DRM poll: How do you deal with it.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, you can never say 100% since the minute you do someone will find an exception but yes you can expect that any best sellers you buy will be DRM protected by the publisher. In addition some pseudo publishers like Amazon may DRM a book the publisher did not.

Dale

Interesting why nobody created DRM for MP3 format yet?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

So what would you call your boss if he decided to stop paying you for your work?

I would call him in breach of contract and take him to a civil court. That's a lot different than having the cops show up and throw him in jail on a criminal charge.

There is a big perception difference between criminal theft and civil infringement. Using the wrong terms at best confuses the issue, and at worst is done intentionally in order to bring the nastier perceptions of criminal law into the discussion to create fear and intimidation.

I'm not arguing that downloading is right or wrong, I'm just saying that you do not call it "theft" for the same reasons that you don't call harassment "murder". They are completely different things.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Kris777

Interesting why nobody created DRM for MP3 format yet?

There is no such thing as DRM in the MP3 format. I guess you could try to add it, but then it would no longer be MP3. There are other music formats that do include DRM though.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Kris777

Interesting why nobody created DRM for MP3 format yet?

That's why Apple created their "AAC" format for the iPod, and Microsoft their "WMA" format. Both because they support DRM.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What about the situation where someone has bought the paper version of a book, wants an e-Book, but there isn't one available to be bought? Eg, I've bought half a dozen different paper versions of "Lord of the Rings" over the years, but there is no legal eBook to buy. I'm certainly breaking the law in download it from the darknet, but am I really doing anything "immoral"? I don't think that I am.

That is a tougher question I will grant you. That being said, I would apply (personally) the same rule I would if the books were in physical media; just because you bought a hard back edition of a book, you are not automatically entitled to a free copy of the paperback version (or for that matter even a reduced cost copy to account for the cost of the copying).

To some extent, while a book is under a copyright, an author should have some say over how the book is offered.

Now granted all of this is besides the point that I don't believe that Copyright should extend past the author's death... but that is another story.

--
Bill

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

It's interesting this thread has gotten sidetracked into a discussion of whether downloading illicit e-books is legally/morally wrong.

I would remind folks that cracking the DRM on books you purchase (which over half the people responding to the poll say they do) is every bit as legally wrong (at least in the USA and certain other countries) as downloading the books off the Internet.

As I wrote in another thread (here):

Ummm.... no, actually. Circumventing DRM is not a crime in and of itself, when done for personal use (in the US, under the DMCA, that is -- I'm not sure about newer laws).

What is a crime is any of the following:

• Creating tools to remove DRM (although there is an exemption for academic research)
• Providing DRM-removal tools to others
• Telling someone else where to get (or how to use) a DRM-removing tool (by implication from the previous item).

The tools themselves are legal, although creating them is not. Using the tools is legal, although supplying them or spreading information about them is not. The DMCA is a really really odd piece of legislation.

My source for this understanding is a graduate seminar on IP issues in computing that I took a few years ago at Carnegie Mellon. It was taught by Dr. Dave Farber, with guest lectures by a who's who of legal and technical experts.

Xenophon
Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Consult a real lawyer if you need legal advice; don't trust this message. Your mileage may vary. Buy low, sell high...

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Kris777

What format is more popular - DRM Mobipocket or DRM-free Mobipocket?

Popular with who, publishers or consumers?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Kris777

It means that if I would like to buy newest bestseller in Mobipocket format - it will be 100% DRM protected, correct?

Usually, yes. There are exceptions, but most of the time the newest bestseller stuff will be DRM protected.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Xenophon
Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Consult a real lawyer if you need legal advice; don't trust this message. Your mileage may vary. Buy low, sell high...

...Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's why Apple created their "AAC" format for the iPod, and Microsoft their "WMA" format. Both because they support DRM.

yes, but MP3 is universal format that will work on all players - Apple or Microsoft. It is no universal format for eBooks yet. If it will be created in future (possible it will be .EPUB) DRM books will be less popular than now.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's why Apple created their "AAC" format for the iPod, and Microsoft their "WMA" format. Both because they support DRM.

Sort-of. Note that "Apple's AAC format" is actually part of an ISO standard (it's part of the MP4 set of standards for multimedia) -- AAC itself is not proprietary in any way. Apple's "Fairplay" DRM is their proprietary add-on DRM used by the iTunes store to control use of content purchased there.

AAC is part of the MP4 standard set because it

• Provides better audio quality than MP3 at lower bit-rates
• Has cheaper IP terms than MP3 does (more accurately "than MP3 did at the time the standard was finalized")
• Supports a standardized way for anyone to add on their own DRM (a "feature" that is missing from the MP3 audio layer)
• Can be played back with less compute power than MP3, thus enabling cheaper playback hardware (although this has long been overtaken by Moore's Law hardware improvements)

Microsoft's WMA has many similar properties, but lost out in the standards game partly because it was technically not as good as AAC, and partly because Microsoft was insisting on less favorable royalty terms.

Xenophon

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I would call him in breach of contract and take him to a civil court. That's a lot different than having the cops show up and throw him in jail on a criminal charge.

There is a big perception difference between criminal theft and civil infringement. Using the wrong terms at best confuses the issue, and at worst is done intentionally in order to bring the nastier perceptions of criminal law into the discussion to create fear and intimidation.

I'm not arguing that downloading is right or wrong, I'm just saying that you do not call it "theft" for the same reasons that you don't call harassment "murder". They are completely different things.

Sigh, you must be a lawyer. To begin with, I think it has been clear that I have been arguing the ethics of the situation. Common usage of the word theft is not limited to what the law formally defines as theft. Shoot lots of people would argue that taxes and the government exercising their eminant domain powers are forms of theft.

Ultimately, I bet the average person on the street would say that a boss who doesn't pay his employees what they earned was stealing from those employees. In any case, morally it would be the same as if the employer paid them their salary and then withdrew it from their bank accounts later.

Further, it is very different than your analogy; harassment and murder are on entirely different planes both legally and ethically. No normal person would equate the two as being equivalent.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

As I wrote in another thread (here):

Ummm.... no, actually. Circumventing DRM is not a crime in and of itself, when done for personal use (in the US, under the DMCA, that is -- I'm not sure about newer laws).

Xenophon,
I would point out that there seems to be some dispute about whether your interpretation of the DMCA is correct or not. I very much hope it is mind you; I just wouldn't depend on it .

--
Bill

[tompe]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

You accuse me of rhetorical tricks in one post and then use this as an argument?

No, it is not theft from the author if you never use, in any way, a work that they have written.

Whether you read it or not, downloading a copyrighted work without the author's permission (which is implicit if you buy a ebook from a legitimate vendor), is making use of something you have no legal right to use.

But that is a totally different argument and not the one you made originally. This is an argument that says that because it is illegal it is morally wrong.

Morally, you are taking income from them because you are using their labor without giving them fair renumeration for their labor.

Well, no. I cannot see how I take income from somebody if I download something and then directly throw it away without looking at it for example.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

The tools themselves are legal, although creating them is not. Using the tools is legal, although supplying them or spreading information about them is not. The DMCA is a really really odd piece of legislation.

We had this discussion before and I still think this interpretation is wrong. But even assuming you are right... if you can't create a tool to remove DRM... and you can't share a tool to remove DRM then if you get a tool to remove it then you are "sharing" the tool which violates the DMCA. So, the effective result is the same. Removing DRM violates the DMCA. Unless you have to cort cases to cite a precedent where this was ruled on, that is what I believe.

BOb