DRM for Public Domain works at B&N

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by anappo

> US Code Chapter 1 Title 17 § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

All of which are void due to DMCA. So this:

> So what has happened here is that DRM has defeated fair use

stands.

> call you local authorities, get involved in the real sense of doing something

Done that. http://ec.europa.eu/information_soci...0/index_en.htm

Have you? Or are you quite happy with the status quo?

What is all of the misreading or completely ignoring certain statements I make to only view what you want to view. I didn't say anything about DRM not hindering fair use. I said that "Fair Use" as written does not give the average joe the ability to do anything they want with the material. In applies to what seems to be "scholarly" type things. Not individual use rights. I have a simple view of not trying to interpret law but to apply it literally. And literally most of us didn't have any fair use rights under these provisions anyway.

Also, you are in Europe (I would guess from the link you posted) and I am not well versed in European law, so I do not want to comment on what the law is there. But as you are in Europe you are not bound by the US-DMCA (or Copyright) laws but those of your own country. As I have read here on the forums, Italy allows the stripping of DRM from rightfully purchased files. I don't know about your country.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Requiem

What is all of the misreading or completely ignoring certain statements I make to only view what you want to view.

Take it from me, that is all you are likely to get from anappo.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[anappo]

> I didn't say anything about DRM not hindering fair use.

I assumed that your post was in reply to this:
> So what has happened here is that DRM has defeated fair use

I said nothing about personal fair use. The point I tried to make was that combination of DRM+DMCA voids fair use for the "scholarly" type things as well as any others.

> in Europe you are not bound by the US-DMCA (or Copyright) laws but those
> of your own country.

What we have in Europe is the Copyright Directive with some differences between member states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive

[Requiem]

What we have in Europe is the Copyright Directive with some differences between member states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive

Now that is some useful information. It always interests me how different countries interpret this sort of thing different ways.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Requiem

I didn't say anything about DRM not hindering fair use. I said that "Fair Use" as written does not give the average joe the ability to do anything they want with the material. In applies to what seems to be "scholarly" type things. Not individual use rights.

"Nonprofit, educational" use is not limited to use by registered nonprofit corporations or registered schools and universities.

If I copy a book's pages at 150% size so my child can read it, that's a nonprofit, educational use. If I copy the pages so I can mark them up for study, that's nonprofit & educational, regardless of whether I'm enrolled in a school.

Note that it doesn't say "nonprofit educational use is accepted." The law says the "nature of the use" is to be considered, and that "nonprofit educational" uses are relevant. Format shifting for personal, private use has also been established as fair use through court rulings.

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Note that it doesn't say "nonprofit educational use is accepted." The law says the "nature of the use" is to be considered, and that "nonprofit educational" uses are relevant. Format shifting for personal, private use has also been established as fair use through court rulings.

See that is how something should be responded to, but all the same, the policy was written by the courts and not by the lawmakers. It just makes me angry that our courts do so much of this whenever that is not their responsibility. It seems like the lawmakers slack and the judicial system is stuck enforcing poorly thought out laws.

Which is why I do not hold the corporations responsible, if the laws were written differently, in such a way as to limit their power is some way, it would make for a better situation. I mean seriously who has not looked at a loophole in a law and exploited it for their own personal gain? If the drinking laws were changed to 18 in the US would you still wait until you are 21? No, morality does not always encompass legal matters. You would do as much as the law allows you to do.

[tmoody]

You can get Google Public Domain books for free through BN. In fact, if you use the BN ebook search tool, either from your computer or from your mobile device (I was using my Blackberry), those free books will come up in your search, identified as Google Public Domain titles. From there you can order them and download them to your computer or mobile device. Yes, they have non-free versions of the more popular ones, but you don't have to buy those. I got the free version of Oliver Twist a few days ago (haven't read any Dickens in ages), plus a couple of other titles that have been out of print for decades.

As it turns out, there's a software bug that prevents me from downloading these Google books (but only those) to my Blackberry wirelessly. There's no problem with the computer version of the eReader, though, so the workaround is to download them to the computer eReader then load them onto the Blackberry via USB cable. Not a big deal, and BN is working on a fix.

So, although they do give you free DRMed public domain books when you open an eReader account (Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, and a few others, plus one non-public domain book, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary), you are not forced by BN to order only the DRM versions.

Todd

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

My main question; where in this law does it state anything about ever owning the material we buy?

Copyright law deals with distribution rights, it has nothing to do with ownership.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Requiem

Which is why I do not hold the corporations responsible, if the laws were written differently, in such a way as to limit their power is some way, it would make for a better situation.

Why do you think the laws are written the way they are? If you don't believe that large corporations with lots of money and lobbyists were involved, then you're fooling yourself. Who do you think the lawmakers are listening to every time they extend the copyright term?

