Arguments For And Against DRM

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you believe that pirating books is something that an honest person would do? It is a fundamentally dishonest act: taking something that doesn't belong to you.

I believe that someone who has admitted to breaking the rules when their personal convictions have convinced them it's OK, has forfeited all right to paint someone else's conscientious (and limited) copyright violation with a "piracy" paintbrush. Same as they have forfeited any right to call you oath-breaker or deal-reneger. You are not on higher ground.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I believe that someone who has admitted to breaking the rules when their personal convictions have convinced them it's OK, has forfeited all right to paint someone else's conscientious (and limited) copyright violation with a "piracy" paintbrush. Same as they have forfeited any right to call you oath-breaker or deal-reneger. You are not on higher ground.

It is piracy. It's not my opinion: it's an undeniable fact. That's what piracy is: the unauthorised reproduction of copyrighted material.

I make absolutely no claims to hold the "moral high ground" on this or any other matter.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

This is the heart of it for me. I know lots of people like to say "I always lent paperbacks." Well, technology changed. And so do the rules and reasons for them. Because something is easily possible, and people are mimicking a privilege they enjoyed before, doesn't change that fact that things changed. Lending can hurt author income. Just as secondhand selling hurt authors.

So? As you say, secondhand selling hurt authors, but it was and is a perfectly legitimate practice, and authors had to suck it up. That's life.

Author income has always been an issue. I know quite a few authors who stopped writing because they had to get jobs--and this was before indies and Kindle.

And I'm supposed to feel sorry for them? Hey, if they aren't good enough/fortunate enough/tough enough to make it as a writer, that's their problem. Most of us do need to have real jobs, sometimes ones we don't like. Again, that's life. Writers aren't special snowflakes.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is piracy. It's not my opinion: it's an undeniable fact. That's what piracy is: the unauthorised reproduction of copyrighted material.

I make absolutely no claims to hold the "moral high ground" on this or any other matter.

It's also "undeniable fact" that format-shifting is against the rules and constitutes copyright infringement. Here's one copyright notice from a HarperCollins e-book:

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

But you've decided it's still OK to format-shift? Because you get to pick and choose which rules to follow and which to ignore?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

It's also "undeniable fact" that format-shifting is against the rules and constitutes copyright infringement.

Format shifting is not copyright infringement. It's perfectly legal under UK law.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by leaston

You could also scan a copy of a pbook you own and then give a copy to someone. It doesn't mean you will.

You're doing the same as HarryT and making assumptions about possible future illegal activities that may or may not happen. How can that be a valid argument?

First I'm not making the same argument as HarryT in this instance. AFAIUI he's arguing lending of ebooks = illegal copying = loss of sales. I'm simply arguing against your assertion that lending is not illegal copying.

And actually the point where I stepped in was because you seemed to be even denying it was copying at all. That stuff about there being no 2nd copy.

I brought up the access to the online version, not to say you may, in the future commit an illegal activity but to point out how lending of an ebook is different in nature to lending a paper book.

But since we're talking about the legality, the copying is illegal at the point where you make a copy and you do not have authorisation to do so. i.e. it's at the point where you lend outside the provisions of the license the copyright owner has given you. So at the point where I give you a copy of an ebook I've already breached copyright regardless of whether I delete the original or not. So it's not about predicting the future, it's about what has already happened.

Note, I'm not talking about whether I think this is right or wrong, or whether it causes harm or loss of sales. I'm simply trying to point out that a) it is illegal and b) ebooks and pbooks are not the same.

The later is something of a hobby-horse of mine because I strongly believe that unless we settle this we can't have sensible discussions about what we should and shouldn't be allowed to do. This is true regardless of where you stand on the ethics of lending and the possible harm it causes.

(In the above I am assuming that "lending" an ebook involves simply sharing a non-DRMed file, not using any authorised lending mechanism set up by e.g. Amazon.)

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by tompe

But that is just a technical issue. The real issue is sharing books with your friends and that sharing is not different in any relevant ways. That you might share ebooks at the same time really do not make it into a different category than sharing paper books.

And I believe it is different in relevant ways.

1) Physical lending means loss of physical access. And this, affects how we think about the "harm" it may or may not do. Because digital copying is unlimited and physical books are limited to being in one place at one time.

2) It changes how we govern it legally. Copyright law as opposed to property law. If you want to preserve a similar set of rights/restrictions across both types of books it will require different kinds of laws to achieve the same result.

