Arguments For And Against DRM

[ApK]

Originally Posted by leaston

Crikey, that's surprising

@everyone - So, presumably B&N, Kobo and other sellers will have different deals with publishers and therefore this will be a different agreement depending on where the book was purchased? In which case, it's up to the buyer to find out whether letting their mates or aunt Mary download a copy is legal or not.

It's really not that complicated. Making an unauthorized duplicate and giving it to an unauthorized person will almost certainly be a violation of copyright law.

Some might try to argue that using an authorized mechanism to let a personal friend or family member read an authorized copy is against certain terms of use, but I doubt it. That is, I doubt any T&C language that actually tried to narrowly restrict "personal use" that way would be valid or enforceable.

I doubt anyone with a moderately functioning moral compass and a modicum of respect for laws protecting the right of content creators will ever have a problem.

[Sgt.Stubby]

Originally Posted by ApK

It's really not that complicated. Making an unauthorized duplicate and giving it to an unauthorized person will almost certainly be a violation of copyright law.

You seem to have missed quote from pdurrant. In that particular DRM model, account sharing is allowed, and thus media sharing.

People find that bizarre, but they don't have the big picture. E-books would never survive if publishers suddenly hit the consumers with total loss of consumer freedoms. Such a plan would die as fast as it rolls out. Publishers are smarter than you give them credit for.

The plan is to roll out e-books with very liberal permissions, comparable to that of paper books. Consumers will obviously take the bait, because there are only advantages at that stage. 10-15 years down the line when consumers are e-book converts and non-DRM books are rare, only then does it make sense to chip away aggressively at consumer freedoms. This is very easy with DRM. The idea is to jail books in thick shrink-wrapped licenses just as software is today.

Originally Posted by ApK

I doubt anyone with a moderately functioning moral compass and a modicum of respect for laws protecting the right of content creators will ever have a problem.

You're grouping two different schools of thought that don't make sense. Those with a "moderately functioning moral compass" do not financially sponsor DRM, and therefore do not buy DRM'd content. While this does not conflict with the law, it certainly does not respect laws that have lost sight of the origins of copyright (which was not to protect content creators, but rather to stimulate more creative works being introduced to society by way of incentivizing creation). You've got the means and ends mixed up.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

The plan is to roll out e-books with very liberal permissions, comparable to that of paper books.

Which parallel universe did that happen in?

[Sgt.Stubby]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Which parallel universe did that happen in?

You're overlooking the time dimension. In 15 years, you will see that DRM permissions of 15 years ago are about the same as paper books.

You'll be reminiscing the days when:
* You could read each page as many times as you want
* You could lend your book to others
* You could pass the book on to your kids
* You could search the book at no extra cost
* You could move/copy the book to your other devices
* Data brokers didn't sell the history of pages you read

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

You're grouping two different schools of thought that don't make sense. Those with a "moderately functioning moral compass" do not financially sponsor DRM, and therefore do not buy DRM'd content. While this does not conflict with the law, it certainly does not respect laws that have lost sight of the origins of copyright (which was not to protect content creators, but rather to stimulate more creative works being introduced to society by way of incentivizing creation). You've got the means and ends mixed up.

Ah, so I don't have a "moderately functioning" moral compass, because I buy DRMed books. OK then. I guess I'd better run away and hide under my rock with my other hideously immoral friends, viz. Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, and Co.

[Sgt.Stubby]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Ah, so I don't have a "moderately functioning" moral compass, because I buy DRMed books. OK then. I guess I'd better run away and hide under my rock with my other hideously immoral friends, viz. Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, and Co.

Every time you buy a DRMed book, you do damage to consumer freedom.

You also work against the original (higher) purpose of copyright, which is to increase the amount of works of art and culture that the consumers have access to. DRM blocks and reduces access. I don't know about Bin Laden and Stalin in this respect, but I seem to recall that Hitler burnt books. I'm not one to play the Hitler card, but you brought it up apparently unwitting to the parallel.

[DiapDealer]

Every time a bell rings, an angel get its wings.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

Every time you buy a DRMed book, you do damage to consumer freedom.

You also work against the original (higher) purpose of copyright, which is to increase the amount of works of art and culture that the consumers have access to. DRM blocks and reduces access. I don't know about Bin Laden and Stalin in this respect, but I seem to recall that Hitler burnt books. I'm not one to play the Hitler card, but you brought it up apparently unwitting to the parallel.

The point I am trying to make is that you seem to believe DRM is a moral issue. It is not.

I believe playing the Hitler card is justified here, as I am comparing
DRM != moral issue
murder/genocide == moral issue

Thank you for noticing the Nazi book burnings. I specifically consider that to be everything DRM is not.

Generally speaking moral issues deal with matters of, um, morality, e.g. Thou Shalt Not Kill, Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery can be regarded as moral issues for (I hope) obvious reasons. Your objection against DRM is a contract dispute.

I am not an "immoral person" because I buy a DRMed book, regardless of the original or current or even exalted purpose of copyright. Burning someone else's books is a moral issue. Agreeing to buy books that, for the sake of analogy, come with a built-in self-destruct, is not a moral issue.

