EU Court of Justice on DRM circumvention

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Of course it's not an impossible claim, but feeling exactly the same as he did at the time he was 18 is. If that is possible, I'd sign to become 100+ years old



That is more than true enough, of course. Can't argue with that.

Its best to always be POSITIVE at any age and enjoy each day to the fullest. If one still has sight, eBooks can make everyone's day a great experience.

Of course, physical strength declines as we age. I can no longer carry a 100 pound backpack.

Remember, its not the days we have left which count, but what we make of each day counts for EVERYTHING. Reading history eBooks can place us in the shoes of every participant in every conflict down through all the ages.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Essentially it says you can circumvent DRM for personal use. As long as you don't redistribute the resulting file you are safe.
Effectively, DRM'ed = DRM-free for ethical friends of Alf.

That would be strike 2 for vendors of encryption DRM on digital sales, no?

There is a product called PlayLater which is a DVR for streamed media. The files that are created with PlayLater are unprotected MP4 files excepted that each begins with a screen that says who used the software to create the file.

This allows for time shifting, place shifting, and format shifting, but discourages sharing.

I think this is a very reasonable implementation of fair use.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I was drafted at 18. By the way, I don't see doctors, take no drugs of any sort, and just try to read as many eBooks on history and biography as I can.

Most of my time is spent in a rocker by my bay window or at my PC.

When Jesus calls me Home, I go willingly.

By the way, internet forums are all BS and any of us could be male or female and age 10 to age 110. All we are here is what we post. Its all fantasy land.

But a considerable difference in age does affect perspective. I turned 30 4 months ago, so when I think of rereading a book I have the perspective of 70+ years of time to do it.

The possibility a current ebook format not being around in 20 years in not going to affect your purchasing habits the way it would mine.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The possibility a current ebook format not being around in 20 years in not going to affect your purchasing habits the way it would mine.

It's probably just futile fretting over essentially nothing, though.

I agree with you, but twenty years ago I couldn't possibly predict that today I would do most of my reading on a small device that holds thousands of books, has a lit, non-flickering touch screen () and that needs to be recharged only once every few weeks, and that I can load up with new books (that I bought from a store thousands of miles away and that were delivered instantaneously) wirelessly in nearly no time at all. That was something straight out of a scifi novel.

Twenty years is a long time (which feels shorter the older you get), and chances are that our reading habits in two decades will be quite different from what they are now, perhaps in yet unimaginable ways. (I also had a lot of "stuff" twenty years ago that was very important to me and that I collected and organized, and thought I would keep forever -- until it eventually was deleted or thrown out, but that's a different topic, perhaps.)

But there will be books, and there won't be a shortage of stuff to read. Perhaps that is all that really matters.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Mivo

It's probably just futile fretting over essentially nothing, though.

I agree with you, but twenty years ago I couldn't possibly predict that today I would do most of my reading on a small device that holds thousands of books, has a lit, non-flickering touch screen () and that needs to be recharged only once every few weeks, and that I can load up with new books (that I bought from a store thousands of miles away and that were delivered instantaneously) wirelessly in nearly no time at all. That was something straight out of a scifi novel.

Twenty years is a long time (which feels shorter the older you get), and chances are that our reading habits in two decades will be quite different from what they are now, perhaps in yet unimaginable ways. (I also had a lot of "stuff" twenty years ago that was very important to me and that I collected and organized, and thought I would keep forever -- until it eventually was deleted or thrown out, but that's a different topic, perhaps.)

But there will be books, and there won't be a shortage of stuff to read. Perhaps that is all that really matters.

Twenty years ago I was 10, and I was reading books that my parents and my grandparents had read when they were children. And while SF predicted some aspects of the current digital reading it was always free access like a universal library, not the pay-full-price-but-don't-own situation that we have.

I'm going to stick to paper for the majority of my purchases.

[sirmaru]

The latest Consumer Electronics Show had a toy helicopter run with BRAIN WAVE POWER through a cuff wrapped on one's head.

In 20 years we may be ABSORBING books from brain devices and reading with our eyes may be totally unnecessary. Our eBooks and stored collections of today may be like the Commodore PC and /or the TRS 80 of 1978- and all their related files and software.

Our large collections of DRM stripped eBooks will be like papyrus books - so much dust without any value.

See this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Mind-Sc...re+of+the+mind

The other reason NOT to collect eBook files is that in 40 years most of us here today will be DEAD.

I still remember folks in 1930 collecting 78 RPM's for the miracle of that year: the RCA VICTROLA. All those 78 RPM's and the Victrolas are DUST today and ALL the collectors I knew then are all gone and forgotten. Today I stream my music from a PC to a radio in another room. In 1930 no one would have believed that would ever be possible. Even Sci-Fi books then did not IMAGINE it.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

In 20 years we may be ABSORBING books from brain devices and reading with our eyes may be totally unnecessary.

Or not. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. (My money is on "not" - certainly not in any large-scale, worldwide way.)

Our large collections of DRM stripped eBooks will be like papyrus books - so much dust without any value.

If that happens, they're easy to delete and it's not like either the stripping or the storing takes all that much time and effort. If that doesn't happen, I'll have a nicely readable collection of DRM-stripped ebooks.

The other reason NOT to collect eBook files is that in 40 years most of us here today will be DEAD.

I don't plan to be. I might, but I won't even be 80 yet 40 years from now, so I'm rather hoping I'll go on a bit longer than that.

