On the table: DRM trumps fair dealing (Canada)

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by omk3

Barnes & Noble DRM is different than regular epub DRM, but it has been cracked too, as far as I know. And they 'protect' free books because you still have to go to THEM to get them. You have to register and be on their database to get them. They're not for just anyone!

I know the theory, but I got the same problem that a lot of other people get, going by the comments on the site with the instructions. But it's not a big deal, I was just trying out a new (to me) writer so there's no loss to me if I can't read it. But it has put me off buying from Barnes & Noble. The last ebook I bought from them didn't have any DRM, but if it is on free books now it will almost certainly be on pay books too and there won't be any warnings before you buy them. Or refunds for ebooks that I can't read.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Amazing. These products should have a tick box on them with the question:

Are you stupid?

If you tick yes you're allowed to buy them.

I can't really see it working as a mass market product now that we are all supposed to be eco friendly and recycling and all that, but there would still be some good uses for it. Screeners for magazine reviews, Oscars votes and things like that.

I was talking to Mrs Ploppy about it earlier, and she said that she used to get self destructing videos tapes in the 90s when she was doing market research work. If you rewound the tape, it would stop working. This looks like it to me:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4842217.html

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by omk3

There is one thing to be said about money though. It can afford an artist the luxury to concentrate on his art, instead of worrying about everyday life. It also probably makes him compromise this art, even just a little, to ensure getting paid again.

For traditionally published writers, it will also give the publisher a much bigger say in what goes into book. They won't want that kitten killing scene because then they will lose sales to people who like cats. They won't want the lead character to be an alcoholic Catholic priest because then the Catholics won't buy it.

About the only good thing to come from being a professional writer would be that they have more time to write, so they will write more books more often. At least until they reach the stage where they are making that much money from their old books that they don't need to write anymore.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think most people would say that Dickens became a significantly better writer over the course of his life. His later novels are a lot better plotted and written than his early books. But make no mistake about it, Dickens was writing the mass entertainment of his day. His novels, serialised in weekly magazines, were very much written for the commercial market. Like Shakespeare, he was writing as a commercial proposition, not as "art".

Both had freedom to borrow plots and ideas from works that came before, and I don't just mean 200 years before, I mean 2 months before. Bill Shakespeare wasn't selling books, he was putting butts in the seats . Pro copyright people always seem to zero in on the money argument and ignore the freedom argument. Those people were borrowing, remixing, outright copying when they made something new and well I think better.

So they want to make money. Money's good, I like money. I also like freedom. I'm not ready to give up freedom because someone's buisness model is being threatened. I don't want to give up the same access to things Dickens and Shakespeare had. I don't want my data searched through at international borders to see if I paid for every song on my ipod. I don't want two kids acting out a scene form their favorite movie taken off of youtube. I don't even want that gods awful Mary Sue fanfiction taken down. I don't want a $150k judgment or any judgment for someone saying hey you need to check out this band and emailing an mp3 to a friend. I don't want people removed from the internet because they've been accused of infringement. I don't want it to be illegal to backup and format shift because some media exec decided to ROT13 a file. And finally I don't want to face a lawsuit when I end with this final quote. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In the US, the DMCA is not clear about DRM, stripping DRM, and the rights of the buyer. So until stripping DRM from eBooks actually goes to court, it's unknown if it is legal or not. I do hope that if it ever did go to court, that the judge would side with the user as long as it was for personal use.

Wouldn't DRM be covered by circumvention of copy protection?

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Wouldn't DRM be covered by circumvention of copy protection?

The DCMA made DRM circumvention in the US a criminal act.

Many, if not most, of the users on this forum who live in the US are criminals, if they remove the drm on ebooks.

edit: (Actually, that should say that ALL of the users in the US are criminals if they remove digital locks, there is no "fair use" exemption).

[Wetdogeared]

The following article in the National Post doesn't directly cite eBooks, but attempts to explain:

What the legislation means.

Copyright legislation introduced yesterday legitimizes activities that most Canadians already do, such as transferring music from a CD to an MP3 player. However, it also makes it illegal to circumvent digital locks.

There has been very limited mention of the effects on eBooks in the reporting of this bill.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I can't really see it working as a mass market product now that we are all supposed to be eco friendly and recycling and all that, but there would still be some good uses for it. Screeners for magazine reviews, Oscars votes and things like that.

