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No, that's not so. Paper books are subject to pretty much the same legal restrictions as eBooks. When you buy a paper book you are buying the "medium"; you do not take legal ownership of the "contents". You can't legally make photocopies of it, and re-sell those, for example.
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You are simply wrong. when you buy a book or cd or dvd that copy is your PROPERTY including all the CONTENTS of that medium. Period. a life long of DISTORTION and effectively (hate to use this word but its proper) brainwashing has caused us to somehow think a book is different from a car and different from a CD or DVD
there are 2 kinds of RIGHTS regarding what we buy. I call them PPR and IPR
PPR is Personal Property Rights IPR is Intellectual Property Rights.
When you buy a car or a watch or a box or a CD or a book or a DVD you OWN the PPR rights to that object including anything it containts. ANY EULA's contrary to this are NULL AND VOID on inception. they can not take your property rights from you.
the ONLY time you do not own is when you RENT
When you BUY a movie its your property when you RENT a movie NOW you do not own it or its contents NOW its being LOANED to you with conditions just like renting an apartment or renting a car.
Don't mince words with me. You specify two SEPERATE actions and try to make them sound like one. I damned well CAN photocopy ANY BOOK I OWN any time I want as many times as I want any way I want.
NO I can NOT resell those copies* since that CHANGES from PPR rights to IPR rights.
I CAN however RESELL those copies if I sell an ORIGINAL copy with each. so if I BUY an object and hack it up I can then SELL that copy. If I buy 10 CD's and make a Custom MIX set out of some of the songs on those disc you bet your butt I can sell that mix disc as long as I INCLUDE each disk I sourced it from WITH the "mix" disc. this is PERFECTLY LEGAL.
Once I SEPERATE the original from the NEW that I make NOW and ONLY NOW Iam I violating there IPR or intellectual property rights by generating a new AND seperate work (IE keeping the original)
This is no different than buying a Ford Bronco MODDING the crap out of it and then SELLING said bronco on ebay. PERFECTLY LEGAL.
its MY PROPERTY. now since I do not own the IPR to that bronco I can not "DUPLICATE" the bronco on my own and sell that (modded or not)
Starting to make some sense now ?
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Exactly the same is true of e-Books. You own the physical file that you download but you don't own the "contents" of that file. You can't legally copy it and sell or give away those copies.
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Right and wrong again NO different than ABOVE with ONE twist. they have STOLEN our PPR rights under the guise of DRM via the DMCA (an illegal law as far as I am concerned)
If the ebook has no DRM you are free to do the SAME THINGS you can do with a paper book.
IF the Book DOES have DRM you are STILL free to do the same things as a paperbook as long as you do not break the DRM (which as we know EFFECTIVELY prevents you from enacting your fair use and PPR rights)
The Judge in the 321 Studios case was an idiot but made the conundrum clear. YES user are allowed to backup there DVD's YES 321 studios is allowed to make software to do so SO LONG as they do not DECRYPT the data (effectively preventing them from doing what they are legally allowed to do) see the problem now ?? starting to make sense ?
They can not remove our PPR rights no one would stand for that so they END RUN around them with the DMCA
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You can rant and rave about the "immoraility" of DRM all you want, but as far as most publishers are concerned, no DRM = no publishing of e-Books. Better to have DRM-protected e-Books than no e-Books.
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Then don't publish them cause I won;t buy them. Period. I would rather have NO BOOKS than DRM since having DRM effectively MEANS having no books in the end.
THEY do not make the RULEs. I MAKE THE RULES with my Wallet. (I being US Consumers) the sooner we realize this the sooner we can ELIMINATE DRM nearly overnight.
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There are many sources of non-DRM-protected books if you have a moral objection to it. There are 10s of thousands of out of copyright books available for example.
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The Problem is our copyright laws are so flawed that the non copyrighted books ie public domain is now effectively STATIC. NOTHING NEW will ever enter the public domain again unless someone VOLUNTARILY puts it there with very fee exceptions.
Copyright was not supposed to be a PERMANENT right it was supposed to be the grant of a TEMPORARY monopoly to encourage creation.
You have no idea how much it bothers me that DISNEY was CREATED on the VERY THING they fight so hard to prevent. on the USAGE OF OTHER PEOPLE's WORK to make there work. and now they want to make sure NO ONE ELSE will have the same change by effectively ELIMINATED the public domain.
Remember Owning a CAR is NO DIFFERENT than owning a book. both have PPR and IPR the one is just called copyright while the other is called patents. its the SAME THING.
when you buy it YOU OWN IT (lock stock and bond) so long as you do not violate the IPR of the rightful IP owner.
Imagine if FORD got a law passed that said painting your car without permission is illegal ? that adding "lights" or "wings" or "rims" or seat covers etc.. etc.. was illegal without there permission ?
What if it was illegal to modify your house ? (for many the IP for that house belongs to someone else) what about modifying your bed or bureau ?
Is it illegal to paint your bike ? add a spinner to it ? Some extended handlebars ?
Is it illegal to do these things ? you do NOT own the IPR likely to any of them ? Huffy owns the IPR for there bikes is it illegal to add streamers to your little daughters handle bars without huffies permission ?
Would you stand for any of this being illegal ? then why do you stand for it with your books cd's and movies ?
THEY ARE NO DIFFERENT !! No matter HOW many times they try to brainwash you to think otherwise they are NO DIFFERENT. they are EXACTLY the same thing.
ONE has "physical rights" (those are your rights) and one has INTELLECTUAL rights (those are theirs)
I can buy a magazine and cut it up. Scan it into my computer. Print it back out. Archive it. Print in in B&W and color it in. etc.. etc.. Make an EBOOK out of it.
all of this is LEGAL its your PROPERTY
but once you make a copy and illegally give it out NOW that "copy" is no longer yours once its seperate in ownership from the original. now its a new derivative work with ONE more attribute. SEPERATE new derivitive work. you made something NEW and PRESENTED it as your own (IE without the original)
NOW your violating there IP Rights. NOW your breaking the law.
This is not good enough for them. so they made up the DMCA and now want to eliminate any "hardformats" so they can copy protect everything effectively ELIMINATING your RIGHTS OF OWNERSHIP to your property without ACTUALLY removing those rights.
VERY SICK and TWISTED. Not only immoral but ILLEGAL - its just sad that our courts are too stupid or "paid" to see this.
I bought the sony reader because it supports MANY native NON DRM'd formats without the need to "register" or "activate" with a computer. that why NOT ONLY was reading txt pdf etc.. important to me but it was important WITHOUT a computer. IE pop in the SD card.
THAT was the deciding factor in me buying this reader.
If they release ebooks with NO DRM and NO EULA (the LAW is sufficient don't need extra rules) its already illegal to copy and share something I don't need a contract to remind me of this and lack of such contract does NOT make it legal for me to share it)
and at a reasonable price (SIGNIFICANTLY less than the paper release) they I will gladly buy Ebooks.
Till then NO NO and NO. I did not even BUY a dvd player until I could "crack" the encryption easily. NO i don't "pirate" movies (its NOT stealing its copyright infringement another brainwashing analogy) but its still wrong.
Until people stand up and say NO they will continue to walk all over us.
Remember companies do not make the rules and neither do GOVERNMENTS ... Not without our permission.
Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/