Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
In all these cases, circumvention of technological measures for personal use is a civil infringement, with many exceptions. The copyright holder would need to take the infringer to court, and show that none of the many exceptions applied, and (I think) that there were actual damages.
Ethically, I see nothing wrong in removing DRM for personal use.
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Exactly. They have to prove damages, at the simplest level, lost sales. So only a completely idiotic publisher that has lost their senses would sue. They'd have to prove the intent was to redistribute! They'd have to pay their legal team and all costs. No criminal case is involved*
At the worst such a court case might expose how DRM is actually incompatible with Copyright. It doesn't stop piracy, it's purely to control the customer. It removes all fair use and locks the material potentially forever, or in the case of DRM that needs a live server potentially cheats the customer. DRM is actually immoral.
See also Deere Tractors, Plays For Sure, Original Mobi DRM, and IoT security, heating, remote controls and HiFi.
* Note:
People have an idea that Criminal is more severe than Civil. Actually with pirating Cable TV or Satellite in Ireland the maximum Criminal conviction is up to €6000 and / or six months prison, not sure of the details, as a conviction for Theft of Service.
Instead the content providers bring a Civil suit. They sue. The customers of the facilitators usually have to pay the lost revenue for the period plus costs. But the actual providers of the pirating set boxes or card sharing systems have all their computers & phones and stock seized and typically damages start at about the €100,000 plus all costs.
Compare this with a private individual that format shifts ebook, DVD, BD, paper book, CD etc they purchased for personal use and there is no evidence that they ever sold or gave away any copies ever? Where is the copyright violation of publishers rights, the damages or criminal activity?
OTH, someone gets an ARC of a new book on paper, cuts off the spine, scans it, maybe OCRs. They upload it either for free to many sites or until recently even put it on the playstore via Google books. The more popular a book is the easier it is to get a pirate copy. Those people do sometimes get caught and sued. Rarely a criminal prosecution. Films / TV is now trivial to pirate. Such a lot of money wasted on HDCP royalties, DVD & BD Region protection an the immoral DMCA.