DRM Good or Bad?

[Justin Nemo]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Just curious what is obscure about secured PDF? I admire pdurrant for admitting he was not fully informed.

Helen

Yes I agree, he is one of the few contributors here who admits his mistakes and is big enough to apologise for them.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Lets just say that the reader of pbooks gets visually impaired and wants a large font edition. Is this traditionally offered as a free upgrade if he has already bought the paperback or hard cover?

Not at all comparable. You are describing getting something you didn't pay for. You aren't entitled to a large print book just because you bought a small print book. But removing DRM isn't getting something you hadn't paid for. It is getting access to what you DID pay for.

Do people who go blind get an audiobook for free from the author/publisher(I actually think they should but not likely).

Getting a free audiobook just because you had the print book would not be appropriate, because you hadn't paid for that level of access. But removing DRM on books that you paid for isn't getting anything you didn't pay for.

Are people without a microwave or stove entitled to have TV dinners transformed to another format?

If you buy a TV dinner, you are entitled to cook it however you want. Microwave, stove, solar oven, grill, cook it however you want.

Where I wonder are the thousands (or even hundreds of people) who have lost there content due to an ereader change.

Whoever said that there were thousands of people who had lost their content? This would only happen if DRM actually worked.

The excuse/justification for piracy is that it could happen.

Who is advocating for piracy? Reading the books that you paid for is not piracy.

It is quote a legion of straw men you have set up.

I have never removed the DRM from a book, thus far I have had no need to do sp. I do however, reserve the right to remove the DRM from a book that I paid for if I need to do that to keep reading it.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Not at all comparable. You are describing getting something you didn't pay for. You aren't entitled to a large print book just because you bought a small print book. But removing DRM isn't getting something you hadn't paid for. It is getting access to what you DID pay for.

It is quote a legion of straw men you have set up.

On the first point alone. Did you pay for a DRM free book? Are you entitled to a DRM free book? Not by common right or you could just get one.


On the straw men. Just in my world it is let the buyer beware. You can of course deep fry your TV dinners and eat your chimichangas frozen hard as a rock. But do you have the right to recourse if you are unhappy with the product because of this. And you are totally right that this has little to do with ebooks.

But in my opinion, not being a lawyer, the whole area of buying something, knowing what it is and the terms attached before and doing something against those terms is a bit murky.

Sure do what you will in the privacy of your own home, but advocating or glorifying these actions seems a bit tacky and perhaps iresponsible. Not saying that you personally would do this and I am aware that my response to this kind of thing is disproportionate as well.

Helen

[no.guru]

I encourage reading or watching the whole speech I've referred to in this thread before, but here's the bad news for authors or readers who like DRM (he's discussing music but the same applies to ebooks):

.. it was easy to talk about selling someone a tune to download to their MP3 player, but not so easy to talk about the the right to move music from the player to another device. But how the Hell could you stop that once you'd given them the file? In order to do so, you needed to figure out how to stop computers from running certain programs and inspecting certain files and processes. For example, you could encrypt the file, and then require the user to run a program that only unlocked the file under certain circumstances.

But, as they say on the Internet, now you have two problems.

You must now also stop the user from saving the file while it's unencrypted—which must happen eventually— and you must stop the user from figuring out where the unlocking program stores its keys, enabling them to permanently decrypt the media and ditch the stupid player app entirely.

Now you have three problems: you must stop the users who figure out how to decrypt from sharing it with other users. Now you've got four problems, because you must stop the users who figure out how to extract secrets from unlocking programs from telling other users how to do it too. And now you've got five problems, because you must stop users who figure out how to extract these secrets from telling other users what the secrets were!

In short, [copyright laws] made unrealistic demands on reality and reality did not oblige them. Copying only got easier following the passage of these laws—copying will only ever get easier. Right now is as hard as copying will get. Your grandchildren will turn to you and say “Tell me again, Grandpa, about when it was hard to copy things in 2012, when you couldn't get a drive the size of your fingernail that could hold every song ever recorded, every movie ever made, every word ever spoken, every picture ever taken, everything, and transfer it in such a short period of time you didn't even notice it was doing it."

[QuantumIguana]

I'm advocating being able to read the books that you paid for. A terrible thing, I guess.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I'm advocating being able to read the books that you paid for. A terrible thing, I guess.

