Quote:
Originally Posted by screwballl
Its not the ones that unlock the files in their possession that get caught, it is the stupid ones that openly share them with others via filesharing that get caught, although right now they are just going after the movie and music sharers, not the ebook sharers.
|
Those are the ones who get huge fines. The typical out of court settlement is $5,000, and it is just as applicable to ebooks, so this is something to stay away from for ethical and practical reasons.
It is very probably completely legal in the US to strip DRM from ebooks you bought for the purpose of reading them on devices you own. Even it is not legal, as you say, who would know? What is criminal is helping anyone else. In particular, to go to jail you have to write or distribute the software. There is no one in jail over ebooks, but Adobe tried hard in
United States v. ElcomSoft and Sklyarov. Very recently, MicroSoft tried to lock up someone modding Xbox's in his living room. In that case, even the judge was amazed that something so penny ante was in his court room (
Judge berates prosecution in Xbox modding trial). This is almost exactly analogous to a small business stripping other people's ebook DRM.