Thread: Hacks kindlepid/kindlefix 0.2
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Old 03-11-2009, 07:15 PM   #87
sirbruce
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Again, the exemption for hardware dongles is illustrative. Some computer software only works if you have a particular hardware dongle plugged into a machine. Now, obviously, back in the old days, you bought the PC software and a PC dongle. Now, if you have a different computer, like a Mac, and you run a PC emulator, logically you 'should' be able to use the PC software you 'rightly' bought. But the dongle won't work on your Mac. So you can't.

DMCA says that's just fine, and you have to live with it. So it does seem as though it's okay for a seller to sell a software product that *only* works on a particular platform. Not just OS, mind you, but something that physically can support a dongle. On the other hand, DMCA has allowed exemptions to this if said dongle is no longer manufactured. So if it's *impossible* to use your software because the dongles are not available anymore, then you can break the DRM.

So if you have a DRMed ebook that *no* reader can read, then you can break the DRM. But just because *one* reader can reader it and not another, that doesn't normally warrant an exemption. *However*, these rules are revised every 3 years and I wouldn't be surprised for an exemption to be made specifically for ebooks so they can be read on any platform.
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