removing DRM- is this legal?

[Katsunami]

Even while it may be illegal were you live, who is ever going to know? Who is ever going to check this? No one, assuming you're not stupid enough to start distributing your de-DRM'ed versions.

If I were you, I'd remove the DRM ASAP.

Originally Posted by ApK

For the record, I find it rather despicable to answer a question about the legality of something with variations of "doesn't matter if it's legal, as long as you don't get caught."

Normally, I would agree, but in case of removing DRM for personal uses, I don't. DRM serves no purpose for people who are honestly buying their stuff. It only restricts them in the way they can use it, something that the pirate version, which is *free*, does not do. That's the world upside down.

[Ntsimp]

Originally Posted by Quexos

If I may interject a remark, people have also been sued for downloading such content. Not just for distributing it.

In what jurisdiction? I've heard of people being sued over P2P downloads, because downloaders are also distributing at the same time. I've never heard of lawsuits for simple downloading.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Quexos

If I may interject a remark, people have also been sued for downloading such content. Not just for distributing it.

All the cases I've heard of were p2p related where the downloader is technically also a distributor too. Damages in the case of distribution are high. The reason is simple, they can argue that everyone who downloaded it is a loss of income and that those people may pass it on to X more.

When it comes to individual infringement with no distribution. Damages are afaik restricted to provable direct loss. As a poster mentioned earlier, someone infringes their copyright on their photos, they get to sue them for the amount of money they'd have otherwise licensed the photos for and any other related damages they can show. Legal costs may or may not be awards which can put you at a loss for just taking the case to court.

Not a lawyer so if I have my facts wrong, apologies, but afaik the above is accurate.

[JoeD]

Going back to the OP, if you really don't want to break the law. My advice is, buy books from stores you know the DRM is broken on and that you could remove the DRM at a later date even if the store closes/drm servers shut. Afaik that's everywhere but iBooks.

No need to remove it now as long as you know you can in the future unless the DRM is getting in the way of your reading (such as if you change to another manufacturers ereader)

[ApK]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Going back to the OP, if you really don't want to break the law. My advice is, buy books from stores you know the DRM is broken on and that you could remove the DRM at a later date even if the store closes/drm servers shut. Afaik that's everywhere but iBooks.

No need to remove it now as long as you know you can in the future unless the DRM is getting in the way of your reading (such as if you change to another manufacturers ereader)

Paul or DD might chime here, but I don't believe that is universally true. In some systems, if you cannot access the the server at that future date, you can't access your content to do the stripping. MS's LIT was a prime example of this happening in real life.

Remember that none of the current stripping solutions actually "break" the DRM in a cryptography cracking sense. They merely use the access you legitimately have in a novel way.

ApK

[Polyphemus]

Originally Posted by crossi

How would the government ever know if all you do is make a de-DRM'd copy of all your books to store as a backup on a hard drive? They are scarcely going to search people's computers and files at random hoping to find a de-DRM'd book somewhere on it. As long as you don't post the book on the internet for others to download you are safe. I also remove matress tags in spite of the dire warnings against it and no arrests yet.

The government knows if you've removed the DRM because the black helicopters have special sensors to scan random computers and files to detect such things.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by Polyphemus

The government knows if you've removed the DRM because the black helicopters have special sensors to scan random computers and files to detect such things.

Better that than the vans from Google, photographing my house and "checking" my wi-fi!

[Namekuseijin]

about as legal as DRM itself

I don't give away the copies of ebooks I bought. I just strip to read it confortably rather than the way they think I should read.

[NickyWithNook]

I thought distributing books was illegal, and DRM was the means to make that at least more difficult. I didn't know stripping DRM to move books from one e-reader to another was illegal. If B&N goes under and my nook breaks and I want to read the books I've purchased on something else, I'm going to have to strip DRM.

[Ntsimp]

But DRM doesn't exist to make piracy more difficult; it's just the technical/legal means for enforcing lock-in and other anti-consumer moneymaking schemes. A good little law-abiding consumer who wants to obey the law will just buy new copies of ebooks he wants to read on a second device.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by Ntsimp

But DRM doesn't exist to make piracy more difficult; it's just the technical/legal means for enforcing lock-in and other anti-consumer moneymaking schemes. A good little law-abiding consumer who wants to obey the law will just buy new copies of ebooks he wants to read on a second device.

That.

[Howlingwolf]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Ah, the old "it's only wrong if I get caught" argument. Fail-big time fail!

Indeed. And they are always so eager to say 'sorry' when they do get caught

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ApK

Paul or DD might chime here, but I don't believe that is universally true. In some systems, if you cannot access the the server at that future date, you can't access your content to do the stripping. MS's LIT was a prime example of this happening in real life.

With Nook and Kindle is it possible to download and store copies of DRM'ed ebooks that can be deDRM'ed at any future date.

But at that point you're really just splitting hairs.
The basic facts are that removing DRM is technically illegal in most locations and that doing it verges on the trivial.
Everything else is just debating ethics and varying degrees of rationalization.

Either you're comfortable doing it or you're not.
The legal liability issue is a moot point either way.

It is a strictly apersonal matter in the end.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

With Nook and Kindle is it possible to download and store copies of DRM'ed ebooks that can be deDRM'ed at any future date.

But at that point you're really just splitting hairs.
The basic facts are that removing DRM is technically illegal in most locations and that doing it verges on the trivial.
Everything else is just debating ethics and varying degrees of rationalization.

Either you're comfortable doing it or you're not.
The legal liability issue is a moot point either way.

It is a strictly apersonal matter in the end.

Excellent summation!

[danskmacabre]

I just don't buy DRM'd books... ever.
It's a bit of a pain sometimes when I want a book and I find it's DRM'd, but I just don't want to encourage that sort of thing.

It does force me to branch out my tastes in reading material anyway and find new authors. There's quite a few places that sell DRM free ebooks now although It's mostly new authors and of course the usual sources for free ebooks like Gutenberg etc..

If DRM is generally removed from ebooks, I would be spending probably several $100 a year on books.
As it stands atm publishers get next to nothing from me, or at least the ones who have DRM on their ebooks.
Previous to owning an ereader, I was regularly buying pbooks, I don't do that anymore.

I think this is the best way of stopping DRM on ebooks.