More history of the actual issue, perhaps we could get to actually discussing it head-on?:
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Originally Posted by HarryT
I would note that the article is factually inaccurate: Calibre does not strip DRM, although plugins which one might choose to install in the program can do so. Those plugins, however, are not a part of Calibre, any more than a Firefox plugin is a part of Firefox.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by curtw
Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
In the case of Calibre, has Kovid even acknowledged the existence of Alf? If he hasn't, I can't see how it would be considered as a nitpick. He has created a piece of software that allows extensions. It isn't terribly different than Linux, OS X, or Windows being able to run software developed by a third party. (Doesn't Alf contain a standalone program in addition to the plugin?)
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Kovid should turn the tables, and sue Abbey House for defamation. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
And you'll notice there too, someone made sure to clarify the matter.
That still doesn't mean anyone should be sued over it, but it never hurts to clarify things.  As twowheels said there (and I said on Teleread) we don't want people to get the wrong idea and try to scotch calibre.
It only matters because it is always better to be careful when matters might potentially get legal.
But merely over semantics, that would be a pointless quibble.
FWIW, the MR veterans tend towards the non-sloppy end of things.
A VCR has an intrinsic function to interface with tapes. Similar to the way a computer doesn't mean anything without a hard drive.
And VLC is fundamentally tied to its codecs.
calibre is not intrinsically tied to removing DRM, in fact it operates quite well without DeDRM plugins at all. It is thus factually wrong to say that "calibre" removes DRM, or even that it is part of the process -- any more than Windows was part of the process (assume for the sake of argument an example case of DeDRMing was done on a Windows PC).
Windows was also used as part of the process -- it served as a framework to launch a GUI, which in turn launched calibre, which in turn launched the DeDRM python library.
With a little extra manual labor, you can even remove calibre from the equation.
Again, this is all meaningless semantics, because we don't usually quibble about sloppy shorthand... except in this case, the potential confusion could have negative repercussions if the wrong people get confused. And that is not being fair to Kovid. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robotech_Master
For all I know, Abbey House might well have intentionally chosen not to be too specific to reduce the chances they could get charged with "trafficking" in DRM anti-circumvention devices. "We just said they could use Calibre. That program doesn't remove DRM by itself..."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
But to us, the details matter -- because Abbey House and others were conflating DeDRM with calibre to a greater extent than is true, which is unfair to Kovid.
We don't have a problem with their instructing customers to remove DRM, but we have a problem with them conflating DeDRM and calibre.
We are not discussing "the case" when we say it is dishonest to conflate the two.
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