Disabling text-to-speech (TTS) triggers DMCA exemption: YOU ARE ALLOWED TO REMOVE DRM

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by kamm

I was referring to a case-by-case basis... if you're referring to precedents you're probably right.

How a statute should be interpreted is always a question of law and always decided by a judge. There's no "probably" here.

[kamm]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

How a statute should be interpreted is always a question of law and always decided by a judge. There's no "probably" here.

I respectfully disagree but it's just my European-law-ridden mind, don't worry.

[sirbruce]

"Adversely affected" is relevant to "standing", which the judge decides before it gets to the jury.

[kamm]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

"Adversely affected" is relevant to "standing", which the judge decides before it gets to the jury.

That's why I said trial...

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by kamm

Exactly my point: in cases like this they ought to look at what the DMCA wanted to achieve - and that's prevent making unathorized copies etc.

Since Kindle books are already tied to a single device there's no meaningful ground to attack a person who removes the DRM to enable TTS.

Of course, in my understanding the exemption is already there so any way I look at it I think a sane judge should throw out a case about this immediately.

You don't have to remove the DRM to enable the TTS.

[kamm]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

You don't have to remove the DRM to enable the TTS.

Well, you know what I meant...

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by kamm

I respectfully disagree but it's just my European-law-ridden mind, don't worry.

Fair enough. Let me restate: Under US law, a judge decides matters of law, such as how to interpret a statute.

Many civil copyright cases in the US never get to a jury, btw. Either they are disposed of on pretrial motions such as summary judgment, or the parties don't request a jury trial (and in a civil case in federal court, if you don't ask for a jury, you've waived the right to one).

Criminal copyright cases (in the US) are relatively rare and generally involve mass physical piracy (e.g., the warehouse where some guys are copying DVDs to sell on the streets).

[kamm]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Fair enough. Let me restate: Under US law, a judge decides matters of law, such as how to interpret a statute.

Many civil copyright cases in the US never get to a jury, btw. Either they are disposed of on pretrial motions such as summary judgment, or the parties don't request a jury trial (and in a civil case in federal court, if you don't ask for a jury, you've waived the right to one).

Criminal copyright cases (in the US) are relatively rare and generally involve mass physical piracy (e.g., the warehouse where some guys are copying DVDs to sell on the streets).

Actually I said the same thing, presuming it would go to trial hence my comment about "trial" - OTOH I think there are plenty of scaring/coercing ignorant John Does into coughing up thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars as "settlement" (=protection fee in mob lingo) to prevent criminal trials.

I do believe this country has lost its mind when it comes to copyright, patent and the enforcement of them - we are long gov'd by laws bought by a little influential mafia, led by the clearly illegal RIAA/MPAA actions which, BTW, are clear cases for a RICO trial.

Now this mob is in even bigger attack: the ACTA, the big hush-hush about it tells it all - they want to institutionalize chasing "infringers" and task governments and ISPs with it worldwide.[/b[

Arrogant parasites always fall - it will be fun to watch when the EP will kill ACTA with a sweeping vote (our Congress here is deeply rotten, totally crooked by RIAA/MPAA.)

[whitearrow]

Actually the RIAA cases are all civil, and the RIAA has no say in whether the government pursues a criminal case. In other words, you can't settle a civil case to prevent a criminal proceeding.

BTW, I'm not disagreeing with your overall POV... I just think we should try to be as factually accurate as possible when talking about this stuff.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

You don't have to remove the DRM to enable the TTS.

You do not have to remove the DRM which "locks" the book to a specific device.

You certainly do have to remove the DRM which tells the device "this book has TTS disabled". The TTS disable "block" in the file is unquestionably a form of DRM, and hence (in the USA) subject to the DMCA.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You certainly do have to remove the DRM which tells the device "this book has TTS disabled". The TTS disable "block" in the file is unquestionably a form of DRM, and hence (in the USA) subject to the DMCA.

I do not think it is unquestionable. The DRM mechanism could not be trivial to be covered by DMCA. I think it is trivial so it is not covered. When they chose the mechanism they knew that already existing tools could remove it trivially.

[HarryT]

I suppose it depends what the word "trivial" means. I'd take it to mean "can be removed by anyone, with no specialist knowledge, and no specialist tools". Again, though, unfortunately this is one of those things which can be no more than "opinion" until a test case comes to court.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You certainly do have to remove the DRM which tells the device "this book has TTS disabled".

I agree that this is part of DRM for encrypted ebooks, because they can only be read by the official reader software which will honor the TTS flag. The TTS anti-circumvention exception probably allows removal of this TTS-related DRM, and Amazon has made this particularly easy to do.

The more interesting case is the un-encrypted samples (and perhaps un-encrypted full ebooks). We typically call these DRM-free, but they can still contain the TTS-flag and a clippinglimit which the Kindle will honor. I don't think this rises to the level of DRM, and so these ebooks are covered by conventional copyright law which allows full copying for personal use (no clipping limit restrictions) and format shifting for personal use - which I take to include TTS. So I think it is ok to remove, or increase, the clipping limit from DRM-free Kindle ebooks (removing TTS is probably allowed on all ebooks).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The more interesting case is the un-encrypted samples (and perhaps un-encrypted full ebooks). We typically call these DRM-free, but they can still contain the TTS-flag and a clippinglimit which the Kindle will honor. I don't think this rises to the level of DRM, and so these ebooks are covered by conventional copyright law which allows full copying for personal use (no clipping limit restrictions) and format shifting for personal use - which I take to include TTS. So I think it is ok to remove, or increase, the clipping limit from DRM-free Kindle ebooks (removing TTS is probably allowed on all ebooks).

What is clipping limit?

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by tompe

What is clipping limit?

On the Kindle any text you highlight or pages (or articles) you "clip" are stored in the "MyClippings.txt" file, together with any notes you add to the ebook. This is one big file for all ebooks. The publisher can limit this capability using EXTH record type 401 ClippingLimit, see "Exceeded" Allowable Clippings for a Book. This is similar in concept to the limit on the number of pages that can be printed from some Adobe ebooks. The bad part is that it also applies to highlighted text. It is good that the highlights appear in MyClippings.txt but bad that they count as clippings.

The limit applies to DRM-free Kindle ebooks as well, the complete DRM-free AZWs I looked at all had a limit of 100 but the ClippingLimit is set to zero in samples.