Pan Macmillan: DRM Is Not Evil

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Abecedary

And yet how many people do you know who would sit there and photocopy entire books to pass around to their friends? I'm sure it occasionally happened, but it was far from the norm.

People don't sit there and photocopy for their friends. They just lend them books for a few days, and it's their friends who have them photocopied in a copy shop

As others have said, this was pretty normal with textbooks, I also did it with RPG books. I have one of my physical chemistry books photocopied, I bought vol. 1, but vol. 2 was out of print, so I had to borrow it from the library and photocopy it.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

DRM is the red rag to the bull. You put DRM on your media product it will attract hackers, not out of any desire for your product, but the desire to circumnvent your locks. It's at that level where DRM is most flawed. The one thing its supposed to do; protect the product from reproduction, it can never do. Hence it is as useless as pair of spectacles made from chocolate.

Where are the hackers attracted by Sony's DRM scheme??? Unfortunately nowhere to be seen.

I wouldn't mind one single DRM version, universally used on all devices. So then I could move my books from one device to a new one without being locked into buying one brand.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Where are the hackers attracted by Sony's DRM scheme??? Unfortunately nowhere to be seen.

They'd have to buy a Sony first! Or get their hands on a Sony book.

[LazyScot]

Originally Posted by bmfrosty

Had a reading assignment in middle school where the book was either too expensive or out of print, so the teacher photocopied off 29 copies. This was in a rather affluent community too.

Originally Posted by tompe

Students did it all the time at least at University level. Now I think they just scan the book (if it is very expensive) and distribute the pdf.

It's a time, cost and benefit trade-off. For an item that costs, say $5 to $10, but physically copying will take maybe a hour of your time (and the time increases with the number of copies), and printing costs of a couple of dollars, the benefits are not really worth it. However, as a student people (or at least I) was time (relatively) rich and cash poor (books costing the same as a couple of weeks rent are tricky to fund), the trade-off is different. That doesn't make it right, but might mean that if it is very limited a blind-eye may be turned.

Electronically, it takes maybe a few seconds and costs nothing to make it available to others. So I think there is a difference, and the photocopying analogy is fair. But that is just my opinion.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

this guy makes some interesting points, but at heart he seems still to be clinging to the same old flawed premise, that drm is the only way to prevent people copying massively. arg !! drm-free != automatic copyright infringement. and moreover, drm != protection from copying ! on the contrary ! sheesh !

For the technically literate, most drm schemes can probably be circumvented. Often the point is not whether or not you *can* circumvent them, but that you *have* to do something to circumvent them. I've had discussions with some people that go something along the lines of "well, I could do it so it must be legal." For many people, if the device says, no, you can't create an instant, zero-cost, globally usable copy of the book, that is fine.

However, as mentioned, the issue with DRM is that the "honest" use should be no problem. Unfortunately, many of today's DRM-schemes are, shall we say, draconian? And I take that as one of the points of the article. A wish that the world would sort out a more reasonable DRM scheme.

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

I know in Peru buying cheaply bound photocopies of books was the cheaper way to get school textbooks, and I hear making your own copies is a widespread practice in South American colleges. Also, don't people who ORC books so that they may be digitally distributed perform a similar physical labor? Or people who sold pirated editions of books before the internet; did they not also photocopy the entire book?

I agree that people who ORC books are engage in effort, and have a right to be paid for their effort (if they so desire), or to give freely to the world of their effort. However, I don't believe that one person has the right to use their labour as a means to remove the rights of another to remuneration (or conversely, for that matter -- e.g. I don't think I should be able to print out Doctrow's books and make money from them without allowing him the chance for a say). As an example, a person who chooses to harvest a field of corn to give away free, can only give away freely the added value of the time they have invested in harvesting, and not that of the farmer who grew the crop.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I agree with this basic premise: DRM is not evil.

Some implementations of DRM are evil. Making DRM so that you can only read it on a certain device is evil. Making DRM so that you don't want to distribute it, isn't.

the problem is, i cannot think of a single current implementation of drm which functions in this way. i am not convinced that an "acceptable" form of drm will *ever* be adopted by publishers, because i think they are promoting a much more rapacious agenda of one book per person and per device (more the rental / licence model than the sales model). they don't want to you be able to read it on whichever device you choose, and they don't want you to be able to lend it (within reason) to friends / family. given this, i really am not convinced that drm can be a good thing.

While I agree with Moejoe, an encrypted file will always attract hacker, you can make it harder for the non-hacker to distribute a file, especially if you encrypt it with personal data. As long as you can read it on any reader you want, most people won't complain.

if you are talking about watermarking a file or "social drm" that is perhaps the exception ; the only form of drm which doesn't pose the same moral problem, because it doesn't limit the use of the file at all (you can read it on any device you like, you can lend it to friends, etc., you just don't want to diffuse it on internet to a lot of strangers). however, i even have hesitation about that ; i wouldn't want any drm using my credit card number for encryption, for instance, because what happens if i were to lose / have stolen my liseuse ??? or even a usb key or portable computer with ebooks on them ? depending on who finds / steals them that could have really bad consequences for me. so even then frankly, i am not really convinced.

again, the point is, drm does not prevent copying (for those who really want to copy), and absence of drm is not a guarantee that the file will be copied. it's really this last assumption that makes me angry.

Originally Posted by LazyScot

For the technically literate, most drm schemes can probably be circumvented. Often the point is not whether or not you *can* circumvent them, but that you *have* to do something to circumvent them. I've had discussions with some people that go something along the lines of "well, I could do it so it must be legal." For many people, if the device says, no, you can't create an instant, zero-cost, globally usable copy of the book, that is fine.

this is a valid point (the people who say "if i *can* do it, it must be legal", simply because they don't know any better) but i still think it would be much better to try to act against this with an effort of education rather than ineffective, pointless, costly and very annoying (to legitimate customers only !) drm.

