Fair Use?

[Freeshadow]

those "pirates" are like Linux tinkerers

Thanks for the insult Krystian, - since I bought my linux running games (or traded them)
and mark that i did it in advance before using...

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

those "pirates" are like Linux tinkerers

Yes, they are. And guess who many of the major contributors to Linux are? Tech companies.

Tech Companies are getting really tired of Big Media's attitude towards copyright.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Thanks for the insult Krystian, - since I bought my linux running games (or traded them)
and mark that i did it in advance before using...

Well, I'm sorry you took this description as an insult. I guess whatever one says, someone will be insulted eventually...

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Yes, they are. And guess who many of the major contributors to Linux are? Tech companies.

Tech Companies are getting really tired of Big Media's attitude towards copyright.

I hope something good comes out of it. Eventually new generation of people will probably think more and more like Tech Companies today than like Big Media, but some people's minds won't budge. It'll advance one funeral at a time.

[DawnFalcon]

And I'll be dancing on EMI's grave, believe me.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

You need to go back and re-read the law (DMCA) again. It does criminalize the act of removing digital locks in the US.

Are you a US lawyer? I am, and I've read the DMCA. Yeah, yeah, it's the argument from authority, but unless you know how to read a statute, it is easy to misunderstand what it really says - or doesn't say. The DMCA doesn't criminalize the act of removing digital locks on files which the person doing the removing owns. If I am in legal possession of a locked file, I can unlock it, scramble it, serve it up on Toast, whatever I want to do, except distribute it.

What the DMCA criminalizes is selling or distributing the tools which can be used to remove the locks. And IIRC (it's been some time since I went to the trouble of analyzing it) it also criminalizes unlocking a file & distributing it to others for commercial purposes. Anyway, if I can get someone to sell/give me the tools, they might be in trouble, but I'm not, except on some attenuated conspiracy theory which no prosecutor in his right mind would take to a jury. And if I'm knowledgeable enough to whip up the right tools by myself, I'm home, totally free. I can take the Amazon file, unlock it, reformat it to epub, move it to my Sony, and wave it under Jeff Bezos' nose. He'll just have to live with it.

If you think otherwise, please post the provisions of the DCMA that you think say so.

(My analogy to Prohibition is not just for fun. It's really quite interesting, at least to a lawyer, to find that the DMCA is constructed in the same fashion as the Volstead Act.)

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by captcrouton

Ok, here's my (possibly incorrect) perspective on the matter.

When I buy a Kindle book, they're not selling me the book (according to their terms), their selling me the rights to read the book. The download is not the book, per se. I disagree in principle, but it is something I've agreed with upon ordering and I've never violated. Call me a sucker if you like.

I haven't read their license. And I'm not going to. But I will tell you, as a lawyer, that just because Amazon CLAIMS that it's not selling you the book doesn't mean that it is right about that. When a seller is in a powerful position as compared to a buyer, it doesn't get to set the rules. A judge will look at the contract, and the circumstances surrounding the contract, and the JUDGE will decide what, if anything, has been sold.

So, what will the judge see? He will see that you clicked a button that said "buy" on it, that your credit card was charged, that a file was downloaded to your Kindle or computer. It sure looks like Amazon sold you something.

And then he will see is that Amazon does not require you to give them the file back when you are through reading it. He will also see that the file does not self-destruct after X number of days, or after it has been read, once, twice or a thousand times. He will see that you can keep it forever (once you get it off your Kindle so Amazon can't unilaterally grab it back. And he will see that you don't have to leave it on your Kindle, but rather, you can move it to your computer.

At that point, he will look at Amazon and say, "what do you have to show that you didn't sell this guy the book?" And Amazon will say, "well, we have this here "agreement" and a bunch of words saying we aren't selling the book."

And then the judge will tell them their "agreement" is not an agreement, but what is called, in legal terms, a "contract of adhesion." Judges don't like enforcing those kind of "agreements" because there really isn't an agreement.

It's pretty clear to me that the judge will decide that Amazon sold you the book.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a very nice idea in theory, but if the "only pay if you liked it" business model actually worked as well as the "pay in advance" model, don't you think we'd have cinemas where you made a donation on leaving if you liked the film, or supermarkets where you only gave whatever you felt that the food was worth?

The problem is that digitalizing books changes everything. Copyright laws worked when they are applied to the non-digital reproduction of books. It is a way to incentivize the writing and publication of books, when the actual process of publishing was restrained by physicality.

But when physicality no longer exists, it can't support copyright. The digital world is a vast copy machine, so that the world is turned upside down, from a "hard to copy things" place to an "easy to copy things" place.

I think that the argument against copyright is simply that it is outmoded, sort of like old time traffic laws. In some places, a hundred years ago, the the traffic law required a driver to stop at every intersection, get out of the car, go into the intersection and make sure it was safe to cross, and that there were no horses to scare.

I think that there is going to be a new commercial structure for ebooks. But don't ask me what it will be. Right now, we are just seeing the destruction of the old one.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One could argue the opposite; that artistic work created for intellectual pleasure is often not "accessible" to the viewer/reader/listener, whereas work created to appeal to popular taste is. I know that personally, for example, I'd rather read Harry Potter than Virginia Woolf, and listen to Abba rather than Schoenberg, but perhaps that simply goes to show how terribly plebeian my artistic tastes are.

If you were really plebeian, you wouldn't use that word, much less spell it correctly....

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Harmon

If you were really plebeian, you wouldn't use that word, much less spell it correctly....

I have to thank Firefox's spellchecker for the spelling - I wouldn't have put the second "e" in it .

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have to thank Firefox's spellchecker for the spelling - I wouldn't have put the second "e" in it .

Firefox's spell checker: Saving the proles from the elitists, one e at a time!

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

True. Eg format shifting is not legal in the UK.

If it is not prosecutable and nobody have been prosecuted for it how can it be not legal? Or are you saying that the law have been tested in court?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

If it is not prosecutable and nobody have been prosecuted for it how can it be not legal? Or are you saying that the law have been tested in court?

It is specifically prohibited by UK copyright law, as I understand it. Nevertheless, it is "not in the public interest" to prosecute individuals who do so for personal use. That, however, does not change the fact that it's illegal.

[Sydney's Mom]

If no one can show damages, it is hard (at least in the US) to get a prosecutor to care enough to file suit. Amazon would be in a real pickle (legal term) if they tried to show damages for converting a paid for azw file to epub. Raises antitrust issues.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is specifically prohibited by UK copyright law, as I understand it. Nevertheless, it is "not in the public interest" to prosecute individuals who do so for personal use. That, however, does not change the fact that it's illegal.

Oh, so it is just your understanding and it has not been tested in court. Just to repeat your own criticism of another statement.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Oh, so it is just your understanding and it has not been tested in court. Just to repeat your own criticism of another statement.

My understanding originates from reasonably reputable sources, naturally. Eg:

UK copyright laws "needlessly criminalise" music fans and need to be updated, a consumer watchdog says.

UK laws that make it a copyright violation to copy a CD that you own onto a computer or iPod should be changed, says Consumer Focus.
...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8000876.stm

I don't just make these things up out of thin air, you know .