DRM for Public Domain works at B&N

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Requiem

I am not a DRM advocate but as I see it, as long as it is implemented correctly, it is a necessary evil. I for one do not want my prices to go up to keep the company producing said goods in the black, due to prolific pirating of their products.

You haven't looked into this enough. It's the application of DRM that raises prices for you. Publishers have to pay the DRM producers large sums of money to use their schemes and to continue to use their servers.

DRM does not prevent booklegging*. It only costs the publishers money and annoys customers.





*OK, this was a typo for bootlegging. But I liked it so much I left it in.

[PKFFW]

1: From a legal standpoint B&N are not doing anything illegal. Even if there were no new content at all they would still be within their rights to place DRM on any product they sell.

2: As for a "cultural conscience" standpoint, adding DRM to a PD work, published and distributed by a single company, does not in any way "lock up our culture". As has been pointed out(and mostly ignored for some reason) the PD work itself remains free to distribute and free to obtain elsewhere if one so chooses.

3: As for the DRM itself, is a lock a lock if it does not lock? As has been argued by many on here ad nauseum "DRM doesn't work". So is B&N really placing a "lock" on the PD work at all if this lock does not actually lock?(disregarding the fact that they are not locking up the PD work itself anyway but only their published version of it) And if they are not actually locking up their version of this PD work, but only appear to be, then what is really the issue?

Cheers,
PKFFW

[K-Thom]

I don't really understand the fuss about this either. Any online shop that uses DRM on its titles will use this DRM on any PD work. B&N aren't the first ones following this practice, and they won't be the last.

If B&N would buy all exisiting volumes of a PD title, burn them and then offering just a DRM-version as eBook, then indeed one may argue about "locking up anyone's culture".

B&N is hurting both its customers (but nobody forces them to buy from B&N) and the company itself by getting a bad press (which is totally up to them). So really no one is hurt against his or her own will.

It's a free country, after all. Free enough to let anyone choose to use DRM on public domain work ...

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Minor technicality, but there wouldn't be a DA involved. Such a case would fall under civil copyright infringement, not criminal (at least in the US). This would have to be a private suit brought by the plaintiff.

They may still get an odd reaction from the judge, but they wouldn't have to convince a DA to pursue the case.

Actually, for DMCA violations it's the DA -- violations are potentially felonies. The copyright violation would be a civil action.

Xenophon

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Actually, for DMCA violations it's the DA -- violations are potentially felonies. The copyright violation would be a civil action.

Xenophon

That's true. I was thinking along the lines of the copyright violation.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

1: From a legal standpoint B&N are not doing anything illegal. Even if there were no new content at all they would still be within their rights to place DRM on any product they sell.

I don't think anybody is saying it's illegal, they're just saying that it's dumb.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

I don't really understand the fuss about this either. Any online shop that uses DRM on its titles will use this DRM on any PD work. B&N aren't the first ones following this practice, and they won't be the last.

You are correct SONY took it a step farther and put copyright notices on PD books sold. To B&N credit they at least substantialy enhanced their PD books where SONY seemed to just run a script to concert text based books to LRX

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by 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.

So all the books on MB can be copyrighted?

I don't think putting commas or even toc make your work copyrightable. Neither me converting html to epub etc will make it so.

[MaggieScratch]

There is a difference between making editorial changes to a public domain text and proofreading to correct OCR errors.

[Shaggy]

I think there are standards for how significant the amount of material has to be in order to qualify for copyright. I don't know if they are written in black and white anywhere in copyright law, or if it's more of a judgement call by a court. A single word isn't a copyrightable creative work, nor is something like a list of names/instructions, etc.

I would think that correcting errors or minor editing (changing a word here and there) would not constitute a creative work subject to copyright protection. However, writing a multi-page forward or analysis (which sounds like what B&N is doing) should qualify. But the copyright would only cover the added material, they don't gain copyright protection for the entire public domain work.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I don't think anybody is saying it's illegal, they're just saying that it's dumb.

Agreed. I was merely listing the points I wanted to make.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

It's not like B&N putting DRM on a public domain book in any way, shape or form stops people from getting PD books from any other source. So, I really fail to see the problem here.

The problem is that publishers and retailers are using DRM to eliminate fair use, not only of works in copyright, but works out of copyright.

What is happening here is that the benefits of copyright to the public, which are the rationale for the grant of copyright ownership rights in the first place, are being denied by the very people who are being granted rights in order that the public can obtain those benefits.

If we had a Congress that represented the interests of the country, rather than one that seems to exist for the sole purpose of enriching special interests and expanding government control into every nook and cranny of our lives, this situation would be changed.

But we don't, and it won't.

[Harmon]

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. 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...

§ 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures.—
(1) (A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
(underline added)

§ 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (omitting listing)

Taken together, it seems clear the the DMCA only protects work in copyright. So if B&N merely goes over to Project Gutenberg, downloads Pride & Prejudice, wraps it in DRM and sells it for a buck, defeating the DRM on that specific book is probably not a violation.

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

Doubtful, but possible. See above. The problem might be that the same DRM also protects other works which are actually still in copyright, so that the particular status of the work on which the DRM is being defeated might not make a difference.

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...

That's the real problem. B&N is asserting, through DRM, a greater right than the public effectively has. No member of the public has the right to appropriate to himself public domain material without using it in a way that itself is copyrightable.

DRM protection should be limited to copyrightable material. It should be illegal to apply DRM to material which is out of copyright, or to use DRM in a fashion that defeats fair use.

But because those things aren't illegal, publishers and retailers are in the process of repealing the benefits of the copyright scheme for the public. It's only public spirited people like those at Project Gutenberg who are doing anything to insure the continued existence of material which is out of copyright, in a fashion that permits the public benefit entailed in the copyright scheme.

What is going on, in my view, is the effective theft of the fair use and public domain rights of the public by the publishers. Whether or not DRM is actually a benefit to publishers is debatable, but it seems clear that the current practice is for practical purposes a diminishing of the public's rights.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Actually, for DMCA violations it's the DA -- violations are potentially felonies. The copyright violation would be a civil action.

DMCA violations can be civil as well as criminal:

§ 1203. Civil remedies
(a) Civil Actions.— Any person injured by a violation of section 1201 or 1202 may bring a civil action in an appropriate United States district court for such violation.

[doreenjoy]

there is such a huge anti DRM bias on this forum that there isn't even room for moderate viewpoints.