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Old 11-09-2012, 08:51 PM   #268
Elfwreck
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoldlyDubious View Post
Removing DRM is prohibited by the Terms of Service (so if you are caught doing that the media provider can act against you, for instance by closing your account) and -somewhere at least- illegal, so by stripping DRM you are violating the law. I want a solution that does not require breaking laws or licenses, and that works for everyone.
By making it an additional crime to be stolen FROM.

... Last month, I was robbed. Someone grabbed my purse and ran with it. That included my ereader. (I'm going a bit buggy reading on a computer screen.) Under your system, I'd be liable for prosecution if those books get uploaded somewhere.

I did report the crime to the police. I did not give them a list of books. I don't have one. There were a couple hundred ebooks on the device. Some people, in similar situations, would not report the theft to the police... if someone stole my ereader from my backpack, it might be days or weeks before I noticed it.

Quote:
Of course, if you can strip identification information from a file you get back to today's situation where -after DRM removal- the file bears no identifier. My basic assumption is that it is possible to devise systems for embedding identification information in a file that make removing such information a bit of a hassle.
It is not. If they could attach information to files easily, they would. They'd be doing that alongside the current DRM, so they could track the source of shared files.

The fact is: if the file is editable by the user, *any* metadata attached to it is removable. Add user info, and the DRM-stripping programs will be expanded to remove those details. It's possible to add identifying info--invisible watermarks--to non-DRM'd books, but that means running code at the time of sale or download, with personalized user info... there's expense in setting up such a system, and probably OS compatibility issues. Such options won't be available for small companies.

Large ones, as we've seen, will insist on all the restrictions they can legally shove into an ebook, and possibly a few more that may get challenged in court.

Additional hassles: the law change you're suggesting is only going to work in one country. If the original buyer's not in that jurisdiction, the law will be irrelevant.
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