You are perfectly welcome to only buy non-DRMed books, and that is fine. You don't want to buy something that you don't feel has value.

As for me -- I have paid for something I feel has value. I have not taken away any of YOUR rights in doing so, thus there is a distinct lack of a morality-or-otherwise factor.

That may hinder your ability to buy non-DRMed content in the future, but you are not owed books. So again, where does morality enter into the discussion?

As for "works of art and culture", that is a matter of some dispute but even so, art and culture is not morality, and in any event it will take care of itself.
I am also reminded vividly of BWM publishing and their claims to be in it for the culture. I suspect your motivation to be equally selfish.
The Richard Stallmans of the world are priests of their their own religion, and I suspect many MR members would like to say something about religious madmen, but then we'd have to continue this in P&R...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The point I am trying to make is that you seem to believe DRM is a moral issue. It is not.

I believe playing the Hitler card is justified here

Because you've mentioned Hitler, your argument is lost. You lose! This is fact. If you have to resort to mentioning Hitler, you lose! You can now slink away in shame.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

Every time you buy a DRMed book, you do damage to consumer freedom.

Oh, dear.

You also work against the original (higher) purpose of copyright, which is to increase the amount of works of art and culture that the consumers have access to. DRM blocks and reduces access. I don't know about Bin Laden and Stalin in this respect, but I seem to recall that Hitler burnt books. I'm not one to play the Hitler card, but you brought it up apparently unwitting to the parallel.

Meh. I posit that the entire point of copyright law is, by definition, protecting the ARTISTS, and their works, not the consumers thereof. Otherwise: provide one good reason for the law to exist, it not to simply and clearly and unequivocally ensure that the artists get PAID. PAID. Compensated. Not ripped-off, in other words. There's nary a part of the law that exists for any other purpose. That is the "Higher Purpose" of the law.

If the Higher Purpose were to ensure that consumers got whatever art they wanted, when they wanted it, the original language would have been akin to Amazon's giant payment pools: "we'll collect X in taxes from the populace, you'll get supported to the tune of $Y/annum, and we will own all your works, to give away freely to the People."

But...that didn't happen, did it? if the Higher Purpose was to feed the people's appetite for culture, that's what WOULD have happened...but it didn't. Ergo...the law exists to provide a fair mechanism to support the authors/artists. Not the other way around.

There are plenty of MR'ers who have clearly functioning moral compasses, who somehow live with the heinous "crime" of buying DRM'ed books. I'm a raging libertarian, and remarkably, DRM has yet to conflict with my comprehension of the Cosmos and my (moderately well-informed) views on US Law and statutes. OR, for that matter, my internal views on right/wrong.

Every time a bell rings, an angel get its wings.

Diap: maybe that's, "every time a consumer clicks 'buy now' at Amazon, an angel Falls." I mean, after all, if you follow this line of reasoning, we're all aligning with the Fascisti, and it's hard to believe that that wouldn't knock off a few angels here and there.

Hitch

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Meh. I posit that the entire point of copyright law is, by definition, protecting the ARTISTS, and their works, not the consumers thereof. Otherwise: provide one good reason for the law to exist, it not to simply and clearly and unequivocally ensure that the artists get PAID. PAID. Compensated. Not ripped-off, in other words. There's nary a part of the law that exists for any other purpose. That is the "Higher Purpose" of the law.

Hitch

Actually, I thought the entire point of copyright law was to encourage the creation of works to be "owned" by everyone. Giving the creators "ownership" of the works for a limited period of time, and thus encouraging the creation of the works, was just the means to an end.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by disconnected

Actually, I thought the entire point of copyright law was to encourage the creation of works to be "owned" by everyone. Giving the creators "ownership" of the works for a limited period of time, and thus encouraging the creation of the works, was just the means to an end.

No, the purpose was to promote the creation of new works. Giving ownership to the creators (and thus allowing them to be paid) was the means.

Copyright law does not give a darn who owns it, just so long as it gets made. It is certainly not the objective to promulgate the public domain.

The limited time is in order to balance the desires of all parties (consumers and producers) and thus the fact that a public domain exists at all is merely a nice side effect of the implementation.

[disconnected]

But why the need for balance at all if a public domain of works wasn’t the ultimate objective? Why not perpetual copyright?

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by disconnected

But why the need for balance at all if a public domain of works wasn’t the ultimate objective? Why not perpetual copyright?

Because, with perpetual copyright, eventually the works would be effectively lost to use as, after a given volume of time, it would be impossible to determine who holds the copyright, so instead of the period of orphaned works we have now all books would be lost within a few generations.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

No, the purpose was to promote the creation of new works. Giving ownership to the creators (and thus allowing them to be paid) was the means.

Copyright law does not give a darn who owns it, just so long as it gets made. It is certainly not the objective to promulgate the public domain.

The limited time is in order to balance the desires of all parties (consumers and producers) and thus the fact that a public domain exists at all is merely a nice side effect of the implementation.

You are totally wrong here.