus the argument of "letter of the law" vs. "spirit of the law."
I already showed you a federal trial of other Russians who cracked Adobe. Take your claims it was unconstitutional up with the judge.