ePub gets (yet) another DRM system

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by EndStop

Ok. Confession. I didn't know Kindle was part of Amazon. Feel free to mock with the condition that I can mock with what I know n you don't. Like...um well maybe I will think of sommat.

Fair enough (and no mockery from me). That's why I asked what your post meant. I suspected from your wording that you didn't know the "lay of the land" RE Kindle and Amazon.

[EndStop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

What about legally purchased and sideloaded books? Purchased elsewhere, I mean.

Well as long as we are remaining in the fantasy land where I can predict the future it goes like this....

You buy your new super duper Kindle for its amazing introductory price. On startup it insists on you loading information about yourself. All your old books load no problems. You open a side loaded book and it reads good. bout 2/3 way through it recognises the book as one it has a protection deal with the publisher. At that point it checks for a licence number in the books header and compares with the data you loaded. If they don't match it asks for proof of purchase.

Oh. And your kindle will insist on calling home on the net every time it can and will do something horrid if there are too many kindle devices with the same personal data or the headers are faked.

Nothing really amazing bout this. It's the same tricks used to protect software. The only difference is software can be protected on any device as long as it insists on calling home to function. An ebook can only be protected on a device with protection built in.

[DiapDealer]

But in this future fantasy, someone needs to convince Amazon that turning into the internet police will be good for their business.

And for what it's worth: all registered Kindles have "phoned home" all along with no disastrous results (disregarding the one-off 1984 snafu).

It's simply not in Amazon's/Kindle's best interest to hassle users about what goes on their devices. It's in their best interest to sell them books (DRMed if the publishers so request) they can read on a plethora of devices.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's simply not in Amazon's/Kindle's best interest to hassle users about what goes on their devices. It's in their best interest to sell them books (DRMed if the publishers so request) they can read on a plethora of devices.

I don't think that Amazon management currently believes that selling e-books without DRM is in their best interest, despite what some publishers may want. I believe that a gradual lock-down is in progress.

These days almost all Kindle books sold by Amazon are delivered to apps and devices in KFX format. KFX always has DRM encryption applied, even when the same book delivered in another format would not have DRM. Amazon is being aggressive with KFX DRM, currently rolling out a new DRM scheme since the original one was cracked earlier this year.

Owners of e-ink Kindle devices currently have an easy way to bypass KFX by downloading directly from Amazon, but there is no guarantee that will continue to be the case for newer Kindles. In other cases KFX is avoidable using hacks, but those are not sanctioned by Amazon and may also be removed in the future.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I don't think that Amazon management currently believes that selling e-books without DRM is in their best interest, despite what some publishers may want. I believe that a gradual lock-down is in progress.

I concede the point--on ebooks sold by Amazon. But I think my point still stands: Amazon is never going to feel overly compelled to check the content, or the provenance of, sideloaded drm-free content by users. Nothing I've seen from them indicates to me that they have any interest whatsoever in becoming an internet content police force.

They've had the access and the technology to detect Amazon content that has had their DRM removed from it since the very beginning (except for those people who've taken extra steps to obfuscate any metadata identifiers). They're interested in keeping their garden wall high enough (and their garden attractive enough) that most people don't try to leave. They're not interested in pursuing--let alone punishing--the trivial number of people who hop their wall. It's not in their best interest.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

But I think my point still stands: Amazon is never going to feel overly compelled to check the content, or the provenance of, sideloaded drm-free content by users.

We are in agreement on that too.

[EndStop]

If Amazon ever does feel compelled the compulsion will be economic or legal. They won't be compelled by principles.

They are certainly capable of surveying Kindle devices via phone-home and estimating the loss of revenue. Not sure how much it effects books but I am quite convinced the failure of DRM has had significant affect on the music industry so could be ebooks too.

I am by no means arguing that they will. Only that they could....and other devices like laptops could not.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by EndStop

If Amazon ever does feel compelled the compulsion will be economic or legal. They won't be compelled by principles.

They are certainly capable of surveying Kindle devices via phone-home and estimating the loss of revenue. Not sure how much it effects books but I am quite convinced the failure of DRM has had significant affect on the music industry so could be ebooks too.

I am by no means arguing that they will. Only that they could....and other devices like laptops could not.

Hmmm...why couldn't a laptop do this as well? Any device that connects to the Internet could do this. If your argument is going to be that you don't have to connect your laptop to the internet, then I will counter that with the fact that you don't have to connect your e-reader to the Internet, either.

Shari

[EndStop]

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...why couldn't a laptop do this as well? Any device that connects to the Internet could do this. If your argument is going to be that you don't have to connect your laptop to the internet, then I will counter that with the fact that you don't have to connect your e-reader to the Internet, either.

Shari

Well a decent attempt would be to create an encripted book that can only be read by a licenced reader program that checks the books licence via phone home to get the encryption key. So you can, say, read your book on a laptop but only with a kindle reader utility.

