Scrambling copyright ebooks to help troubleshoot problems ???

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Technically, I'm pretty sure that this would still be copyright infringement. You'd be creating what copyright law calls a "derived work" - ie you're creating a new work from the copyrighted original - and you require the permission of the copyright holder to do that. The fact that it's not readable doesn't change that.

In which case it's time to stop any further work. Thanks to all who offered opinions

In the interests of consistency, I have to ask, if this is the Moderator official stance, why has the Borkify Sigil plugin (as linked by patrik in post #12) been available for download since July?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

In which case it's time to stop any further work. Thanks to all who offered opinions

In the interests of consistency, I have to ask, if this is the Moderator official stance, why has the Borkify Sigil plugin (as linked by patrik in post #12) been available for download since July?

This isn't by any means an official moderator stance; it's my personal opinion. It seems pretty clear to me that the output from an algorithmic transformation of a copyrighted work must itself be subject to copyright. It is the ultimate "derived work".

Speaking with my moderator's hat on, for a moment, there's no problem whatsoever with creating, linking to, or downloading such plug-ins. I would, however, be cautious about publicly posting the output from them.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Speaking with my moderator's hat on, for a moment, there's no problem whatsoever with creating, linking to, or downloading such plug-ins. I would, however, be cautious about publicly posting the output from them.

OK, fair enough.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

In which case it's time to stop any further work. Thanks to all who offered opinions

In the interests of consistency, I have to ask, if this is the Moderator official stance, why has the Borkify Sigil plugin (as linked by patrik in post #12) been available for download since July?

I don't think the actual plugin would be a problem. Posting the books generated by it could be. And the use case the author of Borkify gave was different. That was to generate a sample to send back to the author of the book to demonstrate what the book could look like.

But, yes, if the scrambled books can't be posted, this isn't going to be much help.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I don't think the actual plugin would be a problem. Posting the books generated by it could be.

Yes, precisely that. I wasn't suggesting for a moment that the plug-in itself would be a problem. Apologies if that was unclear in my earlier reply.

[pdurrant]

I must respectfully disagree with HarryT here. When all the text in a book has been replaced by random letters, there is no copyrightable material left.

When no copyright material remains (and the letters that remain were determined by random choice, not derived from the original material) I fail to see how it could be considered a derived work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I must respectfully disagree with HarryT here. When all the text in a book has been replaced by random letters, there is no copyrightable material left.

When no copyright material remains (and the letters that remain were determined by random choice, not derived from the original material) I fail to see how it could be considered a derived work.

Well, I did say that it was just a personal opinion . To my mind, if you use an algorithm to create a new work from an old one, then by definition the new work has been derived from the old one, regardless of whether or not the new one is readable.

But at the end of the day, this is probably one of those things that only a judge could make a decision on, and I personally wouldn't take the chance. But that's just me .

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well, I did say that it was just a personal opinion . To my mind, if you use an algorithm to create a new work from an old one, then by definition the new work has been derived from the old one, regardless of whether or not the new one is readable.

But at the end of the day, this is probably one of those things that only a judge could make a decision on, and I personally wouldn't take the chance. But that's just me .

I know I'm not a mod, but in my opinion, if you can not determine what book the original was, then it would not be possible to be violating copyright. (unless we're talking about copyrighting the format of the book?)

For this reason, I would say that the TOC, as well as all images and headings would need to be scrambled as well.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

For this reason, I would say that the TOC, as well as all images and headings would need to be scrambled as well.

I agree that that would certainly be a lot better.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I must respectfully disagree with HarryT here. When all the text in a book has been replaced by random letters, there is no copyrightable material left.

When no copyright material remains (and the letters that remain were determined by random choice, not derived from the original material) I fail to see how it could be considered a derived work.

Is it possible to get a definitive MR stance? The only point in continuing work is if it is "MR-acceptable" to post the resulting scrambled ebook.

If it is OK to proceed in principle I think we would need a definite yes/no about:
- Cover image
- TOC entry text
- metadata in the OPF file (author, title, identifier, subject, description, publisher plus any calibre specifics)

All of the above probably exist in free samples but if they were all scrambled - in addition to the normal text content - it's not immediately obviously how anyone could identify the book or what it's about. But that's a practical opinion not a legal one.

[eschwartz]

I don't see why there should be a problem.

I think HarryT's claim that it could "technically" be considered a derived work is rather farfetched, perhaps a textbook example of a law being interpreted in a truly ludicrously literal manner.

Well, "technically"...

I would be willing to bet (a lot) that any judge, ANY, would simply laugh such a case out of court.

Prosecutor: "Your honor, the accused stands charged of creating a derived work by substituting every letter in this book with a different random letter."

Judge: "WTF? "

Prosecutor: "The letter count of the defendant's book is clearly derived from my client's book. I think this is a serious problem, don't you?"

Judge: "Get out of my court before I beat you over the head with a clue-by-four."

[eschwartz]

Failing that, if one can post the first chapter as a sample for testing purposes, which is commonly done here, and apparently this is considered "fair use", then this plugin is far, far, far, far more "fair use" than that, and should surely be OK.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Is it possible to get a definitive MR stance? The only point in continuing work is if it is "MR-acceptable" to post the resulting scrambled ebook.

If it is OK to proceed in principle I think we would need a definite yes/no about:
- Cover image
- TOC entry text
- metadata in the OPF file (author, title, identifier, subject, description, publisher plus any calibre specifics)

All of the above probably exist in free samples but if they were all scrambled - in addition to the normal text content - it's not immediately obviously how anyone could identify the book or what it's about. But that's a practical opinion not a legal one.

I don't think metadata is copyrighted.
Especially all the metadata in my library, most of which is no longer the metadata that came with the book anyway...

Cove image is part of the metadata. Also, ^^


The ToC is on public record, if you care to look it up.




Obviously, that is only my opinion.
But it would be good sense for the Admin board to agree with me.

[meeera]

I am not a lawyer in any country.

My understanding is that derivative works include some protected elements of the original work. I think it would be difficult to argue that this scrambled version does, unless - and this could be a serious consideration, I'm not sure - the markup & CSS might constitute protected work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

I am not a lawyer in any country.

My understanding is that derivative works include some protected elements of the original work. I think it would be difficult to argue that this scrambled version does, unless - and this could be a serious consideration, I'm not sure - the markup & CSS might constitute protected work.

The question of whether an XML schema constitutes a computer program (in which case it would be protected by copyright) or a computer language (in which case it wouldn't be) is one which has, to the best of my knowledge, not yet been determined in law.