Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's copyright infringement, plain and simple. Once the loan period expires you are infringing copyright; you no longer have a license to read the book. It's no different to piracy.
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Stripping the DRM of a library book is no more copyright infringement than stripping the DRM from a purchased book. In both cases, an unauthorized copy is made of a book you legally have the right to read.
Right now, with the courts leaning towards "you license your ebooks instead of purchasing them," there's no legal difference in your rights to do things with the two kinds of ebooks.
Keeping the library book longer than the borrow period may be a breach of contract, but it's not a violation of copyright law; no copy is made by keeping it.
I really don't see any moral difference between stripping the DRM from a library book, and taping a show from HBO to watch it later. In both cases, you have access to copyrighted material for a limited time, and you're taking steps to make it available for personal use after that time is over. In both cases, you're not causing problems for anyone else who wants access. In both, if you hadn't kept a copy, you might've been convinced to buy it instead.
There might even be more legal right to strip the DRM from a library book, if you want to read it on a device with features not supported by the DRM'd version--like TTS.