Not really. Who said that? If there is no way to read the book, or it was falsely advertised to work on the device of your choice demand a refund. Your credit card company can probably get you one. Perhaps even give a few examples of the one(s) you have paid for and haven't been able to read and we will all write the seller.

Helen

[Freeshadow]

It isn't (yet) that bad with books as it is with other media. But having seen and suffered exactly this troubles (original media & no access) with music and software I prefer to avoid even the slightest possibility of having that kind of fun again, so I undetstand QIs point.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Not really. Who said that? If there is no way to read the book, or it was falsely advertised to work on the device of your choice demand a refund. Your credit card company can probably get you one. Perhaps even give a few examples of the one(s) you have paid for and haven't been able to read and we will all write the seller.

Helen

You are wrong to say removing DRM is piracy, or only the prelude to sharing the file. And even legally it is far from clear that you are not within your rights to remove DRM to make a private backup copy or move the file to another device you own. The agreement you signed might well be invalid in that regard. No court has ruled on it. And as long as you have paid for the file and don't give it away, why should anyone care? It wouldn't look good for the publishers to go after their paying customers if they fully abide by the spirit of the law.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

You are wrong to say removing DRM is piracy, or only the prelude to sharing the file. [...]

That is not what Helen said at any point. It really does become impossible to have sensible discussion when people insist on rewriting other people's opinions to suit themselves. Not just in your post, HansTWN, but it's yet another example, you don't have to look far to find the others.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by gmw

That is not what Helen said at any point. It really does become impossible to have sensible discussion when people insist on rewriting other people's opinions to suit themselves. Not just in your post, HansTWN, but it's yet another example, you don't have to look far to find the others.

This is what she said:

Where I wonder are the thousands (or even hundreds of people) who have lost there content due to an ereader change. The excuse/justification for piracy is that it could happen.

She equated people freeing their content for space shifting and purchase protection with piracy. I see see no other way to interpret that, unless it's an utter nonsequitur, and I think she's a better writer than that.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by ApK

This is what she said:


She equated people freeing their content for space shifting and purchase protection with piracy. I see see no other way to interpret that, unless it's an utter nonsequitur, and I think she's a better writer than that.

Sorry I was responding to a post that seemed to me to say DRM increased or excused piracy. maybe I read it totally wrong. Or maybe I was quoted out of context. (Underlines are mine)

Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
Lets say that a reader switches to a different brand of reader, and wants to migrate their books. Or two people get married, and they have two different brands of readers, and want to merge their bookshelves. They aren't asking for anything but to be able to read books that they paid for. If they can easily move their books, they will do that. But the more difficult you make it, the more likely that they won't even bother to remove the DRM, but instead simply download the book from pirate sites. Once they are going to pirate sites, they become increasingly likely to download not only books they have already paid for, but to download books that they haven't paid for.

Lets just say that the reader of pbooks gets visually impaired and wants a large font edition. Is this traditionally offered as a free upgrade if he has already bought the paperback or hard cover? Do people who go blind get an audiobook for free from the author/publisher(I actually think they should but not likely). Are people without a microwave or stove entitled to have TV dinners transformed to another format?

Where I wonder are the thousands (or even hundreds of people) who have lost there content due to an ereader change. The excuse/justification for piracy is that it could happen. And of course it could, but the reports of people losing their ebook priveledges from Amazon et. al. are sneered at in an unbecoming fashion by those who advocate their rights to pirate because Amazon or someone else may possibly do that to them some day. Pigs may not fly before this happens but they will at least have little wings on thier hoooves.

Helen

It was not my intent to accuse the poster of piracy or say DRM removal was equivalent to piracy. I was responding to the underlined statement which seems to infer that DRM drives people to piracy thus my statement that it is not an excuse.

As stated before my reponses to this and similiar statements are probably disproportionate. But I am accusing no-one of pirating by DRM removal or any other means. I do not even care. I just am unreasonably annoyed by any inference that it is the right thing to do. Probably I am a nutbar on this issue.

Helen

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Not really. Who said that? If there is no way to read the book, or it was falsely advertised to work on the device of your choice demand a refund. Your credit card company can probably get you one. Perhaps even give a few examples of the one(s) you have paid for and haven't been able to read and we will all write the seller.

