Hacks kindlepid/kindlefix 0.2

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by stevenmoy

There are always more than 1 side of the story. There are many cases a DRM is used and the original company closed down and users are stuck with digital goods that can no longer be used since the original company are busted.

Heck dude Amazon has ripped me off with DRM before and they didn't go under. I've had to re-buy several expensive technical ebooks from them that I originally purchased in other DRM formats that Amazon suddenly dumped when they purchased Mobipocket.

I've already taken a leap of faith that Amazon won't do it to me again. Signs are good but they have bitten me, and others, before.

[stevenmoy]

Regarding those abandoned DRM titles before Kindle is launched, I do hope you have written to Amazon and see what's their responses are. I think others are very interested to see what Amazon official statement are regarding orphan DRMs.

[scotty1024]

One last point before I turn in to rest my troubled head...

You folks are really buying books from Books On Board?!!?

http://www.booksonboard.com/index.ph...ok&BOOK=403959

vs

http://www.amazon.com/White-Witch-Bl...Y4/ref=ed_oe_k

Maybe what's going on is $9.99 is the single platform price and $19 gets you any platform.

Sounds plausible right?

Except if that were the case the Kindle would have a function, just like every other Mobipocket device, to print out it's PID... sleep on that one folks and tell me how innocent the PID generator is.

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by stevenmoy

Regarding those abandoned DRM titles before Kindle is launched, I do hope you have written to Amazon and see what's their responses are. I think others are very interested to see what Amazon official statement are regarding orphan DRMs.

I think the paraphrase was something like "Remember when I promised to kill you last?" "Yeah, Yeah, that's right, you did!" "I lied!"

It was funnier watching Arnold up there on the big screen dropping the annoying guy off the cliff than when Amazon pulled it on me in the real world though.

In any case this kind of stuff happens all the time. If the Credit Card company promised you a fixed APR of 7.9% "for life" and then one day they start charging you 25% because they need your help to pay back those government bail out loans. Do you get to keep using the card for 7.9% or do you get to cancel the card and find another?

[stevenmoy]

Credit card companies are never a good example to be compared to... I hope customers are not comparing Amazon to Credit card company when they are comparing customer service.

Credit card terms and condition is pretty clear on the nasty reset of rate when the consumer defaults. Now most consumers don't read fine print, bad for both consumer and the creditors since both hurt when the debtors are not paying.

DRMed goods got to be very clear on how the company plans to back the DRM goods. I think Amazon should give at least some official statement regarding those orphan DRM goods they once sold.

[InlawBiker]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

And how do you know if your Library is legally entitled to encode ebooks using a Kindle PID? Amazon has clearly been going around turning this off. Perhaps, during these hard economic times, your library is too poor to upgrade their software to the newer version that respects Amazon's rights AKA fixes the "bug"?

And what would you do if they did upgrade? A bug is a bug after all, it's pretty clear these Mobipocket encoders were supposed to reject PID's with the magic character in them. Would you stomp into the library and demand your non-existent rights?

Now you're looking for what-if's. There are already precedents for fair use of a device I own. I can and will use it to read library books. Amazon is free to sue the pants off of public library patrons using their Kindles, and they're welcome to the backlash it'll cause.

Amazon will just be the next company to find out that DRM doesn't work. It can always be circumvented and always will be. Some companies will go kicking and screaming into the future, some will find a business model that works. Amazon's is probably working quite well, as far as I can tell, despite some stolen books.

The world has a rich history of companies that have gone out of business because technology supplanted their model. I suppose their babies were hungry too. There's also a long history of failed DRM models. To my knowledge none of them has really worked.

[desertgrandma]

What ever you are drinking/smoking/snorting, you need to stop. Is this the type of thinking in "The peoples republic of washington" (caps are left of purposely) Or just your own twisted logic?

Originally Posted by scotty1024

So if someone is stealing from your business and taking the money to feed the baby it's the fault of the person running the business not that of the people taking the product? Is that really what you are saying?

Your argument is also ignoring the fact that society agreed to protect their right to control the distribution of their intellectual property in exchange for renumeration in some form to compensate them for the time invested in creating something of worth that they are then making the benefits of that intellectual property available for society to enjoy.

You are in essence arguing the side of the book keeper in this article. Please read this article and explain to me about responsibility.

http://www.rr.com/security/security/...embezzling_10M

In case you haven't heard there are lots and lots of responsible people being thrown out of warm houses with their children onto cold streets. Hard working people whom suddenly, unexpectedly, no longer have a pay check through no fault or responsibility of their own. How many former Circuit City workers are homeless today? How many responsible renters whom were paying their rent on time as the actual home owners didn't pay the mortgages are being tossed out of their warm homes this very night as we sit here debating?

