Quote:
Originally Posted by Stingo
if you are going to prohibit topics that some find dubiously legal then you should should ban all such topics.
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You're being disingenuous.
The only still-valid exemption that can be used for e-books is limited to cases
where it's strictly necessary in order to use text-to-speech software. Most of the discussions which are terminated on MobileRead are not focused on that case.
On top of that, providing DRM tools is
unconditionally illegal. The legal fiction is that each user should write their own circumvention tool (!). Linking to such tools may be a grey area, but either way it's not in the spirit of a DMCA-compliant world (spit).
AIUI, MobileRead does allow to discussion of DRM-removal in general - whether it should be allowed, how difficult it is, etc - what gets shut down is any instruction more explicit than "look up Apprentice Alf". I understand it's very annoying for non-techy people who'd like to ask for step-by-step instructions on breaking the (insane) law, but the way the policy is implemented, it often strikes me as rather generous.
Most of all, adding DRM in itself is not "legally dubious". The law is the law. The DMCA specifically overrides the doctrine of first sale. If it didn't, it would mean very little. The only thing that could override the DMCA is a later law, or a specific appeal to constitutional rights. Even if the DMCA is ruled unconstitutional, that has no effect on whether adding DRM is illegal!
DRM could be ruled illegal by a new law, or because it was used in an anti-competitive way (which would be quite a high hurdle to pass, unfortunately), or because the DRM'd files were being advertised in a way that deceived buyers. First sale doctrine is irrelevant: it only says that you are legally
allowed to re-sell; it doesn't make it illegal to build technical restrictions into the product. [Sorry for the lack of a citation for first sale doctrine - there's a big quality warning on the Wikipedia page - but that was not a contentious claim.]
[Full disclosure: AFAICT, the law that applies to this forum actually doesn't include DMCA-style rules; the Canadian equivalent hasn't got anywhere. So at the moment, there's no absolute requirement forcing the forum towards this policy; it's just a house rule].
It would be pleasingly symmetrical to ban this discussion. But I suspect the justification would be more along the lines of "someone always turns into a jerk when we discuss it, and we don't have time to deal with jerks", rather than some concept of balance. There seems to be plenty of "balance" here already.