Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
They certainly (AFAIK) aren't illegal - they aren't circumventing DRM, or anything like that. All they are perhaps doing is violating Amazon's terms of service.
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I think you are narrowing "Rights Management" here to "open readable format" when in fact as an end to end system it encompasses more than that.
There is device constraint, sales channel constraint, times-per-play, "time-to-live"...and a myriad of other fetters to consider, depending on implementation.
In this instance, the Rights chain is a seller/buyer/device one.
This whole thing is attractive because it breaks the sole-source rights chain in Amazons current model. Is there any doubt or question of Amazon's intent and implementation of this particular scheme?
I use "scheme" here in its broad meaning. I mean to imply nothing shady or shadowy here.
The established Rights Chain here is Clear: Purchaser/Customer (You) -> Sole Source provider/Vendor of "Premium" Content (Amazon Kindle Store) -> Limited Playback device (Kindle) * Number of Allowed devices in Scope of Allowed type.
Any part outside of this chain circumvents it. No part of their Digital Rights Management scheme as published, promoted or produced has secured AWZ content coming from anywhere *but* Amazon.
How this relates to other fair use scenarios is quite simple: Doing what is necessary to exercise fair use in one particular case outside the constrictions of whatever drm scheme/chain/copy control method implemented by the rights holder(s) isn't more legal/ethical/morally superior than any other one, Harry (since I have been asked to "name names" to avoid being "obnoxious") because the point is for the end user/customer to get to exercise fair use regardless of the intended business model!
My issue with you and many others here is that people are being tagged as "guilty" for exercising fair use because the end result or the process might render the control mechanisms Null and Void. The rationale here being used to laude this solution is that "its fair use because it still has drm". Fair Use has nothing to do with DRM, or if in fact the output lacks it and is a "clear" copy.
This does NOT MATTER. This is still Fair Use.
Redistribution is NOT fair use. That is copyright violation because the rights holders have exclusive distribution rights that they may assign.
The notion that it's Fair Use can't be if the person exercising "could possibly become a copyright violator" is in essence finding them guilty by association (because other people have done it before) or some notion of "thoughtcrime".