Pointing users to drm stripping software isn't copyright infringment.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by crich70

I think fair use should (if it doesn't) include being able to convert an ebook (that someone has bought) from one format such as epub to another like Kindle, or vice versa. As long as it's just for their own use of course. If they then load it onto the net and start distributing it via torrent to anyone who wants it then they have stepped over the line.

DMCA specifically includes that, yes. It also prohibits it. The conflict has not yet been addressed in court. The content industry seems very reluctant to push the issue.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The problem is that blaming Calibre is somewhat dishonest.

Publishers may not like calibre because it is a library management tool that does stuff that they do not approve of, but DRM removal is not a part of the package. To my knowledge, calibre's website doesn't even acknowledge the ability to remove DRM with third-party tools and such tools are not listed in calibre's plug-in manager. If anything they go out of their way to suggest ways of buying DRM-free books.

The situation is more analogous to someone connecting two VCRs together to copy videocassettes. It's not part of the integrated functionality of a VCR. The VCR would operate according to its design without adding the second VCR. There are both legitimate and infringing uses in this two VCR scenario (just as there are with DRM removal). Even though it is a possibility, vendor's wouldn't promote or even acknowledge the infringing uses.

The details of how to remove DRM is not relevant to the case. It doesn't matter at all. The issue was Abbey House providing instructions, not the specifics of the instructions.

[Shades]

Originally Posted by taustin

The details of how to remove DRM is not relevant to the case. It doesn't matter at all. The issue was Abbey House providing instructions, not the specifics of the instructions.

But then:

Originally Posted by meeera

I guess I don't see why they have to name any specific software. "People can remove DRM using DRM removal tools and plugins."

They're being very specific when it comes to the tool being used to do so.

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by taustin

DMCA specifically includes that, yes. It also prohibits it. The conflict has not yet been addressed in court. The content industry seems very reluctant to push the issue.

And individual users don't have the money to push the issue in court. And the civil liberties groups with legal defense funds seem more interested in people's rights to do things like speak freely, not get racially profiled, and so on. For some reason, the right to unlock e-books registers pretty low on their radar.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Shades

But then:



They're being very specific when it comes to the tool being used to do so.

And the specifics still don't matter. At all. The specific details are not the subject of the suit. At all. The suit is over providing instructions, and not what the instructions are.

When you obsess over something that doesn't matter, the judge and jury tend to believe it's because you can't answer the actual allegations. And you lose.

Abbey House was smarter than that, and focuses on the real issue. What the instructions are does not matter if giving the instructions is legal. They focused on the real issue, that giving the instructions is legal, and they won.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

And individual users don't have the money to push the issue in court.

Generally speaking, true. But all it takes is one test case financed by the EFF (who are probably on the lookout for just such a test case) or the ACLU (who probably aren't, but you never know), and all of a sudden, there's national publicity over how legal it is.

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

And the civil liberties groups with legal defense funds seem more interested in people's rights to do things like speak freely, not get racially profiled, and so on. For some reason, the right to unlock e-books registers pretty low on their radar.

This is exactly the sort of thing the EFF gets involved in. They haven't in this particular issue because there hasn't been a test case available. There haven't been any lawsuits over consumers exercising their right to shift formats under the DMCA for them to defend against. There's no sign that there ever will be.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by taustin

The details of how to remove DRM is not relevant to the case. It doesn't matter at all. The issue was Abbey House providing instructions, not the specifics of the instructions.

But to us, the details matter -- because Abbey House and others were conflating DeDRM with calibre to a greater extent than is true, which is unfair to Kovid.

We don't have a problem with their instructing customers to remove DRM, but we have a problem with them conflating DeDRM and calibre.

We are not discussing "the case" when we say it is dishonest to conflate the two.

[murg]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Publishers may not like calibre because it is a library management tool that does stuff that they do not approve of, but DRM removal is not a part of the package.

A large number of ebooks that I've purchased from major publishers have been processed in Calibre, by the publisher.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by murg

A large number of ebooks that I've purchased from major publishers have been processed in Calibre, by the publisher.

It seems unlikely the used Alf's plugin to remove DRM, though.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by taustin

It seems unlikely the used Alf's plugin to remove DRM, though.

