Piracy vs Bookstores

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Redcard

As for George Orwell, and 1984.. the book (and all his books) exit copyright in the European Union in 2020. That includes Switzerland. In the US, it expires in 2047. It is illegal to have it on this site, because this site is registered in Switzerland. If it's black and white, then the answer is anyone who downloaded that or any other George Orwell book here is a criminal.

This site is registered in Canada, not Switzerland. Canada's has different laws than Europe. MobileRead also has a US based satellite that can contain eBook downloads that are legal in the US but illegal in Canada. Copyright laws can be confusing but MobileRead conforms to the known law for uploads. Whether it is legal to download stuff is not something that can be enforced by MobileRead since the Internet is world wide. It is up to the individual user to determine if it is legal to download any particular file for any particular purpose in the country where they live.

Dale

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Redcard

I'd be curious where this format is, because in a letter I wrote to Sony asking them stated it was not an open protocol in the slightest, in any format. I've been working myself on a few programs to convert my friend's blogs into something readable on the Reader. They stated I was more than welcome to use txt or pdf.

They also sounded like they really didn't know how to answer my question.

As for the DMCA making it illegal to circumvent copy protection.. it also contains language that make it illegal to circumvent device access. It's been used successfully, ironically, by Sony.. to take down instructions on how to modify the firmware of the PSP game system.

Here's a link to a draft, for the final specification, you need to have a free membership to prslabs.com

http://www.y-adagio.com/public/commi...mt_pt62448.htm

How is format shifting circumventing device access? Since the device can be accessed by using PDF, RTF or TXT as well.

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes there are gray areas. Format shifting is one of them. So if I buy a MS Reader file and remove the DRM and shit it to LRF, that is a gray area until someone goes to court over that very thing and a legal decision is made.

Removing the DRM is legal?

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Here's a link to a draft, for the final specification, you need to have a free membership to prslabs.com

http://www.y-adagio.com/public/commi...mt_pt62448.htm

How is format shifting circumventing device access? Since the device can be accessed by using PDF, RTF or TXT as well.

Format shifting isn't circumventing DEVICE access by nature. It's circumventing FILE FORMAT access. US Courts have held that a company that does not specifically open a file format have an implied security over that system. This was tested in court with the GIF format via Unisys and the LZW patent enforcement.

That's why DMCA is so insidious. It alone covers copyright.. but combined with court cases and the remainder of US Copyright, Patent, and Trademark law renders many reverse engineering techniques illegal.

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Here's a link to a draft, for the final specification, you need to have a free membership to prslabs.com

http://www.y-adagio.com/public/commi...mt_pt62448.htm

How is format shifting circumventing device access? Since the device can be accessed by using PDF, RTF or TXT as well.

Thanks.

Actually, it let me download the final draft spec.

That'll be very helpful.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cmbs

Removing the DRM is legal?

We've been told, by people who appear to be knowledgeable in such matters, that although writing and distribution of a DRM-removal tool is illegal in the US under the DMCA, its actual use by an individual to remove DRM from a book which they're legally bought, is apparently not.

It's definitely illegal where I live, in the UK.

[kovidgoyal]

As I pointed out before, LRF is just a compiled version of a published XML spec. If SONY intended to maintain a monopoly on the production of ebooks, they really shouldn't have published the spec.

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

As I pointed out before, LRF is just a compiled version of a published XML spec. If SONY intended to maintain a monopoly on the production of ebooks, they really shouldn't have published the spec.

Yeah, oh I agree.. and given that I only run Linux at home, THANK YOU for such a wonderful tool.

It's weird. Sony is such a hydra. If this was the PSP, they'd be all over you for that tool.

I'm a software engineer, and I remember when the DMCA came out, we had to republish all our open protocols and file formats and explicitly tell people how to use them if we wanted them to remain open. It was a pain in the rear, but we were told we had to do this if we wanted people to adopt the format.

Anywho, back to work, and sorry for derailing the conversation. My point grew into a mountain.. and I return to my original point. It's NOT black and white. Not when you involve a myriad of nations all with different laws and ideas.

[kovidgoyal]

Incidentally, libprs500 contains a python library (pylrs) that makes it really easy to create custom LRF files, you might want to look at that rather than the spec.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Redcard

Anywho, back to work, and sorry for derailing the conversation. My point grew into a mountain.. and I return to my original point. It's NOT black and white. Not when you involve a myriad of nations all with different laws and ideas.

A very important point. It is usually this black and white view or the assumption that there is only one country that annoys me so much that I write in these threads.

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We've been told, by people who appear to be knowledgeable in such matters, that although writing and distribution of a DRM-removal tool is illegal in the US under the DMCA, its actual use by an individual to remove DRM from a book which they're legally bought, is apparently not.

