My Thoughts on DRM

[jscarbo]

I just posted a lengthy response on the Amazon Forums to a customer who has been a Sony Reader user and is unhappy with the transfer to Kobo and is considering switching over to Kindle. I thought it might be interesting to readers here and welcome comment and criticism to my views.

In keeping with forum rules, I haven't included any specific instructions for DRM removal. I've quoted my response, in part, below:

As others have noted Kindles do not have native support for the epub format. If you're willing to do your reading on a tablet, there are apps which will allow you to do so but none of them work on e-ink Kindles.

Incompatible, proprietary formats and DRM-schemes are among my pet peeves with ebooks, Since I began switching over to ebooks very early in 1999, I fell victim to this problem several times. First with Microsoft lit, then with RCA Gemstar, and again with Franklin Bookman.

Fortunately, many of my early ebook purchases were DRM-free, multi-format editions purchased from Baen ebooks and Fictionwise so I was able to easily convert them to Kindle/mobi format.

If your ebooks are DRM-free, you can easily convert them using Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/ ) but you won't find much discussion about converting formats for DRM-protected ebooks within the Amazon forums.

It's easy to do but you'll have to do a Google search for information. Calibre will not remove DRM, nor will it convert formats for DRM-protected ebooks. However, there are third-party plug-ins which will do so.

Most people will advise you that that removing DRM is a violation of the terms of sale from most ebook vendors but if the vendor has gone out of business and no longer supports your purchases, I think you can ignore their terms of sale.

The other, more important issue is whether it's legal to do so. In the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other copyright laws make it an express violation of US copyright law to alter or remove DRM, with certain very limited exceptions and safe harbors.

It should be noted that this law was passed in 1998, long before the popularity of ebooks and was primarily intended to address illegal copying and distribution of computer software, movies and music. The law was enacted with heavy influence and powerful lobbying influence by those industries and is considered by many to be completely one-sided and to have given almost no consideration to consumer rights and consumer interests. There's a great deal of opposition to its provisions by many groups and numerous efforts have been made to amend its provisions, so far with little success, again due to industry lobbying efforts.

The truth of the matter is that these laws have done nothing to prevent illegal copying and distribution of pirated works and many publishers and indie writers have abandoned DRM.

From a legal standpoint, the next thing to understand is that in the US all statutory law is subject to judicial review, interpretation and enforcement. There has never been a single court case in the US where the courts have ruled on the issue of a private individual removing DRM from ebooks for their own personal use, without any attempt to make and distribute or share copies of them, AND THERE NEVER WILL BE.

There are two main reasons for this. First, if you remove DRM on your own personal, private computer, for your own use and do not copy or share them, there's no way anyone would ever even know about it without illegally hacking into your computer. More importantly, the affected industries and public prosecutors would never want to bring such as case to court because its highly possible that the court would rule against them and establish a legal precedent with the full force of law, probably relying mostly on the "First Sale Doctrine" and "Fair Use" exceptions existing with regard to printed books under well-established, existing copyright law.

Now, on to Terms of Sale. As I said, I don't think you'll have a problem with Sony books since they've abandoned the market and have no incentive to enforce their terms of sale. However, with regard to Amazon's Terms of Sale for any ebooks you purchase from them, they DO have every reason to attempt to enforce their terms of sale against any attempt to circumvent them either by removing DRM from copies of Kindle books or violating other provisions such as geographical restrictions on sales, etc. They've done so in the past, and will probably continue to do so in the future.

If you aren't familiar with their terms of sale, you should read them. They're not easy to find, but here they are: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=201014950

I am in no way advocating or encouraging anyone to violate Amazon's terms of sale for Kindle content, and do so at your own risk. They are protecting their business and the rights of their publishers. They've also made great effort to back up your purchases by providing unlimited, permanent cloud storage for all your purchases. I have full confidence that they will not go out of business or change formats without providing a means of assuring that you'll never lose access to your content. So my advice is to become aware of exactly what your rights are under the limited license agreement with regard to your Kindle content and abide by them.

By them same token, I'm not convinced that their terms of sale are completely fair to consumers and believe that both consumer law and privacy law offer some protection to buyers beyond the express terms of the license agreement.

For those interested in US law, take a look at the Wikipedia articles on Standard Form Contracts (adhesion contracts) and on Unconscionability. Both principles may apply to Amazon's terms of sale, which were drafted by very smart, highly-paid lawyers who have pushed the limits in favor of Amazon and, arguably, against the protected legal rights of consumers. I seriously doubt that Amazon would attempt to enforce their strict provisions against an individual consumer who removed DRM for their personal private use and didn't share or distribute copies, even if they had a way of detecting it, which is unlikely unless you upload the altered copies to your Amazon cloud or another public cloud storage, such a public link in Dropbox.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a retired attorney with considerable background in both contract law and intellectual property law. The opinions expressed are my own and are not intended as legal advice.

[crich70]

I think one thing that could muddy the waters even more is that some books are available at both Amazon and Smashwords. I don't know if the Amazon copy of such a book has DRM but the Smashwords copy won't as they are DRM free so how could Amazon tell if a given copy was from Amazon (with any DRM removed) or Smashwords? I don't know if they could or not. Another headache for Amazon perhaps.