Helen

I'll give you an example of where DRM would have gotten in the way had I not been able to strip the DRM.

There used to be an online shop called Paperback Digital that sold mostly Mobipocket format eBooks. They did give some pretty good coupon codes which made the prices quite cheap. I did buy some eBooks from them. I was using a different computer then to what I am using now.

They have gone out of business so there is no way to update the DRM. I have upgraded my computer since I bought these eBooks and the Mobipocket PID has also changed for Mobipocket Reader (for Windows).

So, given that I can no longer change the PID nor do I have the old system I used, the DRM would prevent me from ever being able to read them on my current computer.

DRM would be the reason why. So without being able to strip the DRM, I would have lost access to these eBooks and the only way to get them back would be to go buy them again.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll give you an example of where DRM would have gotten in the way had I not been able to strip the DRM.

There used to be an online shop called Paperback Digital that sold mostly Mobipocket format eBooks. They did give some pretty good coupon codes which made the prices quite cheap. I did buy some eBooks from them. I was using a different computer then to what I am using now.

They have gone out of business so there is no way to update the DRM. I have upgraded my computer since I bought these eBooks and the Mobipocket PID has also changed for Mobipocket Reader (for Windows).

So, given that I can no longer change the PID nor do I have the old system I used, the DRM would prevent me from ever being able to read them on my current computer.

DRM would be the reason why. So without being able to strip the DRM, I would have lost access to these eBooks and the only way to get them back would be to go buy them again.

Valid point JSWolf. Especially if they had customer linked DRM and no readers that could not be installed to read the file.

I see it as life as we know it though. I cannot use software that was purchased/installed on many of my previous computers or play old recordings of varius things. Probably you are too young to remeber dongles that allowed you to run your $2000+ software on one machine only and of course are not worth a nickle today.

Even my old computers are not much use today and I doubt that I would get much sympathy if I demanded to have anything at all available on a TRS-80.

Still as you say these things happen. Being a heck of a lot older probably I do not attach the same weight to losing a few ebooks. Once my house was flooded and I lost at least 2000 pbooks. And furniture and $5000 deductabe before the floors were repaired. While not trivial, stuff happens.

But I am going to take this seriously. Send me your specific complaints and I will make a database.

Names of books and original source of purchase required.

Regards

Helen

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Valid point JSWolf. Especially if they had customer linked DRM and no readers that could not be installed to read the file.

I see it as life as we know it though. I cannot use software that was purchased/installed on many of my previous computers or play old recordings of varius things. Probably you are too young to remeber dongles that allowed you to run your $2000+ software on one machine only and of course are not worth a nickle today.

Even my old computers are not much use today and I doubt that I would get much sympathy if I demanded to have anything at all available on a TRS-80.

Still as you say these things happen. Being a heck of a lot older probably I do not attach the same weight to losing a few ebooks. Once my house was flooded and I lost at least 2000 pbooks. And furniture and $5000 deductabe before the floors were repaired. While not trivial, stuff happens.

But I am going to take this seriously. Send me your specific complaints and I will make a database.

Names of books and original source of purchase required.

Regards

Helen

I do remember dongles. They had them back when I was a lot younger. I also remember Lotus 1-2-3 with one of the worst DRM schemes that caused a lot of businesses no end of grief.

I cannot give you the names of the books purchased as they've long since been converted to either LRF or ePub so I could read them using my Sony Reader. No idea which ones they are/were. But Paperback Digital was the store that sold them so you can put in a notation for anything bought from them in Mobipocket could be a DRM issue.

The fault (IMHO) in this case I feel lays with Mobipocket. Their software picks up the PID from a combination of your computer and the ID of your system hard drive. There is no easy (if at all) way of migrating a PID from one computer to another. Other formats like MS Reader allowed you to authorize multiple computers using the same ID. All the formats/DRM currently in use do not have such a restriction.

[speakingtohe]

@JSWolf
Sorry I was unclear. I was not expecting you to give a specific example as this happened to you a while back.

I am just looking for specific examples in the current timeframe and I am not doubting that they exist although I have seen some pretty rude remarks made to posts actually claiming that this happened to the poster.

All I am doing is volounteering to collect the data if anyone wishes to post it or PM me with it.

Helen