As I recall, the screeners for one of the James Bond films (Tomorrow Never Dies?) were self-destructing DVDs. It was billed as very James Bondish, but the idea was that they didn't have to worry about promotional materials ending up on torrent sites or sold at flea markets, as happens almost constantly still. At the time, there was major interest by Blockbuster for a mail program, a la Netflix, so that they don't have to worry about returns, worn out discs, lost in the mail, etc. You mail a disc to a customer, and forget about it.

[J. Strnad]

The original DIVX was an attempt by Circuit City to circumvent DVD rental stores. The idea was that you bought a DIVX DVD for about $4, and you played it on your DIVX-enabled DVD player (that you bought from Circuit City) which was connected to a telephone line, and 48 hours after you started playing it, it quit playing. If you wanted to buy extra hours, you could do that, and you could pay a fee that converted the DIVX to "gold" status that would let you play it whenever you wanted.

The idea went down in flames in record time, maybe 8 months or so, costing Circuit City over $100 million.

The self-destructing DVDs were air-activated. They came in an airtight pack and they started self-destructing upon opening. I don't know exactly how long they could be played before they became unreadable. I have one that I bought SOLELY as a collector's item for, as I recall, about $8. They were sold at grocery stores and other mass market outlets, had major backing from Disney and other studios, and died the death of a rabid dog on a playground.

Let's face it, folks: This sh*t don't work. Get over it. Sell a product at a reasonable price, make it easy to obtain legally, face the fact that some people will steal it no matter what you do, and make your money from the honest people who compose most of society.

IMHO, of course!

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

The original DIVX was an attempt by Circuit City to circumvent DVD rental stores. The idea was that you bought a DIVX DVD for about $4, and you played it on your DIVX-enabled DVD player (that you bought from Circuit City) which was connected to a telephone line, and 48 hours after you started playing it, it quit playing. If you wanted to buy extra hours, you could do that, and you could pay a fee that converted the DIVX to "gold" status that would let you play it whenever you wanted.

The idea went down in flames in record time, maybe 8 months or so, costing Circuit City over $100 million.

The self-destructing DVDs were air-activated. They came in an airtight pack and they started self-destructing upon opening. I don't know exactly how long they could be played before they became unreadable. I have one that I bought SOLELY as a collector's item for, as I recall, about $8. They were sold at grocery stores and other mass market outlets, had major backing from Disney and other studios, and died the death of a rabid dog on a playground.

Let's face it, folks: This sh*t don't work. Get over it. Sell a product at a reasonable price, make it easy to obtain legally, face the fact that some people will steal it no matter what you do, and make your money from the honest people who compose most of society.

IMHO, of course!

You had me until you confused 'steal' with 'copy' and then insinuated people who do such are dishonest. It was a confusion, right? You didn't honestly mean what you wrote, because if so, you've just turned me and I assume many other people who file share off your works for good. That's not exactly a good move if you want to be read.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

DRM is not inherently bad - most of us, for example, accept without complaint the DRM which is present on DVDs, and the reason for that is that all DVD players will play such DVDs.

Really? You don't own a multi-region DVD player then?
I think you'd be in the minority in the UK.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've not come across "self-destructing" DVDs, but they sound like a great idea for rentals, because they wouldn't have to be returned. You could put them in vending machines, for example. How did they work? A slow oxidation process once the packet was opened?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_(D..._Video_Express)

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Let's face it, folks: This sh*t don't work. Get over it. Sell a product at a reasonable price, make it easy to obtain legally, face the fact that some people will steal it no matter what you do, and make your money from the honest people who compose most of society.

Why not make money from the dishonest ones as well? It seems silly to me letting all those pirate sites and services get that money.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If Shakespeare had been around today he'd probably be writing scripts for TV soap operas. His was very much the mass entertainment of his day, and he certainly wasn't writing as "art", but as a shareholder in a theatre company, as a commercial business, providing entertainment for the working classes of his day.

Shakespeare was free to borrow from other plays, from every he had seen in his lifetime. Why do you think he created everything himself? What if he was just a good picker, able to put together many small themes invented by others? If copyright law was present in his time, he might not be able to "create" anything. At least without paying a horde of lawyers who would research where to license every line he wrote.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Shakespeare was free to borrow from other plays, from every he had seen in his lifetime. Why do you think he created everything himself? What if he was just a good picker, able to put together many small themes invented by others? If copyright law was present in his time, he might not be able to "create" anything. At least without paying a horde of lawyers who would research where to license every line he wrote.

Can you give a specific example of a Shakespeare play that would not have been permitted under current copyright law? He took ideas from existing works, yes, but not actual "texts". Copyright does not protect ideas.