However....

Nobody controls what programs, or indeed what drivers, a user chooses to install on a laptop. Once a legal copy of an Ebook is on a laptop it can be read. The ouput of the reader goes to a video driver and that driver is not protected. If no easier method is found then an altered video driver can pass the output to another program which can write a DRM free copy of the book. That DRM free copy can be released to the net. So in principle, all the DRM ensures is the payment of a single licence.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by EndStop

Well a decent attempt would be to create an encripted book that can only be read by a licenced reader program that checks the books licence via phone home to get the encryption key. So you can, say, read your book on a laptop but only with a kindle reader utility.

However....

Nobody controls what programs, or indeed what drivers, a user chooses to install on a laptop. Once a legal copy of an Ebook is on a laptop it can be read. The ouput of the reader goes to a video driver and that driver is not protected. If no easier method is found then an altered video driver can pass the output to another program which can write a DRM free copy of the book. That DRM free copy can be released to the net. So in principle, all the DRM ensures is the payment of a single licence.

One of the main reasons that DRM is pointless is you always have what use to be called the analog hole in music. That's why music has been sold DRM free on iTunes since 2007, over a decade. As long as people can scan paper books, DRM for electronic books is rather pointless, especially as scanning technology gets better and better. I can remember when Harry Potter 7 hit the darknet before it hit the bookstores. Even if they slap on an unbeatable DRM on all ebooks, you will just see a return of most books showing up in a scanned form on the darknet, but I really doubt we will see that. It's a lot more likely that DRM will eventually go away.

DRM is for the most part a publisher decision. I doubt Amazon cares all that much as long as you buy the books from them. The vast majority of ebook buyers are fine with the walled garden of Kindle, Books and Kubo. I suspect that Nook buyers might not be real happy when B&N finally shuts down the Nook.

TOR went DRM free back in 2012. That's 6 years of data. Given TOR hasn't slapped DRM back on, I suspect that they aren't seeing a significant loss of sales to piracy. Indeed they say they haven't. Baen, of course, has always been DRM free.

[bgalbrecht]

A decade or more ago, there used to be at least one usenet feed where people posted ebook versions scanned from paper. I looked at a few, they usually were pretty bad, scanned but poorly proofread. After the publishers finally gave up and started selling ebooks of all of their catalog, I think the feeds morphed into ebooks from cracked DRM. If the publishers were to switch to a DRM system that is much harder to crack, I suspect that most DRM breakers would switch to whatever retailer(s) sell versions that are still breakable and they would not go back to scanning.

It would take a long time to switch. Amazon, B&N and Kobo probably sell a lot of their ebooks to consumers with ereaders that they don't sell anymore, and switching to a DRM still that those ereaders can't read would cause a lot of bad press and unhappy customers who might chose to buy a reader from a different walled garden instead of upgrading.

Macmillan and Baen aren't the only ones to go DRM-free. Simon & Schuster's Saga SF line did too. Macmillan seems to be more concerned about libraries, they added a 6 month window between publication date and ebooks available from libraries.

I think that if B&N gives up on the Nook, they'll do what Sony did, and sell the customer base to Kobo. Even if Kobo only gives them a pittance, it's better than shutting down without anything to show for it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I can remember when Harry Potter 7 hit the darknet before it hit the bookstores.

I seem to remember the person who used his Canon DSLR to take the pictures of every page in Harry Potter 7 got caught because he didn't strip the EXIF information so his camera serial number was exposed to everyone.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by EndStop

I am talking about firmware in the kindle that will detect copyright material and react. You could load a pirated copy but it will just do a text compare with samples from a large selection of Amazon's better sellers. The processing power and storage involved is feasible.

The sting would be to not simply deny access to a pirated book but to do it in the most irritating way possible. I have heard of ideas for slowly removing features from pirated games on the same principle.

That would require always-on connectivity and at the very least inspire privacy concerns (of course, if you were privacy conscious, you wouldn't be using a Kindle anyway), impact battery life and system responsiveness.

People would just load alternative firmware or buy different devices. The majority of my devices are format agnostic.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by EndStop

Nothing really amazing bout this. It's the same tricks used to protect software. The only difference is software can be protected on any device as long as it insists on calling home to function. An ebook can only be protected on a device with protection built in.

Why would I buy such a device? I would sooner buy a Chinese device with no DRM at all.

Also, should note that the same tricks used to protect software fail the same ways. Once I have the device, I *have* the device. If I can't root it, why bother buying it?

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I seem to remember the person who used his Canon DSLR to take the pictures of every page in Harry Potter 7 got caught because he didn't strip the EXIF information so his camera serial number was exposed to everyone.

Most people who are inclined towards that sort of thing are pretty hip to that EXIF data trick. It's fairly easy to remove but you do have to be aware of it.
Of course, metatdata has been tripping noobs up since the Microsoft word days when they embedded a unique id in word docs.