DRM: What did you buy? (An Essay.)

[speedlever]

Perhaps you should define the reasons that a person would want to break DRM.

If it's to read a library ebook on a Kindle, then it's hard to see where any damage is inflicted by removing DRM and converting the file to mobi.

If it's to back up a DRM ebook that you've purchased, that seems to be a reasonable expectation. You can do that with most software.

I can't think of any other legitimate reason to break DRM. But then I'm just a newbie in this EBR/ebook world.

Neither of the above activities have criminal intent in mind. Neither of the events take away a sale or causes any financial harm to anyone.

So the existence of DRM for those purposes seems pointless and it is hard to understand that you're actually breaking an agreement... or so it would appear to me.

Which is why I asked earlier what exactly gets d/l'd to your EBR when you snag a DRM book.. or a DRM-free book, for that matter.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Perhaps you should define the reasons that a person would want to break DRM.

To read it on an ebook reader not supported by the DRM-provider. Note that currently if you want to (pay for and) read every ebook that is for sale you must either use a multi-function device (e.g. iPhone) or strip the DRM from the subset of ebooks that are not for sale (at any price) with your favorite DRM-scheme.

Another reason is to fix errors in your personal copy of the ebook. This is probably only done by a tiny minority, but publishers often don't release updated versions - so either fix it yourself or put up with the errors.

[jhempel24]

I'm sure that most of you know this, but stripping the DRM on a library book essentially gets you a free book because it doesn't go out of your library automatically anymore.

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

I'm sure that most of you know this, but stripping the DRM on a library book essentially gets you a free book because it doesn't go out of your library automatically anymore.

It does when you delete it. Except for that automatic part!

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by gmw

Most of the rest of your post(s) I have provided my opinion of in one way or another already ... but the DMCA stuff: I think you are reading way more into that act (as relates to your benefit) than actually exists at this time.

According to Wikipedia (I have not read the original), the DMCA "also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself." There are however exemptions, but these may change every three years. I would not look to the DMCA for "protection" in this instance - actual cases gone to court may offer you better hope. If you have links to more up-to-date detail or interpretation than offered by Wikipedia then I would be grateful if you shared.

My interpretation is based on the source material: I've read the act. There is simply not any section of the act which makes the stripping of DRM by itself a criminal or civil violation. There has to be some additional factor involved. The section that Wikipedia is talking about in your citation is one which starts with the premise that the "additional factor" is present.

One such additional factor is "distribution." So if I strip DRM and start handing out copies of the stripped file to my friends, that's probably a violation. But what if I'm a college professor handing out extracts of a stripped book to students?Is that "distribution?" Probably not, but what professor wants to risk a lawsuit over it? He might lose.

So what that section of the act does is let the Librarian of Congress decide the issue, rather than have the issue resolved by litigation. Essentially, the Librarian can create what lawyers call a "safe harbor" for situations where there might be some dispute about the extent to which the act collides with the doctrine of "fair use."

It's a frustrating situation, because any lawyer who reads the act is going to tell his client that there's no money nor chance for success in trying to sue, or get the US Attorney to prosecute, someone who buys an ebook and strips the DRM in order to device-shift, or merely to insure that when the seller withdraws device support, the functionality of the ebook is not lost. And no law student is going to waste his time writing a law review note on the point - there's no intellectual meat there to justify it. As a consequence, there's just not going to be a definitive answer written up anywhere beyond a post on an obscure ebook blog.

So people with no legal training read the sort of thing you point to on Wikipedia, and draw an understandable but erroneous conclusion about what it means because they don't grasp the underlying context, and do not know how to read the statute.

The DMCA was not overtly intended to change copyright law. Covertly, though, the lobbyists knew that what it would do is create a legal environment where the corporations can intimidate people into not exercising their fair use rights, because the bottom line is that while the law won't punish you, the litigation will - even if you are right. That is what is deeply wrong with this act.

But putting aside that point, I stand by what I said - the act was written in a fashion that intentionally did not make the mere act of stripping DRM wrong. It is not legally wrong, and certainly not morally wrong.

(As an aside, I would love to see a simple amendment to the act which would say that any entity attempting to enforce the act and losing in court has to pay the defendant's legal fees, and a fine equal to twice those fees. That might bring some balance back into the law.)

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Harmon

My interpretation is based on the source material: ...

I thank you for your interpretation, without more specific references I went searching for some of my own.

