DRM is necessary and good, stop complaining

[LauretteBradley]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm pretty sure that the Supreme Court has ruled that this is perfectly legal within the current copyright laws... as is selling the used book. (of course this only applies to the US)

Sorry, I can't find the citation right now... but it is the case.

BOb

@Nate the great -- Dude, I want you to know that *I* understood your ironic sarcasm!!! You are not totally alone in the world, trust me.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by micomicon

Are you being serious? Is this a joke?
Let me get this straight: this site is scanning existing works and selling them without notifying or compensating the original publishers or authors unless they notice?

No. They sell only works that they have contracts for. They plan to move all works available to paid section once the contracts are signed, but as I said the process is slowed down by the sheer number of authors that need to be covered.

[PHugger]

This sounds exactly like ALLOFMP3. They also claimed to pay royalties to the copyright owners, but this was a lie. I'm sorry, but I don't believe that this new Russian eBook store is legitimate. Just because they claim to be legal, doesn't mean that they are. Ask yourself why this isn't being done in the US - because it's illegal!



PCH

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Politicians are professional advocates. They try to find out the wishes and needs of the people they represent, and then advocate for the people without regard to their personal feelings. So the issues we see them presenting are ideas that affect the people. Each politician is given a different brief to present. They dangle the ideas out there in an effort to get people to think about the options so the pols can find out what the people want. After the first of the year both parties start fashioning a platform of issues the party will work to accomplish if they are given the resources to do so.

To be honest, I think a lot of politicians do what they think is best for them. The people overall dislike the current US Government and would like to have the President and Vice-President impeached. The president lied, went against the constitution, and basically tried to take away our rights and freedoms. This country is much worse off then it was before the President was reelected.

[Madam Broshkina]

To be honest, I think a lot of politicians do what they think is best for them. The people overall dislike the current US Government and would like to have the President and Vice-President impeached. The president lied, went against the constitution, and basically tried to take away our rights and freedoms. This country is much worse off then it was before the President was reelected.

I think that is time for me to leave this site. If I want to read posts like the one above I will check out "Daily Kos" or the "Democratic Underground."

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Nah, I'd've transfered them to blu-ray or holo-crystal or whatever the heck the "next thing" is just like I transfered all my data off 5.25" floppy disks years ba -- ... um ... excuse me, I just remembered something I still need to media-shift ....

Just back them all up to Amazon's S3 online backup/storage system.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by LauretteBradley

@Nate the great -- Dude, I want you to know that *I* understood your ironic sarcasm!!! You are not totally alone in the world, trust me.

I thought he might be kidding... but then again, I thought that about the OP until I actually read some of his followup messages.

BOb

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To be honest, I think a lot of politicians do what they think is best for them. The people overall dislike the current US Government and would like to have the President and Vice-President impeached. The president lied, went against the constitution, and basically tried to take away our rights and freedoms. This country is much worse off then it was before the President was reelected.

I think you've got this in the wrong forum, JSWolf.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by micomicon

Are you being serious? Is this a joke?

Let me get this straight: this site is scanning existing works and selling them without notifying or compensating the original publishers or authors unless they notice? Can you explain how this is ethical, given that you already admit it's illegal?

This type of site is what DRM proponents are most afraid of.

What has this site to do with drm?? They scan, upload, whatever - NOTHING to do with drm. I have not and do not intend to visit that site, but the argument that such a site makes a case for drm is nonsensical.

[JohnClif]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

And yet Microsoft is a billion dollar company. Cue sermon about greed. Cue sermon about monopolistic trade practices. Cue sermon about their DRM already having been cracked. Cue sermon about their impending downfall to Linux.

Okay, so you're saying that because Microsoft is a billion dollar company it's okay to rip them off? Microsoft also employs almost 100,000 people who need to feed their families and pay their bills. Bill Gates has given away billions and plans to give away billions more, primarily in the Third World. Hundreds of thousands of people who live near Microsoft offices are dependent upon Microsoft and its employees for their jobs, and most of those people are lower- and middle-class. There are literally hundreds of spinoffs from ex-Microsoft people that employee tens of thousands of other people (Real Networks, Expedia, Zillow, etc., etc.), and they would not exist if Microsoft hadn't been successful.

Stealing is stealing. Whether the victim is penniless or a billionaire is irrelevant. All this BS about greed, etc., is just hand-waving to excuse theft. And you wonder why DRM is prevalent? Perhaps it's because companies like Microsoft originally chose NOT to protect their software... and got massively ripped off, by people like you who rationalized their thievery.

I'm all for giving the customer control of what they purchase, but saying Microsoft DESERVES to get ripped off? Sheesh!

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by JohnClif

Okay, so you're saying that because Microsoft is a billion dollar company it's okay to rip them off? Microsoft also employs almost 100,000 people who need to feed their families and pay their bills. Bill Gates has given away billions and plans to give away billions more, primarily in the Third World. Hundreds of thousands of people who live near Microsoft offices are dependent upon Microsoft and its employees for their jobs, and most of those people are lower- and middle-class. There are literally hundreds of spinoffs from ex-Microsoft people that employee tens of thousands of other people (Real Networks, Expedia, Zillow, etc., etc.), and they would not exist if Microsoft hadn't been successful.

Stealing is stealing. Whether the victim is penniless or a billionaire is irrelevant. All this BS about greed, etc., is just hand-waving to excuse theft. And you wonder why DRM is prevalent? Perhaps it's because companies like Microsoft originally chose NOT to protect their software... and got massively ripped off, by people like you who rationalized their thievery.

I'm all for giving the customer control of what they purchase, but saying Microsoft DESERVES to get ripped off? Sheesh!