Your hard nose attitude collapses in the face of the evils that are running rampant in the world today. Too many people sat idly by as book keepers and financial advisor's (Madoff) et al did bad things. I mean read that article above and tell me honestly that husband didn't know his wife was embezzling $25,000 per week? I'm sure you'd say it was none of his business what his wife was doing right?

So you're arguing that no one is being harmed by stealing intellectual property. If you are using the money from your ebook or application and everyone starts stealing it and the money disappears no blame attaches to those taking the product? None at all? Is that really what you are saying?

If so, at this point all I can say is for society is truly doomed if more people take your attitude. Because it isn't much of a slide from taking ebooks to taking pretty much anything else you think someone else has too much of and you not enough. How long before the barren woman whom can't have a child comes for your baby and leaves a note saying "You can have another, I can't have even one." Oh wait, they're already do that aren't they... maybe this whole argument is moot.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

You should at least put some editorial content about the copyrighted work up when you're excerpting pages out of it like that.

I guess you never heard of "fair use"?

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

Right. You know as well as I do that Amazon consideres the PID a "secret key" and they've been going out of their way to shutdown licensees from accepting Kindle keys e.g. Fictionwise et al. I'd be as happy as the next guy if it weren't so but Amazon has to do what the publishers demand.

Amazon keeps the PID secret because they want to lock customers into only buying content from their store. Why else would they hide the PID? YEs, they are going out of their way to create a closed market place.

Why was it SO bad when Apple did this? Jeff Bezos stated how awful vendor locking like the iPod/iTune combo cause. This is why the DRM free MP3 stort at amazon was said to exist. But isn't Amazon doing the same thing with the Kindle/Kindle Store. Trying to lock people into having to buy from them.

This has nothing to do with protecting copyright at all. A book checked out from the library using a KindlesPID is encrypted and will only work on a single kindle. You say you "have no problem" with KindleFIX. But, kindlefix would have no file to work on if an ebook encrypted with the correct PID is not used.

Originally Posted by scotty1024

All I can do is point out to the horse where the cliff is, it's up to the horse to not jump off it.

No, you want to kill the horse because he drinks from the pig trough... even though the farmer owns both troughs but can only buy water for the horse trough from Amazon.

BOb

[slayda]

scotty1024, are you, by any chance, related to HarryT or perhaps a desendent of Senator McCarthy? Just asking ...

[Thomas Ryan]

Let's get back to basics.
There is a Kindle PID "fix" program. Is it "good" or "bad" is it "legal" (in the U.S.) or not?
It's pretty obvious that this is one person's opinion next to another's.

This one got me thinking - the pid fix script doesn't decrypt the author's content but it does decrypt part of the overall DRM scheme. How do you think the DMCA reads on this? subset below.

from http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...c105BfHCb2:e0:

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

`(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
`(B) The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C).
`(C) During the 2-year period described in subparagraph (A), and during each succeeding 3-year period, the Librarian of Congress,[...], shall make the determination in a rulemaking proceeding on the record for purposes of subparagraph (B) of whether persons who are users of a copyrighted work are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by the prohibition under subparagraph (A) in their ability to make noninfringing uses under this title of a particular class of copyrighted works. In conducting such rulemaking, the Librarian shall examine--[...]
`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
`(3) As used in this subsection--
`(A) to `circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
`(B) a technological measure `effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

[sirbruce]

The PID is not "part" of the DRM scheme. It's a public identification number used as a reference key. The fact that it's somewhat obscured on the Kindle is irrelevant. Most people don't know the VIN number on their automobile or their MAC address, either, yet those are both numbers used for security and authentication purposes.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by slayda

scotty1024, are you, by any chance, related to HarryT or perhaps a desendent of Senator McCarthy? Just asking ...

Guess we are lucky he didn't find the INEPT discussion, huh?

[Lemurion]

I know one very good reason why a person might want to use Kindlefix and KindlePID on BoB eBooks. To convert books they have already bought and might not have read yet. I'm planning on buying a Kindle in the next few weeks, and I have mobi books on my BoB bookshelf.

It's a purely artificial restriction that prevents me from reading those books on a Kindle. They use essentially the same file format and DRM scheme. It's a clear case of vendor lock-in and I don't intend to play along with it if I don't have to

[Thomas Ryan]

--never mind --