The source material of act speaks specifically of exemptions for libraries and education (the professor you were noting) and there were also some specific details relating to computer maintenance (backups), and also for testing security. There are also the 3 year exemptions spoken of by Wikipedia - but I see no reference in the DMCA source material relating to an "additional factor" in regard to these items. (I now have a copy of the source material if you want to point me to the specific clauses that detail such additional factors.)

So if you are Professor Purple Gorilla then I can see where the DMCA is preserving your rights, but if you are just a Gorilla-on-the-Street, like myself, I have trouble seeing where the DMCA is doing anything you.

Disclaimer: AFAICT properly understanding the source material of the DMCA means detailed cross-referencing with the US copyright law. I cannot claim to have done that.

[Fbone]

The wikipedia article says that the DMCA was in response to the US being a signatory to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties.

The US congress had no choice but to pass this legislation that amends US copyright law in order to comply with the treaties.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Fbone

The wikipedia article says that the DMCA was in response to the US being a signatory to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties.

The US congress had no choice but to pass this legislation that amends US copyright law in order to comply with the treaties.

They had a choice about how to define fair use protections. For example, the act could have explicitly said that stripping DRM for personal use was ok. Actually, it does say that all fair use provisions still apply but this is contradicted by its practical provisions. The Librarian of Congress has the option, every three years, to make explicit fair use exceptions to the anti-circumvention provisions (e.g. for format shifting), but has never some close to doing so.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

They had a choice about how to define fair use protections. For example, the act could have explicitly said that stripping DRM for personal use was ok. Actually, it does say that all fair use provisions still apply but this is contradicted by its practical provisions. The Librarian of Congress has the option, every three years, to make explicit fair use exceptions to the anti-circumvention provisions (e.g. for format shifting), but has never some close to doing so.

The fact that they have not come close to legitimising the practice perhaps speaks to the intentions of the legislators. If that were assumed (pure conjecture on my part) then it would not be wise to read too much into court decisions to the contrary - since it may be the legislators intentions to close any loop-holes revealed by such decisions.

Of course the opposite could also prove true: they may decide that the current form of DRM is effectively useless (which is merely fact) and so there is no good reason to try and prevent its removal. ... But I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. The law, like my OP, attempts to deal with DRM as a concept rather than a specific instance, and the purpose of DRM is still desirable (by people wanting to protect their rights). So they won't want to weaken provisions too generally in case any more effective solutions arise.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by gmw

The fact that they have not come close to legitimising the practice perhaps speaks to the intentions of the legislators. If that were assumed (pure conjecture on my part) then it would not be wise to read too much into court decisions to the contrary - since it may be the legislators intentions to close any loop-holes revealed by such decisions.

Of course the opposite could also prove true: they may decide that the current form of DRM is effectively useless (which is merely fact) and so there is no good reason to try and prevent its removal. ... But I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. The law, like my OP, attempts to deal with DRM as a concept rather than a specific instance, and the purpose of DRM is still desirable (by people wanting to protect their rights). So they won't want to weaken provisions too generally in case any more effective solutions arise.

Most people would have no objections to DRM if:

1.)The same DRM scheme would be used for every device.
2.)Customers would be protected in case their hardware broke down and they couldn't redownload from the original seller.

But coming back to your statements above. If you consider that legislators will be under constant pressure by industry lobbyists to tighten restrictions and make format shifting illegal, the fact that they have not expressly done so actually seems to demonstrate to me that they believe that this issue is very important to their voters.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by gmw

So if you are Professor Purple Gorilla then I can see where the DMCA is preserving your rights, but if you are just a Gorilla-on-the-Street, like myself, I have trouble seeing where the DMCA is doing anything you.

Disclaimer: AFAICT properly understanding the source material of the DMCA means detailed cross-referencing with the US copyright law. I cannot claim to have done that.

(That's Professor Purple BABOON, thank you very much!)

You have to think of the DMCA as a kind of shell enclosing the copyright act. It does not change the copyright act. Rather, it is an attempt to deal with copyright as it already exists in an electronic environment, based on the premise (illusionary or otherwise) that DRM can be used to accomplish that objective.

The key to understanding the DCMA is not thinking of it in terms of DRM, though. It's thinking of it in terms of the tools which can strip DRM. Those tools effectively eliminate DRM if they are allowed to be widely distributed. That's why when you dig into the DCMA, it turns out that it is very concerned with the distribution of those tools.

