Quote:
Originally Posted by bigtext
The question in my mind becomes does Amazon (or flip the scenario around to any other company with a reading device that connects to the cloud) keep track of the fact that there are books on your Kindle device that don't have DRM on them that should?
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There is no way to detect "books that should have DRM but don't." They can detect, maybe, "ebooks that have the same title & much of the same metadata as the books we sell with DRM," but there's no way to confirm that an individual didn't get a non-DRM'd version from the author or publisher legitimately. It's also not clear whether scan-and-convert for personal use is illegal.
It's *possible* they could detect "almost the exact same metadata as a DRM'd book," therefore tracking it as one that's had the DRM removed, but it's also possible that converting through Calibre (or something else) removes the identifying marks that connect it to the DRM'd version.
Also, again: they cannot track whether or not legitimate permission was granted, as was the case with Scalzi's
Redshirts. A rights-holder can grant permission to remove DRM, either globally or singularly--can say "you want to review my book and have purchased Amazon's version but want to read it on your nook? Go ahead & run it through a DRM-removal program; that's fine."
While that kind of permission isn't common, it does happen, and there is *no way* for software to detect it. Permission-to-copy is
not part of the metadata being copied.
Even if Amazon could detect "drm-removed version," they're not authorized to do anything about it; they're not the owner of copyright, and they can't be appointed "copyright enforcer" with no other rights over the original material.
Righthaven attempted that game and got slammed down solidly; courts ruled that they didn't have standing to file suit because the rightsholder can't sell "
right to prosecute for infringement" without any actual transfer of rights over the use of the material.
In order for Amazon (or whoever) to go after "infringement" based on DRM removal, it would need to have rights to grant permission to use that material. The courts ruled that there is no "right to sue over unauthorized copies" if there's no right to allow authorized copies.