DRM for Public Domain works at B&N

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

If you will remember the GPL also allows such redistibution and selling of individual distros of Linux for example. What is the great difference here? Why is that ok and it isn't to repackage a PD (which is related, if not in the same ballpark) and sell for a profit?

Uh, because Linux is not in the public domain? Was that a trick question?

Linux is copyrighted. What the GPL does is grant a distribution license to anybody that is willing to agree to the terms it spells out. You don't need a distribution license for PD material. They're completely different situations.

BTW, most of the time you are not paying for a Linux distribution, you are paying for a support service contract that goes along with it. Charging for the distribution itself would be silly because anybody who bought it from you can turn around and give it away for free. The same is true for PD material. Sure, you can sell it. But anyone who buys it from you can turn around and give it away.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

Now without DRM say that rate would be much higher, say now they only prevented 50% of people from pirating THEIR part of the work.

We're still talking about public domain material, right? There's no such thing as "piracy" of public domain works.

Yes, a company is free to sell PD material if they want to. But there is nothing to stop someone from redistributing that material. That's not "piracy" because the material is not copyrighted.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

The article doesn't mention this, so I have no idea whether or not there is any "new material" in the public domain books that they are talking about.

Yes, there's new material. They added things like introductions, notes, chronologies, question sections in 03/04. They also indicate the original publication dates of the PD material.

The essay for Pride and Prejudice is 70+ pages long, for example. Well, 70 pages as the B&N app paginates.

Since there is new content -- a substantial amount in some cases -- it at least makes sense to put a copyright on those sections. Whether adding DRM is stupid, well, that's a matter of opinion. And I have it on good authority that the only determining factor in one's opinion is whether or not you were born in Europe, which apparently automatically makes you a socialist.

Anyway... It appears that the initial PR flack's / official B&N response actually makes sense, since there is new copyrighted material that the company has chosen to protect. (Of course there may well be other PD books without new content that also get slapped with DRM, so who knows what explanation they'd have for that instance.) At any rate, I feel quite comfortable saying that B&N is not in any way violating the spirit or the letter of the laws relating to usage of materials in the public domain, even by adding DRM.

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

We're still talking about public domain material, right? There's no such thing as "piracy" of public domain works.

Yes, a company is free to sell PD material if they want to. But there is nothing to stop someone from redistributing that material. That's not "piracy" because the material is not copyrighted.

You are misreading what I wrote. I said THEIR work ON the PD material. Which includes any new material and the production cost of producing the work.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Yes, there's new material. They added things like introductions, notes, chronologies, question sections in 03/04. They also indicate the original publication dates of the PD material.

The essay for Pride and Prejudice is 70+ pages long, for example. Well, 70 pages as the B&N app paginates.

I wonder if there could be an effective argument for circumventing the DRM, and not violating the DMCA, on the grounds that you received "Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen," a book known to be in the public domain and therefore not covered by the DMCA, which only deals with copyrighted works.

If the publisher threw in a bunch of new, copyrighted material, it might be their job to indicate that in the book title somewhere.

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

We're still talking about public domain material, right? There's no such thing as "piracy" of public domain works.

Yes, a company is free to sell PD material if they want to. But there is nothing to stop someone from redistributing that material. That's not "piracy" because the material is not copyrighted.

Ok I guess I need to explain that the capitalization is an emphasis. It is about the work put into it by B&N, hence the capitalized THEIR. And redistributing that IS piracy.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I wonder if there could be an effective argument for circumventing the DRM... (etc)

I seriously doubt it. Why would you need to do so in the first place? The books are in public domain, and a snap to get it in non-DRM ePub or well over a dozen formats. That alone would, from what I can tell, undermine any possible fair use claim.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If the publisher threw in a bunch of new, copyrighted material, it might be their job to indicate that in the book title somewhere.

The original publication date and copyrights for the new material are all on the copyright page. That's pretty much all that's required afaik.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

You are misreading what I wrote. I said THEIR work ON the PD material. Which includes any new material and the production cost of producing the work.