For instance, it is perfectly legal for me to strip DRM from my lawfully acquired ebook, but it is not legal for you to sell me the tools to do the stripping. It is also not legal for me to pay you to strip the DRM for me. It might not be legal for you to simply give me the tools to do the stripping - I kind of think it actually is legal but I'm not entirely confident of that conclusion.

(There is actually a close analogy to the DMCA in US history, namely, the Volsted Act - aka "Prohibition." Most people think that you couldn't drink liquor during prohibition. However, under Prohibition, it was legal for someone to make and consume his own booze. BUT: it was not legal to transport it. So you could make your bathtub gin in your house, and sit on the porch in full view of the cops and get snockered. You could invite your neighbor to join you. Heck, you could invite the cop. Nothing illegal about it, so long as you didn't sell it to your neighbor. (Of course, the cop drank free anyway.) But if you took ("transported") your glass of gin over to your neighbor's house, the cop could arrest you. If you charged your neighbor for his drink at your house, the cop could arrest you. Same thing with DRM - strip it all you want "in your own house," i.e. on your own ebook. Hand over your off-brand EBR to your friend and let him read the stripped file. No problem. But don't sell the file. Don't upload it to the internet so anyone can download a copy.)

The ultimate point of the DMCA is not that it changes fair use or anything else under copyright law. The problem is to preserve the rights of the copyright holder through the use of DRM, while also preserving the rights of the public. The mechanism to accomplish this is to make it illegal to strip DRM in those instances in which the stripped file is used in a fashion that violates the copyright holder's rights. But that mechanism introduces all kinds of practical problems in those situations where the public has to strip DRM in order to exercise fair use rights which already exist under the copyright law.

And that's where the Librarian comes in - basically, Congress has handed off to the Librarian the authority to write regulations dealing with those practical problems.

But you are correct in observing that if you are the baboon on the street, the DMCA has the practical effect of thwarting your fair use rights, even though as a matter of law, it does not. And what's worse is that copyright holders are aggressively using the practicalities to thwart the fair use right that, nominally, the public still has. Essentially, copyright holders (in the form of corporations like Disney) want, as a practical matter, to own ALL the rights to the product forever, even though copyright law is just a limited grant of those rights for a specific period.

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=wallcraft;1243616]They had a choice about how to define fair use protections. For example, the act could have explicitly said that stripping DRM for personal use was ok. [QUOTE]

I've never been involved with writing a statute, but I've read hundreds if not thousands of them, and they all tend to be written obscurely, at least from a layman's point of view. There are mechanical reasons for that, having to do with the interactions of various provisions of a statute, and it is likely that being explicit would have mucked up the way that the other provisions interact.

Plus, if these things were explicit, you would not need to hire a lawyer. Think of how terrible that would be! Hordes of unemployed lawyers would roam the streets, offering legal interpretations for food, begging from people using interminable arguments and citing authorities to prove that you must give them money, running for even more offices than they do already, and creating controversies in the public way. It is better tokeep them off the streets.

[rkomar]

Sooner or later, the bozos in the DRM business will figure out how to do it right (i.e. make it practically unbreakable by the average Joe). They more or less have done so for Blue-Ray video, and there's no reason to think that they can't do it for e-books eventually. Everyone who is okay with DRM because they can strip it off at the moment, think about what it will mean for you when you can no longer do so.

Personally, I don't like where the industry is headed with this, so I refuse to buy any books with DRM. Not only do I not want them to think they have my tacit approval, I also do not want them to use my money to help them perfect their dystopian schemes. So, please think about the original question of this thread: "DRM: What did you buy?".

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Sooner or later, the bozos in the DRM business will figure out how to do it right (i.e. make it practically unbreakable by the average Joe).

Well, there's this little predicament where you do want to show it to the paying customer, but at the same time hide it from him... hint: not going to work. If you can see it, you can copy it.

They more or less have done so for Blue-Ray video

That's news to me. There is certainly no shortage of bluray titles on the darknet.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Well, there's this little predicament where you do want to show it to the paying customer, but at the same time hide it from him... hint: not going to work. If you can see it, you can copy it.



That's news to me. There is certainly no shortage of bluray titles on the darknet.

My understanding is that they managed to extract keys from crappily written player software. Blue-Ray AACS can revoke keys from future media, so I guess you would need constant updating of the stolen keys. That's a lot more work than for decrypting DVDs and current e-books. I can't see Joe Schmoe going to that kind of trouble with his legally purchased books. I _can_ see him going to the darknet, though, which is a different problem than what we're discussing in this thread.