[rdfry]

Originally Posted by jscarbo

I just posted a lengthy response on the Amazon Forums to a customer who has been a Sony Reader user and is unhappy with the transfer to Kobo and is considering switching over to Kindle. I thought it might be interesting to readers here and welcome comment and criticism to my views.

In keeping with forum rules, I haven't included any specific instructions for DRM removal. I've quoted my response, in part, below:

As others have noted Kindles do not have native support for the epub format. If you're willing to do your reading on a tablet, there are apps which will allow you to do so but none of them work on e-ink Kindles.

Incompatible, proprietary formats and DRM-schemes are among my pet peeves with ebooks, Since I began switching over to ebooks very early in 1999, I fell victim to this problem several times. First with Microsoft lit, then with RCA Gemstar, and again with Franklin Bookman.

Fortunately, many of my early ebook purchases were DRM-free, multi-format editions purchased from Baen ebooks and Fictionwise so I was able to easily convert them to Kindle/mobi format.

If your ebooks are DRM-free, you can easily convert them using Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/ ) but you won't find much discussion about converting formats for DRM-protected ebooks within the Amazon forums.

It's easy to do but you'll have to do a Google search for information. Calibre will not remove DRM, nor will it convert formats for DRM-protected ebooks. However, there are third-party plug-ins which will do so.

Most people will advise you that that removing DRM is a violation of the terms of sale from most ebook vendors but if the vendor has gone out of business and no longer supports your purchases, I think you can ignore their terms of sale.

The other, more important issue is whether it's legal to do so. In the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other copyright laws make it an express violation of US copyright law to alter or remove DRM, with certain very limited exceptions and safe harbors.

It should be noted that this law was passed in 1998, long before the popularity of ebooks and was primarily intended to address illegal copying and distribution of computer software, movies and music. The law was enacted with heavy influence and powerful lobbying influence by those industries and is considered by many to be completely one-sided and to have given almost no consideration to consumer rights and consumer interests. There's a great deal of opposition to its provisions by many groups and numerous efforts have been made to amend its provisions, so far with little success, again due to industry lobbying efforts.

The truth of the matter is that these laws have done nothing to prevent illegal copying and distribution of pirated works and many publishers and indie writers have abandoned DRM.

From a legal standpoint, the next thing to understand is that in the US all statutory law is subject to judicial review, interpretation and enforcement. There has never been a single court case in the US where the courts have ruled on the issue of a private individual removing DRM from ebooks for their own personal use, without any attempt to make and distribute or share copies of them, AND THERE NEVER WILL BE.

There are two main reasons for this. First, if you remove DRM on your own personal, private computer, for your own use and do not copy or share them, there's no way anyone would ever even know about it without illegally hacking into your computer. More importantly, the affected industries and public prosecutors would never want to bring such as case to court because its highly possible that the court would rule against them and establish a legal precedent with the full force of law, probably relying mostly on the "First Sale Doctrine" and "Fair Use" exceptions existing with regard to printed books under well-established, existing copyright law.

Now, on to Terms of Sale. As I said, I don't think you'll have a problem with Sony books since they've abandoned the market and have no incentive to enforce their terms of sale. However, with regard to Amazon's Terms of Sale for any ebooks you purchase from them, they DO have every reason to attempt to enforce their terms of sale against any attempt to circumvent them either by removing DRM from copies of Kindle books or violating other provisions such as geographical restrictions on sales, etc. They've done so in the past, and will probably continue to do so in the future.

If you aren't familiar with their terms of sale, you should read them. They're not easy to find, but here they are: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=201014950

I am in no way advocating or encouraging anyone to violate Amazon's terms of sale for Kindle content, and do so at your own risk. They are protecting their business and the rights of their publishers. They've also made great effort to back up your purchases by providing unlimited, permanent cloud storage for all your purchases. I have full confidence that they will not go out of business or change formats without providing a means of assuring that you'll never lose access to your content. So my advice is to become aware of exactly what your rights are under the limited license agreement with regard to your Kindle content and abide by them.

By them same token, I'm not convinced that their terms of sale are completely fair to consumers and believe that both consumer law and privacy law offer some protection to buyers beyond the express terms of the license agreement.

For those interested in US law, take a look at the Wikipedia articles on Standard Form Contracts (adhesion contracts) and on Unconscionability. Both principles may apply to Amazon's terms of sale, which were drafted by very smart, highly-paid lawyers who have pushed the limits in favor of Amazon and, arguably, against the protected legal rights of consumers. I seriously doubt that Amazon would attempt to enforce their strict provisions against an individual consumer who removed DRM for their personal private use and didn't share or distribute copies, even if they had a way of detecting it, which is unlikely unless you upload the altered copies to your Amazon cloud or another public cloud storage, such a public link in Dropbox.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a retired attorney with considerable background in both contract law and intellectual property law. The opinions expressed are my own and are not intended as legal advice.

A large number of us already take advantage of the available tools because it makes sense to do it.

[JohnRR]

As long as I can still Alf my books, I will continue to buy from Amazon. It doesn't matter to me if they go out of business tomorrow as I have already used the tool to do a backup.