It's definitely illegal where I live, in the UK.

Here is a snippet from a summary from the US copyright office

Making or selling devices or services that
are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain
circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision
prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the
second.
This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued
ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use
under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing
a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use
doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of
circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

There is that "Fair Use" term again. Everyone wants to claim that they can use and distribute anything they want to because it's "Fair Use" but nobody wants to actually read about Fair Use and understand what it is. Of course it is NOT something that allows you to use and distribute copyrighted works in full as you please.

Really the point here is not even what's legal or not. Why do there need to be laws to state the obvious - that you shouldn't steal other people's stuff? What if you just respected other people's stuff like you want everyone to respect your stuff? The people on this forum who are making up excuses for their behavior KNOW it's wrong, that's the entire reason for their dreaming up excuses. Their own morality is saying in their head "you know you shouldn't steal."

If you want books published as ebooks and they're not, then write to the publishers and don't buy their products until they publish ebook versions. There is a lot of material available electronically and LEGALLY that you can use to distract yourself with. There's no dying children depending on an illegal ebook download to live through the next 12 hours. There is no reason why you can't content yourself to read something else or get a hard copy.

[tribble]

I have bought about 20 eBooks in the last 6 month, and i have read several "pirated" books, where i had to buy a paper version to calm down my conscience.

At themoment there are only about 1600 legal mobipocket titles in german available. That sucks bigtime. And most of it is garbage.

But we are trying, and we do try to convince authors to not use DRM aswell. Some like it, but too few have agreed to something definite as of now. But we keep trying.

As long as there is not much legally available, there will be lots of piracy.

[Mambo]

I heard about Amazon being second in digital Music sales after iTunes music store. What I've read in a comment really insulted me, so much the more that it is true:

"You should also be aware that Apple is trying to [sell music DRM free]. Rather, the record labels are preventing Apple from doing so. Only EMI has allowed Apple to sell Music DRM free. The other labels have stated that they are allowing other vendors, such as Amazon, to sell DRM free music because Apple currently has too much control of the music distribution business. They are trying to grow other players in the market at Apple's expense.

My personal feeling is that this attitude of not allowing Apple to sell DRM free music is only contributing to piracy and hurting their own bottom line. Similarly, this competition that they are creating forced Apple to drop prices for the 256bit AAC downloads from $1.29 to 99 cents. Once again, the record labels are shooting themselves in the foot. That would be business as usual for them."

If record labels are allowed to do nasty things and grow certain businesses in expense of others then this changes the situation. They can effectively steal money and profit from Apple by not allowing it to compete against Amazon, but we single individuals would be bad if we download things from the Freenet. I mean who cares about Apple, but imagine if they would do this to your company.

So all in all, IMHO you don't have to have better morals than anybody else around you. Don't be sheep, if you see that others try to abuse you using your morality against yourself. I am very moral e.g. would not hurt anyone or cheat on my wife and any other things like that, but somebody else who - being an average guy in the world - could have done all these, should not tell me or anyone of you that you are on the dark side if you download something from the internet that you have found downloadale for free.

Also I think (1) piracy (and arguments in favour of it) should not be a taboo on this forum, because it would be against the freedom of speech, which is of a havier weight (2) if we talk about morality of piracy, let's not take out the discussion from the context of morality in general as if piracy would be the only wrongdoing. Downloading is not the only wrong thing we commit every day - there are many wrong things committed by everybody incl. those who hate piracy - so let's not pretend that somebody who downloads books from the free internet is worse person and has worse morality than anybody else.

That's my view, how about you? And please note that I don't encourage you to steal as long as you keep all the other 'commandments' as well out of the ten (incl. one that relates to all forms of sex outside marriage). In this case if you are perfect in all these areas you will have a moral status to tell me that I or anybody else should not 'steal' (which means downloading books found with the active assistance of Google, which did not warn me that it is not free so I acted upon the assumption that it was free and hence downloaded).

[moz]

I'm with Mambo on the damaging effects of having a holier-than-thou competition, it just irritates people and drives off those who don't want to compete (or regard religion as a mental illness). For instance, I've decided never to buy anything off a particular monomaniac on these forums on the basis of "if you don't like it, don't fund it".

Between Tompe who's convinced that anyone using google is a thief and Steve Jordan who believes that even perfection is not enough I don't think we'd actually have very many people left if the rule was "anyone who anyone else considers a thief". If it's just "people convicted of IP theft in a US court" I'd be happy with that.

[Taylor514ce]

Wait, I think you meant me: I'm the "Google is Evil" fanatic. Credit where credit is due. And to be clear, it's Google who is the thief. Google users are "receiving stolen goods" in certain specific cases. If you're going to hold up someone as the personification of an extreme viewpoint, well, you should get the someone and the viewpoint correct.