And 40 years is 40 years; I'm more concerned with my ebooks still being readable 5-15 years from now, which isn't at all guaranteed when they're DRM-infested. (Other than the watermarked ebooks / books protected by social DRM, that is, which inhibits casual sharing but allows backing up and converting to any other format, so I have no need to remove DRM protection from such books. Sadly that's just the Harry Potter books and all my Estonian ebooks.)

Sure, a lot can happen in 20 years - probably also things we can't yet imagine. But reading text, with eyes, from a visible medium of some sort, is probably going to stick around as long as I do, and again, unlike collecting various physical items, making sure one has a readable collection of ebooks is not particularly time- or space-consuming and if not needed any longer, can always be deleted with no trouble.

In the meantime, I'll have a lot of books to read.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

In 20 years we may be ABSORBING books from brain devices and reading with our eyes may be totally unnecessary. Our eBooks and stored collections of today may be like the Commodore PC and /or the TRS 80 of 1978- and all their related files and software.

If books of the future were beamed into our brains, then that gives all the more reason to preserve existing books in text format. The ability to beam books into our brains does not mean that we are REQUIRED to beam books into our brains. We can still read text if we wish. And even if we do opt to have books beamed into our brains, we could simply beam into our brains the books that we have backed up. Text is text.

Those programs for the Commodore or the TRS-80 are still available. People still run them in emulators. They can still be run only because people backed them up.

Our large collections of DRM stripped eBooks will be like papyrus books - so much dust without any value.

Actually, ancient books written on papyrus would be highly valuable, they would sell for quite a lot of money on the antiquities market. And people still read works that were written on those papyri. Should Gilgamesh not have been preserved because clay tablets are not obsolete? That the format becomes obsolete is a strong reason to create backups that will be usable in a new format. Earlier, you mentioned a copy of the Bible you own: you only have it because it has been copied and preserved for thousands of years. If being a backup makes it worthless, then burn it. I'm not saying that you should, because I am not saying it is worthless. But if it isn't worthless for being a backup, what makes other books worthless. That you find one worthless and the other valuable doesn't matter, what is valuable to you doesn't determine what is valuable to others.

The other reason NOT to collect eBook files is that in 40 years most of us here today will be DEAD.

How is that a reason?

I still remember folks in 1930 collecting 78 RPM's for the miracle of that year: the RCA VICTROLA. All those 78 RPM's and the Victrolas are DUST today and ALL the collectors I knew then are all gone and forgotten. Today I stream my music from a PC to a radio in another room. In 1930 no one would have believed that would ever be possible. Even Sci-Fi books then did not IMAGINE it.

The Victrola was not the miracle of that year. Far from it. The last Victrola was made in 1929. Recording on a disc was not new technology then. There are still people who collect 78 records and who collect Victrolas: they are NOT all dust. People can and do still listen to 78's. Or they can take their 78's and back them up onto MP3. Then they can stream them from their PC all they want.

I don't know whether or not science fiction writers in 1930 could imagine music on demand similar to streaming. I imagine someone could find a story featuring similar technology. But neither the existence of such technology nor the alleged failure to imagine this technology doesn't in any way invalidate making backups. We can still listen to backups on MP3 of recordings that were previously recorded on 78, but only if they were backed up. We can read the the Iliad, Sophocles, Plato or the Bible only because people backed them up.

There exists no complete recording of the first Super Bowl, it wasn't preserved. There are episodes of Doctor Who that only exist because people made private recordings. You might consider these to be unimportant. But just because it is unimportant to you doesn't mean it isn't important to others.

[alanHd]

This thread has made me laugh, I wonder if it would have ever made it into the bible if god had given Moses the tem commandment and added oh by the way throw them away in a few years cos they will be outdated, isn't the message important not the medium.

There are lots of Sci fi books from my youth that I wish I had kept. every ebook I own is backed up and will be kept, even the ones I don't think I will ever read again. Plus every Cd I have ever bought, Currently over 1300 is backed up has mp3.

If someone said to me I could no longer back things up I would simply not buy.

[sirmaru]

Lord Amazon IS our Backup in the Sky. We need no other since Amazon will outlive all of us.

[WT Sharpe]

Other major retailers have bitten the dust before. Many of the major chains whose stores adored the city streets of our youth have vanished completely. What make you think Amazon is immune?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Lord Amazon IS our Backup in the Sky. We need no other since Amazon will outlive all of us.

If you find that an acceptable backup, that's fine. However, that is not a compelling reason that others should not maintain our their backups. I use Amazon, and don't plan on switching, but should I choose to do so, I see no compelling reason that I should not be able to take by books to a new reader if I were to switch. I paid for the books.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Lord Amazon IS our Backup in the Sky. We need no other since Amazon will outlive all of us.

I assume this is some sort of biting irony? It fits your words (though not your track record)...

I really hope it is, since there is no way anyone can possibly say this for real with such assurance, speaking to numerous individuals who can reasonably be expected to live for another 60-80 years.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Lord Amazon IS our Backup in the Sky. We need no other since Amazon will outlive all of us.

Amazon reserves the right to delete the files in their cloud as well as their devices. Even if it will outlive all of us that doesn't mean that they would keep your backup.

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Lord Amazon IS our Backup in the Sky. We need no other since Amazon will outlive all of us.

Lord Amazon is just as impotent as all those other Lords in the Sky if one doesn't have access to the internet.