3) It changes whether or not we can practically stop or control unwanted behaviour. Physical books can be locked away to prevent theft and photocopiers are expensive and time-consuming to make unauthorised copies. Copying is easy for ebooks and DRM doesn't work.

Again, I'm not arguing this to take a "side" on whether something is wrong or should be illegal or whatever. I'm arguing it so we can actually talk sensibly at all.

[induna]

In the USA copyright provides civil protections to the copyright holder. In order to successfully sue someone for damages, you have to be able to show that you have been damaged. Simply copying a book, any book electronic or paper, for my own personal use does not damage the copyright holder, and hence, I cannot be sued for it. (Yes it is perfectly legal in the USA to make as many physical copies of a physical book that I have bought as I want for my own personal use.)

As far as criminal liability goes, has anyone ever been prosecuted for simply removing DRM from a book? I don't think so. Even if they were, I doubt that such a thing could possibly standup, not that it would ever actually go to court. Ever.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by induna

In the USA copyright provides civil protections to the copyright holder. In order to successfully sue someone for damages, you have to be able to show that you have been damaged.

Not true.

Under US copyright law, there are two types of damages that can be awarded by a court for a successful copyright infringement claim:

1. Compensation for actual losses. This does, as you suggest, depend on the plaintiff being able to demonstrate that a loss has occurred.

2. Statutory damages. These do NOT require a plaintiff to show that a loss has occurred, and are an amount of damages "per work infringed", rather than per copy made. Statutory damages are set out in 17 U.S.C. § 504 of the U.S. Code. The basic level of damages is between $750 and $30,000 per work, at the discretion of the court. Plaintiffs who can show willful infringement may be entitled to damages up to $150,000 per work. Defendants who can show that they were "not aware and had no reason to believe" they were infringing copyright may have the damages reduced to $200 per work.

You were, though, I believe, talking about creating ebooks for personal use from paper books that you'd bought? That would be considered "fair use" in most legal jurisdictions, I believe.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Format shifting is not copyright infringement. It's perfectly legal under UK law.

It's against what you tacitly agree to when you purchase the license to read the book.

[DiapDealer]

Again ... rationalizing one form of rulebreaking based one's personally-biased perception of "harm" (or lack thereof) is fine. As long as you're willing to allow others the same latitude in their conscience-based decisions to break the rules.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

It's against what you tacitly agree to when you purchase the license to read the book.

Absolutely. And I've never denied that.

You're not suggesting that only people who have never broken any rule in their entire lives are entitled to be opposed to ebook piracy, are you? Yes, I format-shift books and remove DRM, which is against the book store's TOS, but causes no harm to anybody. Yes, I am opposed to piracy, which DOES harm authors, and will continue to say so whenever the topic comes up.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, I format-shift books and remove DRM, which is against the book store's TOS, but causes no harm to anybody. Yes, I am opposed to piracy, which DOES harm authors, and will continue to say so whenever the topic comes up.

How are you able to guarantee your "causes no harm to anybody" claim?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Absolutely. And I've never denied that.

You're not suggesting that only people who have never broken any rule in their entire lives are entitled to be opposed to ebook piracy, are you? Yes, I format-shift books and remove DRM, which is against the book store's TOS, but causes no harm to anybody. Yes, I am opposed to piracy, which DOES harm authors, and will continue to say so whenever the topic comes up.

We're talking about the rules that apply to e-books, not the entire universe of rules and regulations. We are told not to format-shift. We are told not to share copies. But you blithely disregard the first, yet refuse to see any gray area whatsoever in the second. You think a pirate is a pirate is a pirate, whether a person shares one copy with Aunt Mary, or shares 50 copies with friends and relations, or uploads to a file-sharing site for the entire world.

I'm suggesting that you don't get to draw the distinctions and apply them to everyone when your hands aren't exactly clean. You say removing DRM causes no harm to anyone? Of course it does; it allows you to keep an unauthorized version of the book, it allows you to change the text of the book, it allows you to avoid buying another version of the book to read on a different device.

And even if you pooh-pooh the harm of removing DRM, I can argue that my sharing a copy with Aunt Mary causes no additional harm, even though it creates an additional copy, because as a practical matter it is equivalent to a loan of a physical book.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tompe

No it is not. In certain countries it is perfectly legal so it cannot be a fundamental dishonest act since then it would not exist any country were it was legal to get a copy.

Not logical. Lying, for example, is fundamentally dishonest, by definition, even when there are no laws against it.