However, as mentioned, the issue with DRM is that the "honest" use should be no problem. Unfortunately, many of today's DRM-schemes are, shall we say, draconian? And I take that as one of the points of the article. A wish that the world would sort out a more reasonable DRM scheme.

yes, "draconian" seems apt. but can "a more reasonable drm scheme" exist ? what would it look like ? how would it work ? perhaps a social drm / watermarking scheme, but even then, as i said, i have some reserves simply because you never know what could happen which is beyond your control. i would be interested to hear some ideas or concrete suggestions though. perhaps there is something obvious which i haven't thought of.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i wouldn't want any drm using my credit card number for encryption, for instance, because what happens if i were to lose / have stolen my liseuse ??? or even a usb key or portable computer with ebooks on them ? depending on who finds / steals them that could have really bad consequences for me. so even then frankly, i am not really convinced.

You've slightly lost me there. As I understand it, your credit card number is used as an encryption KEY; it's not stored IN the eReader book any more than, say, a Mobipocket book stores device PIDs in the file.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

the problem is, i cannot think of a single current implementation of drm which functions in this way. i am not convinced that an "acceptable" form of drm will *ever* be adopted by publishers, because i think they are promoting a much more rapacious agenda of one book per person and per device (more the rental / licence model than the sales model). they don't want to you be able to read it on whichever device you choose, and they don't want you to be able to lend it (within reason) to friends / family. given this, i really am not convinced that drm can be a good thing.


if you are talking about watermarking a file or "social drm" that is perhaps the exception ; the only form of drm which doesn't pose the same moral problem, because it doesn't limit the use of the file at all (you can read it on any device you like, you can lend it to friends, etc., you just don't want to diffuse it on internet to a lot of strangers). however, i even have hesitation about that ; i wouldn't want any drm using my credit card number for encryption, for instance, because what happens if i were to lose / have stolen my liseuse ??? or even a usb key or portable computer with ebooks on them ? depending on who finds / steals them that could have really bad consequences for me. so even then frankly, i am not really convinced.

Still, I think that "social DRM" is the way to go. Besides, it's much more difficult to retrieve the encryption key than it is to decrypt if you already know the key (which is what you do if you de-DRM mobi, LIT or eReader books).

I doubt we'll ever get rid of DRM, but it should never interfere with the use of the product...

(now that I think of it, my eReader book is encrypted using my CC number... And you can have it if you want, as the CC isn't valid anymore anyway )

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You've slightly lost me there. As I understand it, your credit card number is used as an encryption KEY; it's not stored IN the eReader book any more than, say, a Mobipocket book stores device PIDs in the file.

i wasn't necessarily referring to the eReader drm because i don't really know exactly how it works ; i was talking about a hypothetical social drm (watermarking) in which the files would be "watemarked" or "encoded" with a cc number. which i am far too paranoid to do, because things happen all the time ; lost, theft, etc. and i don't want my credit card number floating around in the wild.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i wasn't necessarily referring to the eReader drm because i don't really know exactly how it works ; i was talking about a hypothetical social drm (watermarking) in which the files would be "watemarked" or "encoded" with a cc number. which i am far too paranoid to do, because things happen all the time ; lost, theft, etc. and i don't want my credit card number floating around in the wild.

eReader DRM uses your CC number to encode (so, is the key). The watermark is your name... Those are two different things.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Still, I think that "social DRM" is the way to go. Besides, it's much more difficult to retrieve the encryption key than it is to decrypt if you already know the key (which is what you do if you de-DRM mobi, LIT or eReader books).

You cannot recover the encryption key from the encrypted file; the encryption algorithm is "one way". ie you can use the key to decrypt the file, but the file doesn't "know" what the key is.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Still, I think that "social DRM" is the way to go. Besides, it's much more difficult to retrieve the encryption key than it is to decrypt if you already know the key (which is what you do if you de-DRM mobi, LIT or eReader books).

I doubt we'll ever get rid of DRM, but it should never interfere with the use of the product...

(now that I think of it, my eReader book is encrypted using my CC number... And you can have it if you want, as the CC isn't valid anymore anyway )

yes, i agree with you that until we can convince publishers to drop drm altogether (it will happen eventually, i am sure of that ; look at the music and film industries), the only more or less acceptable form is social drm / watermarking. it doesn't prevent any form of fair use, as far as i can think of. except using the cc number, as i said. too paranoid for that.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You cannot recover the encryption key from the encrypted file; the encryption algorithm is "one way". ie you can use the key to decrypt the file, but the file doesn't "know" what the key is.

Theoretically, you should be able to find the key, but I think you'd need the original and the encrypted file... The chances of that happening would be nil...

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

eReader DRM uses your CC number to encode (so, is the key). The watermark is your name... Those are two different things.

ok, i misspoke ; i shouldn't have used the word "encryption", that's not what i meant ; i should have said "marked" or something similar, because i was really talking about a form of social drm using watermarks, not eReader drm.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Theoretically, you should be able to find the key, but I think you'd need the original and the encrypted file... The chances of that happening would be nil...

Even in that circumstance, all you could do would be to try and encrypt the original file with every possible key until you got a match for the encrypted file. For a 16-digit credit card number, such a "brute force" approach would probably be impractical.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Even in that circumstance, all you could do would be to try and encrypt the original file with every possible key until you got a match for the encrypted file. For a 16-digit credit card number, such a "brute force" approach would probably be impractical.

That's why I said theoretically

And Z, watermarking with a sensitive thing is not what I had in mind! But would you distribute a file, which is encrypted with your CC and watermarked with your full name?