[sircastor]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Why do you think the laws are written the way they are? If you don't believe that large corporations with lots of money and lobbyists were involved, then you're fooling yourself. Who do you think the lawmakers are listening to every time they extend the copyright term?

Yeah, I think it's a generally accepted fact that the reason copyright has been extended is mostly due to Mickey Mouse...

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Precisely, the DMCA facilitates the use of DRM to accomplish this.

Here's how I see it:

In the US, fair use is carved out from the ownership rights established in artistic works by the copyright law. In other words, fair use amounts to those rights which the copyright owner does not, in fact, own. Those fair use rights are owned by the public.

DRM prevents the public from exercising its fair use rights, because as a practical matter, the DMCA prevents anyone from acquiring the tools necessary to get around DRM in order to make fair use of the material involved.

Speaking of which, looks like an example of this just happened. I read a story today about a US judge ruling against the RealDVD product (made by Real Networks) that allows a user to backup a copy of their physical DVDs for personal use. The judge specifically noted in her ruling that while it is fair use for an individual to backup DVDs they own, the DMCA makes it illegal to distribute tools that allow individuals to do so.

The resulting effect is that in practical terms, fair use no longer exists.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Requiem

What is all of the misreading or completely ignoring certain statements I make to only view what you want to view. I didn't say anything about DRM not hindering fair use. I said that "Fair Use" as written does not give the average joe the ability to do anything they want with the material. In applies to what seems to be "scholarly" type things. Not individual use rights. I have a simple view of not trying to interpret law but to apply it literally. And literally most of us didn't have any fair use rights under these provisions anyway.

When you take a cd, put it into your cd drive on your computer and broadcast the music throughout your house, to different speakers in different rooms, you are engaging in "fair use." Without that, it would be perfectly possible for the owner of the copyright on the cd to restrict your playing of the music to a single speaker.

When you make a copy of a dvd to a file that you can play on your iPod Touch while you are on the plane, you are engaging in "fair use."

When you use a dvr to timeshift your favorite tv program, you are engaging in "fair use."

When you use AudioHijack or Radioshift to record a radio broadcast, or rip a cd to be moved to your iPod to listen to while you walk the dog, you are engaging in "fair use."

When you print off a copy of a blog post, because you can read paper better than you can read on the screen, you are engaging in "fair use."

When you quote in a forum like this, from a book or speech or television dialogue, you are engaging in "fair use."

When you post a link to the New York Times, you are engaging in "fair use."

Still think you don't have any "fair use" rights?

Let me give you a concept that is useful in thinking about copyright and "fair use." "Fair use" is NOT an exception to the copyright law. Copyright law is an exception to "fair use."

What I mean is this: without the copyright laws, anyone and everyone has the legal right to copy and use any intellectual property in any fashion he or she wants to, at any time. That is still the case with the enactment of copyright laws, except to the exent that copyright law awards certain ownership rights, protected by law, to the creator of the intellectual propery.

Legally speaking, what I have just written is copyrighted, and you can't quote it or reproduce it in any way without my permission. But if you respond to this post by quoting it in order to provide a context for the next reader to understand your response, that is "fair use."

We are surrounded by "fair use." We swim in "fair use." We are an information culture, and to coin a phrase, "information wants to be used."

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Requiem

You might want to read up on what Fair Use actually is, personal use is not included in US copyright law.

That's accurate in part. Personal use is not included in copyright law, but neither is it excluded by copyright law. Your question, below, can be used to illuminate that.

My main question; where in this law does it state anything about ever owning the material we buy? Technically we have never owned it, only the paper it is printed on. Therefore there is no material included with a digital file so the actual download is completely owned by someone else.

In the beginning, nobody owned intellectual property. Then various people began asserting ownership, sometimes in the face of specific laws to the contrary. See the situation in 18th century England, where the Parliament enacted a copyright law under which writings sold by authors to publishers reverted to the ownership of the author after 14 years - and the publishers just ignored it. The publishers simply kept ownership of the property in a sort of early version of DRM - by owning the publishing equipment & acting as a group.

But eventually, the publishers themselves started violating each others copyrights. Mark Twain wrote a book, and it got pirated. This could be done because, in the absence of statutory law to the contrary, intellectual property was still owned by nobody - which means it was, in effect, owned by anyone who could use it.

Copyright law was written to establish some, but not all, ownership rights as belonging to the author. Any right not contained in the copyright law is still owned by nobody/anybody.

So this is why it is correct to say that copyright law doesn't cover personal use - it doesn't have to. Personal use is assumed, if it doesn't violate the specific rights granted to the creator by the copyright law.