I imagine murg was just pointing out that Calibre isn't first and foremost a DRM removing tool. Yes, there is a plugin that works with Calibre to do that but generally it's a tool to convert text to different formats as well as to keep an ebook library sorted properly.

[Shades]

Originally Posted by taustin

And the specifics still don't matter. At all. The specific details are not the subject of the suit. At all. The suit is over providing instructions, and not what the instructions are.

When you obsess over something that doesn't matter, the judge and jury tend to believe it's because you can't answer the actual allegations. And you lose.

If they were focusing on the real issue, there was no reason to name Calibre. The fact is, it was named when there was no reason to do so. You saying it doesn't matter means nothing when, for some reason, it did matter to these groups to specifically point out Calibre. They didn't have to, but they did, in a court of law.

Regardless of whether it matters in this case or not, this has the potential to tarnish Calibre's name. It has the potential make Calibre synonymous with DeDRM and illegal activities. That's the point I'm upset with, not the fact it was mentioned. Honestly, attorneys need to do a lot more investigation on the cases they present in court...

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by Shades

If they were focusing on the real issue, there was no reason to name Calibre. The fact is, it was named when there was no reason to do so. You saying it doesn't matter means nothing when, for some reason, it did matter to these groups to specifically point out Calibre. They didn't have to, but they did, in a court of law.

Regardless of whether it matters in this case or not, this has the potential to tarnish Calibre's name. It has the potential make Calibre synonymous with DeDRM and illegal activities. That's the point I'm upset with, not the fact it was mentioned. Honestly, attorneys need to do a lot more investigation on the cases they present in court...

Uh...they posted it on their web site. Bringing up DeDRM in court after that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, because the tool they named on their web site was Calibre.

And you know what? I'd bet you $50 that their not mentioning DeDRM by name didn't keep anyone who wanted to from figuring out how to install it into Calibre and remove their DRM with it anyway. From the standpoint of the bookstore, mentioning it was possible via Calibre gave its customers enough to go on to find out how to do it with Calibre for themselves.

You can complain about Abbey House not using the proper terminology all you like, but their imprecision didn't prevent their customers from figuring out what to do, so it's effectively not important to the matter at hand.

It's like all those grammar nuts who get upset when you split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition. Even if it's incorrect (which is arguable), it doesn't make any difference because they were able to get their meaning across anyway.

I have little doubt that if anyone did try to tell the court about DeDRM, it would have been brushed aside as irrelevant. From the court's standpoint, and the standpoint of the publishers, Abbey House provided its customers with enough information to allow them to figure out how to break the DRM and then do it. The "how" of it isn't important.

[eschwartz]

Again, this is not about "the case" -- this is about 3 different groups conflating calibre + DeDRM in a way that has the potential to tarnish calibre's name.

It has NOTHING to do with the courts, except that that is the background where the event happened.

Too many people here are confusing the issue.

I believe my comments on Teleread pretty much summed up the issue.

eschwartz says:
December 11, 2014 at 11:29 am

Point of order — calibre does not strip DRM.

calibre is a modular program with a plugin structure, and you can install a plugin which eases the process of using outside tools to strip DRM, but that is not “calibre” any more than Adblock Plus and HTTPS Everywhere are “Firefox”.

It appears Abbey House didn’t know the difference, and both EFF and Teleread are taking their word at it?

Chris Meadows says:
December 11, 2014 at 11:51 am

I didn’t really think it was worth quibbling over semantics. Even if a plugin does the actual work, it’s still Calibre that uses the plugin to do it. I’ll wager if you google “remove DRM with Calibre” you’ll find clear instructions on how to do it in the first result. And you can’t use the plugin without Calibre. So if they said enough that people were able to figure out what they meant and do it, why complain they got it wrong?

Spoiler:

Anyway, it’s common usage to say that you’re going to do something with the overall program, rather than with a plugin. If I’m going to watch a movie on my computer, I’ll say “I’m going to watch [movie] in VLC.” I don’t say “I’m going to watch [movie] with the DIVX codec,” though it is, in fact, the codec plugin that does the actual work of translating the movie so VLC knows how to show it. I’ve seen plenty of people talk about “removing DRM with Calibre” and I always knew exactly what they meant.

eschwartz says:
December 11, 2014 at 5:37 pm

Spoiler:

The plugin is just a couple individual tools which are also available standalone, bundled into a handy plugin package which saves you the need to install python, tkinter, and crypto libraries if you already have calibre.

