Adobe ePub DRM cracked?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Keep cracking DRM and keep flighting to get poor laws like these out of the books. That's just my 2 cents.

With all due respect, I think the best way to "fight" DRM is not to buy from those publishers who use it. Buy books from those publishers "enlightened" enough to sell DRM-free material. Buying DRM-protected books and then removing the DRM sends entirely the wrong "message" to the publisher.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

That's just tap-dancing around the real issue. I don't need or use the read-aloud feature. So by the logic of DMCA, I should not be allowed to crack any DRM. Wrong! I bought the danged book and I'll darned well read it on any danged device I own!

Derek

The exception does not state that you actually need to use the read-aloud feature. It just says that it is legal to strip the DRM so the read-aloud works.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So YOU claim. Can you refer us to a court decision which supports this viewpoint?

A law does not have to be decided in a court to be a law.

The disabled access to ebooks exception: Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book's read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

[JSWolf]

Can we GET BACK ON TOPIC PLEASE?

[kacir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes you can. People in the UK get prosecuted for (for example) going to Thailand and having underage sex with children, even though that is not llegal in Thailand but is illegal in the UK.

This is different. Very different.

Imagine.
You meet one of your female friends in London.
During a warm welcome you kiss her on cheek. She is married, but nobody, including her husband, can see anything wrong with your pecking her cheek and her hugging you "Harry! I haven't seen you in AGES."

Next week you go for a business trip to Iran. Upon arrival you are arrested and sentenced to a public lashing for kissing a married woman [who is not your sister, mother or daughter] on the street.

[HarryT]

You've said it yourself, Jon; "disabled access to eBooks". Clearly if one is NOT disabled, that exemption does NOT apply.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With all due respect, I think the best way to "fight" DRM is not to buy from those publishers who use it. Buy books from those publishers "enlightened" enough to sell DRM-free material. Buying DRM-protected books and then removing the DRM sends entirely the wrong "message" to the publisher.

What do when what we want to read is only available in eBook format and has DRM?

The reason for stripping DRM is so we can use what we paid for when we want.

Using Calibre, I can take an ePub that I've stripped the DRM from and convert it to LRF, LIT, and/or Mobipocket. This means that my investment can have a life beyond the initial read. PLus, if the ePub's content is not available in a format that my device can handle, I can still have access to the content. What it is is a win-win situation. The publisher makes money. The author(s) make money, and I get to read what I want.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You've said it yourself, Jon; "disabled access to eBooks". Clearly if one is NOT disabled, that exemption does NOT apply.

Nothing I have read actually says you have to be disabled to strip out the DRM so the read-aloud works

[HarryT]

Is it not clearly implied by the name "disabled access to eBooks"? You may speculate that you're allowed to do it, but the simple fact is that nobody will know until a test case goes to court. I think, though, that it's unwise to state as a "fact" that it is permitted, because you cannot know that for certain. You think it's allowed; I think it's not allowed; neither of us knows for sure.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is it not clearly implied by the name "disabled access to eBooks"? You may speculate that you're allowed to do it, but the simple fact is that nobody will know until a test case goes to court. I think, though, that it's unwise to state as a "fact" that it is permitted, because you cannot know that for certain. You think it's allowed; I think it's not allowed; neither of us knows for sure.

So Harry, if I were disabled (bound to a wheelchair but with perfectly good eyesight, 20-20) I could strip the DRM leagally, in your opinion?

[HarryT]

I'll leave that one for you to figure out, Slayda .

Common sense (and I know that "law" and "common sense" don't always coincide) would suggest that it's aimed at blind people, don't you think?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Common sense (and I know that "law" and "common sense" don't always coincide) would suggest that it's aimed at blind people, don't you think?

They nearly never coincide. Common sense also says that there is a big problem defining what disabled means so a common sense solution is to make the exception hold for all people.

I have also read someplace that this exception is not restricted to disabled. And reading the text of the the exception I do not see any claim that its is only applicable to disabled

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

<sigh>

Please read the post that I was replying to before you start calling people names. The poster claimed "you can't be guilty of a crime if you're outside the juresdiction of the law". I was providing a counter-example to this statement, NOT saying that the two crimes were the same.

I suspect that if a US or UK citizen moved to a country where sex with young teens was not illegal, the US/UK gov't would not attempt to prosecute that person. It's only on return that it's done. Or on attempting to leave--because in many countries, it's illegal to act with intent to break some laws, even if the intent is to go somewhere that it's not illegal.

Conspiracy is still a crime, even if the intended crime conspired about doesn't occur. In the US, crossing state lines with intent to commit a crime is illegal... leaving the States entirely involves crossing state lines. *That* could be prosecuted, even if the actions committed in another country cannot.

Also, there's a BIG difference between "citizen of Country A goes to Country B to do something that's illegal in Country A but not B," and "Citizen of Country B does something that's entirely legal where he lives... and Country A prosecutes him and finds him guilty."

We do not prosecute Japanese and Italian citizens for underage drinking, nor do we prosecute their adults for giving wine to children. Not even when they come here for vacation.

[doctorow]

When I asked what would happen to me if I got caught stripping DRM from an e-book for my own use, I meant that in the most practical terms.

Again, I was asking: what would happen to me?

Can we agree that there is not a single known case of a person who has been held responsible for stripping DRM from a legally purchased e-book for personal use? And if that is so, how dare we compare it to such atrocities as child abuse, where the consequence of getting caught should be clear to every sane person? Why fuss so vehemently over a law that, for our purposes, has not even been tested in court?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is it not clearly implied by the name "disabled access to eBooks"? You may speculate that you're allowed to do it, but the simple fact is that nobody will know until a test case goes to court. I think, though, that it's unwise to state as a "fact" that it is permitted, because you cannot know that for certain. You think it's allowed; I think it's not allowed; neither of us knows for sure.

The Sony vs Universal case, a.k.a. "the Betamax case" ruled that potentially copyright-infringing tech is legal if it as substantial non-infringing use. In the case of "read aloud" functions, making books accessible to the blind is non-infringing; that makes the technology to read them aloud, and to break anti-readaloud DRM, legal.

In order to prosecute for copyright infringement, the IP owner would have to move against the individual end user, claiming s/he made an illegal copy. Since format shifting for personal use is legal in the US (that was the non-infringing point of the Betamax case: you can timeshift TV shows to watch them later, & format shift them to your own device), there's no infringement.

Both the DRM-breaking tech, and the act of breaking that kind of DRM, are legal. (IMHO. IANAL.)