No, he wasn't saying anything of the sort. I believe the point he was making was that Microsoft has - and I was witness to some of this - used it's OS clout to destroy application developers. Thus, the fact that MacOS and Linux are on the rise is directly attributable to the FUD tactics and greed of Microsoft.

Derek

[maxk]

I thought the point was that prior to having DRM they still thrived and made a fortune?

Since they do other various nefarious deeds in the industry people can't help getting emotional over their other activities

[JohnClif]

Originally Posted by micomicon

In an ideal, platonic world -- maybe. In the real world, the definition of concepts like fairness changes quite a bit depending on the society and context it is being used in. It was once thought "fair" to base an entire economy on slave labor.

No. In the real world, people who don't want to play fair try to redefine 'fair' so it meets their needs. Like calling slave-owning 'fair' when it never was, obviously. That's why slave owners in the South were not compensated for their 'property' when the slaves were freed. Or, justifying taking something that doesn't belong to you because you think the price is too high.

Again, the owner has the right to set any price for his product, and that price has no relationship to cost. It is related to demand.

The consumer has the right to be fully informed of all of the terms and conditions relating to purchasing that product. Then, if the choice to buy is made, the customer has the agreement to the terms and conditions and cannot unilaterally change them without being in breach of contract and therefore subject to liability. If the consumer thinks the price, or the terms, are unfair, then don't buy the product! The seller will either modify the deal to appeal to consumers, or he will not sell anything. That is fair.

In the real world, power defines what rights you have. For an example of the consequences, look at this quote which has thus far gone unquestioned:

Again, I disagree. I know that's what many people think, and what many people say, but this doesn't make it right. For instance, the right to free speech is not protected in North Korea, but North Koreans still have the right to free speech even if that right is denied by their government. Similarly, the right to own the fruits of one's labor is an inherent right, even if it is violated because the violator has a gun.

The ends does not justify the means... or else Hitler was right.

[JohnClif]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

No, he wasn't saying anything of the sort. I believe the point he was making was that Microsoft has - and I was witness to some of this - used it's OS clout to destroy application developers. Thus, the fact that MacOS and Linux are on the rise is directly attributable to the FUD tactics and greed of Microsoft.

Derek

IIRC, the two big problems that originally got Msft in trouble with the Clinton administration DOJ was, 1) they wouldn't let PC makers change the appearance of the main Windows screen (customers could do it, of course) or replace IE with Netscape, and 2) they swung deals with the big PC makers that gave very low license fees if the PC maker paid the fee for every PC they shipped regardless of whether Windows was included or not. Remember, Netscape was the first company to give away their browser... and found out that you don't want to get in a price war with a much richer competitor. Microsoft started giving away IE, and that was the death knell for Netscape... plus the fact that IE got better after IE4 while Netscape got worse after v4.

Re Msft using its clout to destroy apps developers... who? Lotus? Borland? Wordperfect? Lotus died because 1-2-3 for Windows sucked. Borland died when its apps started to suck... or be too expensive. Wordperfect was as hard to use on Windows as it was on a PC (and I was a Wordperfect fan) plus it didn't work as well as Word. I can tell you that Msft begged Lotus, Ashton-Tate, and Wordperfect to port their MS-DOS apps to Windows back in the late '80s, more than a year before Win 3.0 shipped... and they were rebuffed. These guys didn't think Windows 3.0 would amount to a hill of beans... oops!

I can also tell you, from direct experience, how Apple is much more of a monopolistic ba$tard of a company that Microsoft ever was... just not as successful. If you wrote an OS utility that sold well, Apple would put it in the next version of MacOS. The OS and hardware were closed systems and Apple would sue if you came up with a great product that required some reverse engineering (they wouldn't give you the help either).

I'm a huge Unix fan. Linux is pretty cool, too. Linux makes a great server, but not a desktop operating system for the average corporate worker. MacOS is becoming another story. Apple's porting this to the Intel architecture is a real threat to Windows. I'm waiting for Apple to sell MacOS to other PC makers, but I'm not holding my breath; Apple likes charging way too much for their PCs. Talk about greedy! :-)

Business is rough. That's why it's business. Survival of the fittest and all that. Trust me, no one at Apple gets all teary-eyed when Microsoft stumbles... and they never have, either.

None of this, of course, justifies pirating any work put out by either company, or by any company.

[JohnClif]

After thinking about this on and off, I now understand why Amazon decided not to support DRM .MOBI and went with .AZW instead.

Current DRM schemes do not account for selling and transferring files. In fact, since it is impossible to tie a DRM .MOBI ebook to a particular reader (because users might get a new reader), it is effectively impossible to enforce DRM if the original purchaser is willing to provide the key to another person.

The Kindle, on the other hand, is a closed system. The Kindle's serial # is tied to the user on the Amazon website. A record of all DRM ebooks purchased is also stored on Amazon, and associated with both the customer and the specific Kindle. Amazon could institute a firmware feature that would automatically verify each DRM ebook on the system with Amazon's server on a regular basis, and inform Amazon if a pirated file were found. Maybe they're doing that now. Who knows what data goes up to Amazon?

However, a closed system has advantages. Amazon could institute an ebook trade-in program, where you get partial credit for 'returning' a book to Amazon (removing it from your purchased book list), and they could enforce this by having the Kindle verify the 'ownership' of any .AZW book when you try to read it (by storing a copy of your purchased book list on your Kindle). Or, Amazon could facilitate 'selling' of used ebooks to other Kindle owners, by taking a bite of the 'selling' price for themselves and the publisher... call this the eBay model. The Kindle would certainly support this.

So, because Amazon can't guarantee that an individual is the owner of a particular DRM .MOBI ebook, it is perfectly understandable why they don't want the hassle and liability of supporting that format. And, because they control the Kindle, they could have all sorts of flexibility with .AZW ebooks.

Wonder what the future will hold....