I can unzip the plugin and run the decryption tools using a python shell… or use the copy bundled with a Windows drop target instead of a calibre import statement.

Unlike a codec which is an integral part of VLC and is in fact bundled with VLC, this is far more similar to Firefox, where there are community repositories maintained AND SANCTIONED by Mozilla, while you can also install your own.

Specifically, neither Mozilla nor Kovid Goyal are responsible for third-party, unaffiliated plugins (except if they host them) whereas VideoLAN is responsible for the codecs they distribute with VLC.

There is a reason the DeDRM plugin is absolutely not hosted at http://plugins.calibre-ebook.com and maintained by the plugin updater (and similarly, MobileRead does not allow detailed discussion/howto’s to be hosted on their servers) — so it is doing a disservice to Kovid, I believe, to allow such confusion to be perpetuated.

If it were simply a matter of semantics, I wouldn’t care but allowing calibre to be associated in such a way, with a tool that is still very much in a legally gray zone, *could* have legal repercussions.
It would be far easier for publishers to target “Kovid Goyal, who runs calibre-ebook.com” than to target “apprentice alf, who has a wordpress blog _here_” if they tried to have the tools shut down.)
And Kovid also makes the distinction, so I respect his wishes.
It would be preferable to always make it clear that the tools are a third-party addon, just in case.

Of course, thus far I have been roundly ignored there...

[eschwartz]

More history of the actual issue, perhaps we could get to actually discussing it head-on?:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I would note that the article is factually inaccurate: Calibre does not strip DRM, although plugins which one might choose to install in the program can do so. Those plugins, however, are not a part of Calibre, any more than a Firefox plugin is a part of Firefox.

Originally Posted by curtw

Kovid should turn the tables, and sue Abbey House for defamation.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And you'll notice there too, someone made sure to clarify the matter.

That still doesn't mean anyone should be sued over it, but it never hurts to clarify things. As twowheels said there (and I said on Teleread) we don't want people to get the wrong idea and try to scotch calibre.

It only matters because it is always better to be careful when matters might potentially get legal.

But merely over semantics, that would be a pointless quibble.


FWIW, the MR veterans tend towards the non-sloppy end of things.



A VCR has an intrinsic function to interface with tapes. Similar to the way a computer doesn't mean anything without a hard drive.
And VLC is fundamentally tied to its codecs.

calibre is not intrinsically tied to removing DRM, in fact it operates quite well without DeDRM plugins at all. It is thus factually wrong to say that "calibre" removes DRM, or even that it is part of the process -- any more than Windows was part of the process (assume for the sake of argument an example case of DeDRMing was done on a Windows PC).
Windows was also used as part of the process -- it served as a framework to launch a GUI, which in turn launched calibre, which in turn launched the DeDRM python library.
With a little extra manual labor, you can even remove calibre from the equation.

Again, this is all meaningless semantics, because we don't usually quibble about sloppy shorthand... except in this case, the potential confusion could have negative repercussions if the wrong people get confused. And that is not being fair to Kovid.

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

For all I know, Abbey House might well have intentionally chosen not to be too specific to reduce the chances they could get charged with "trafficking" in DRM anti-circumvention devices. "We just said they could use Calibre. That program doesn't remove DRM by itself..."

Originally Posted by eschwartz

But to us, the details matter -- because Abbey House and others were conflating DeDRM with calibre to a greater extent than is true, which is unfair to Kovid.

We don't have a problem with their instructing customers to remove DRM, but we have a problem with them conflating DeDRM and calibre.

We are not discussing "the case" when we say it is dishonest to conflate the two.

[Robotech_Master]

Begging your pardon, but the "actual issue," as explicated in the very first post in this thread, is

Telling users how to strip the DRM from their legally purchased ebooks is not contributory copyright infringement, according to a ruling last month by a federal judge in New York.

You're the one who wants to take it off into anal-retentive semantic land...