Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
It's the same point I've repeatedly tried to make elsewhere about not confusing "books" with "ebook" just books someone chose names with 4 letters in common. The rules of one concern the cost, sales and transfer of paper and ink and glue, and it's incorrect to try to equate those rules with digital ephemera. IOW, ebooks shouldn't be thought of like paper books, and if they shouldn't be thought of as paperbooks, they certainly shouldn't be thought of as chickens, etc.
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I'm more than happy to talk specifics. And I think that the "within the [virtual and physical] confines of my own home" is a far _more_ useful construct with ebook DRM than it is with physical objects like knives (or even chickens). It is one way of defining a domain of fair use - and I'm talking about defining a reasonable domain of fair use now, not addressing current shifting and globally varying common-law definitions of fair use or fair dealing.
I really struggle to think of any way in which at-home DRM-breakage and format-shifting can possibly harm anyone. Unless you stretch a point and try to claim that it's reasonable to make a husband and wife each buy a copy of the same book and that spousal sharing is a criminally harmful "lost sale", or that every time a person changes device brand they should have to re-buy all your books, or they are "harming" an author/publisher who doesn't get to sell them the same book twice simply because two device manufacturers chose two different systems.
And if DRM breakage for home personal use doesn't harm anyone, it shouldn't be illegal.
eta: or, to tl;dr myself: maybe I should just have the right to personally use my
digital purchases however I want in the privacy of my own home.