You can't copyright production costs. As far as new original material, yes, I did miss that in your previous post. That's why I asked if we were still talking about PD content, or something else.

[sircastor]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

But DRM on a public domain work is NOT a copyright protection scheme. I don't think the DMCA would apply.

This is a simple legal technicality, but the DMCA does not specify the nature of the material that is being protected, only the protection scheme. I wonder if you are allowed to break a protection scheme which (as a member of the public) you have some ownership of the content therein...

I suspect, regardless of the content, someone could effectively prosecute you in court for breaking their protection scheme, on that virtue alone.

Furthermore, being in the public domain, I don't think B&N has any responsibility to ensure your ability to copy/move/distribute the material (as with GPL.) If that's the case, then why get up in arms about it? They have as much right as we do to mess around with it...

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Yes, there's new material. They added things like introductions, notes, chronologies, question sections in 03/04. They also indicate the original publication dates of the PD material.

That obviously completely changes things. The article did a very poor job of explaining that.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

Ok I guess I need to explain that the capitalization is an emphasis. It is about the work put into it by B&N, hence the capitalized THEIR. And redistributing that IS piracy.

Depends on how you define "the work put into it by B&N". My impression of your previous post was that you were referring to things like formatting/distributing. Those things are not copyrightable in the US, so there is no such thing as "pirating" such an eBook. Yes, they cost the company money, but that's a risk they accept when they are deciding whether or not there is a business case for selling PD material. Just because a company spends money to format and distribute something doesn't mean that they have any protection in the law. Copyright doesn't cover the cost of doing business, it covers new original artistic works.

If you are talking about new artistic material added to the original content, then yes, that new material would be copyrighted and protected. I didn't think that's what you meant though.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by sircastor

This is a simple legal technicality, but the DMCA does not specify the nature of the material that is being protected, only the protection scheme.

Actually, it does. It specifically says that it provides protection for copyrighted works.

"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

This title = US title 17, which is copyright law.

[MaggieScratch]

In some cases, public domain works are changed slightly for a particular edition. For instance, there is always a big wrangle over Jane Austen texts because various editions introduced what might be errors and might have been intentional changes and modern editors will attempt to "fix" them. You would not believe the arguments and discussions over the placement of a comma. However, such text fixups are part of the editorial process when an academic edits a text, not only writing notes and forwards. In such a case, the text is indeed copyrightable.

Some editions of Pride and Prejudice have a fairly large error that keeps being reproduced. In Vol. III, Ch. XV, a famous quote is changed: "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" is changed to "For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" It's one word, but changes the whole meaning of the sentence (and makes it illogical, in my view). A reader of my blog first noticed it, and I wrote about it on the blog, and various readers pulled out their editions and found it reproduced in several other editions. But that's why it is sometimes valuable to re-edit public domain texts--and make them copyrightable.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by sircastor

This is a simple legal technicality, but the DMCA does not specify the nature of the material that is being protected,

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act only applies to copyrighted material.

Furthermore, being in the public domain, I don't think B&N has any responsibility to ensure your ability to copy/move/distribute the material (as with GPL.) If that's the case, then why get up in arms about it? They have as much right as we do to mess around with it...

They don't have a requirement to provide editable, transferable, convertable versions. The receivers also don't have any obligation to accept restrictions on their use of the PD material.

Originally Posted by kali yuga

The original publication date and copyrights for the new material are all on the copyright page. That's pretty much all that's required afaik.

If that copyright page says something like,

"Copyright © 2007 by [Barnes & Noble]. All rights reserved.
No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owner."

...it may be fraudulent. Claiming "no part of this book may be reproduced" when the vast majority of it is in the public domain is lying to the customers, attempting to convince them they have to ask or pay for rights they freely have by law.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

But that's why it is sometimes valuable to re-edit public domain texts--and make them copyrightable.

Copy editing a public domain title does not result in a copyrightable work.

Fixing up a word or two, or adding or removing a comma or two (or even 50 or 1000) does not add enough original material or originality to change the work's status.

If you believe it does, please point out some case law.