DRM and AZW files

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It would need to not only rules that fair use trumps the DMCA, but that Free speech, in terms of DeDRM software, also trumps the DMCA.

I don't see that either is likely to happen.

But I also don't see a judge ruling that for personal use, stripping DRM is illegal.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But I also don't see a judge ruling that for personal use, stripping DRM is illegal.

That probably depends on the judge's "price tag". Many judges are appointed by politicians who HAVE obviously been "bought" with donations to their "campaign funds". Some media companies spread a lot of money around to help others learn to see their own "point of view", and judges are (indirectly) no exception.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

That probably depends on the judge's "price tag". Many judges are appointed by politicians who HAVE obviously been "bought" with donations to their "campaign funds". Some media companies spread a lot of money around to help others learn to see their own "point of view", and judges are (indirectly) no exception.

Money talks.

Carol

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by zeb

Right, that same America that has a legislation that makes DRM breaking outlawed (DMCA)? That tried to push the ACTA, SOPA and other inane legislations using coercion to the rest of the world? At least in my country, breaking DRM for personal use is not illegal, and I can watch DVD and Blurays on my Linux system. But thanks to the land of the free, this may not last very long.

It is not illegal in the United States to strip DRM from any ebook you own, so long as you stop there and use the resulting file only for your personal reading.

It is probably not illegal to share the resulting file with your family and possibly not illegal to share it with your friends - but in any event, as a practical matter, you can do it on a person to person basis, like passing around a pbook you have read already (i.e., not using filesharing sites).

Whether you want to do that is more of an ethical issue than a legal one, because - again, as a practical matter - the legalities can't be enforced. (Sort of like allowing your teenager to have wine at the dinner table when the drinking age is 21.)

The reason that the owner of this website does not permit posting of techical information on how to accomplish removal of DRM is probably that he/she/it does not want to argue with the authorities whether doing so violates the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, which it might under some circumstances. While merely posting the information might be "free speech," hosting a site where people who actually do violate those provisions come together to discuss how to accomplish it would expose the owner to conspiracy charges.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Harmon

It is not illegal in the United States to strip DRM from any ebook you own, so long as you stop there and use the resulting file only for your personal reading.

On what basis do you make this statement? In the absence of definitive court rulings, it would appear the DMCA makes it illegal.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ApK

On what basis do you make this statement? In the absence of definitive court rulings, it would appear the DMCA makes it illegal.

Especially as the Librarian of Congress has seen fit to make an explicit exception for ebooks which prevent read-aloud functionality.

It's the exception that proves the rule.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ApK

On what basis do you make this statement? In the absence of definitive court rulings, it would appear the DMCA makes it illegal.

On the basis that I'm a US lawyer who knows how to read statutory law such as the DCMA and the case law and knows how to understand what they really say, as opposed to a layman who thinks that he knows what a law means merely by reading it.

It isn't easy to know how to read the law and understand it. There's an art to legal interpretation.

For an example of how a lawyer thinks about the law, read my post at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...69#post1316169

I'm not going to say that you won't find a lawyer who disagrees with me, but I will say that I've been reading and interpreting statutory law for 40 years, and am pretty good at it by now.

And since most people are familiar with Sherlock Holmes, let me refer you to Silver Blaze, in which Holmes' deduction was based on something that did not happen. It's sometimes the situation in statutory interpretation that as much depends on what is not written as on what is written. And that's the situation with the DMCA. There's a big fat hole in it that would not be there if it was intended that stripping DRM from a file for personal use would be illegal.

But you have to have a legal education to see it, just like you have to be a doctor to interpret symptoms that a non-doctor might think he understands, but doesn't.

(As an interesting aside, the same kind of hole was in the Volstead Act (aka Prohibition) on which the DCMA seems to have been modeled. And I know this because I actually have read a legal treatise called Blakemore on Prohibition, 3rd Edition, published back before Repeal. It's astonishing how the DCMA tracks that that law - I have to believe that the authors of the DCMA must have done their research well no matter what I personally think of the damned thing.)

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Especially as the Librarian of Congress has seen fit to make an explicit exception for ebooks which prevent read-aloud functionality.

It's the exception that proves the rule.

Not always. Sometimes legal interpretations that already exist get codified anyway. Take, for example, the Castle Doctrine, relating to the common law right of self-defense without a duty to retreat in one's own home. Pretty much codified these days.

One reason for such codification is to prevent legal wrangling in the courts. In the case of read-aloud functionality, that was a practical need.

(Ever notice how the express "the exception proves the rule" is ambiguous? "Proves" can mean "tests," and my suspicion is that the expression mean that the existence of an exception shows that there isn't a rule in the first place.)

[ApK]

And here again is my standard warning about getting legal advice from anonymous strangers on a public forum: Don't.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by Harmon

And since most people are familiar with Sherlock Holmes, let me refer you to Silver Blaze, in which Holmes' deduction was based on something that did not happen. It's sometimes the situation in statutory interpretation that as much depends on what is not written as on what is written. And that's the situation with the DMCA. There's a big fat hole in it that would not be there if it was intended that stripping DRM from a file for personal use would be illegal.

I noticed that while DMCA seemed to prohibit the manufacture and distribution of stripping technology, it didn't mention possessing or using such technology. Thus those who create and provide the decryption program are criminal scum, however, those who use the decryption program are upstanding and decent folk.

I am not a lawyer and may have missed something. Was there anything else that I should have been looking for?

[Piper_]

It seems the ruling of the 5th circuit court of appeals would be relevant here... ? They said that DCMA couldn't be used to prosecute someone for bypassing encryption for the purposes of using or viewing something when doing so was not itself a breach of copyright.

I'm probably hacking the words up, but there are some quotes from the judge here:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/07/23/29099.htm

"Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act's) anti-circumvention provision,"

"The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners."

"The owner's technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing."*

That remains standing as the last word from the US courts, AFAIK.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Piper_

That remains standing as the last word from the US courts, AFAIK.

I wish. Unfortunately, after that, the 9th circuit court gave a different opinion.
The two contradictory court comments have been discussed here at some length.

That's why most of us tend to think it's a legal grey area at best

Personally, I think it's fair use to strip drm just to exercise the rights you already have, and that copyright law should not be used lock someone into a particular vendor.

ApK

[Piper_]

Oh, great. I was counting on that one. Does it matter where you live? I'm in Texas under the 5th circuit...

Not that I see anyone coming after people like us, using it as you note, as they are likely to lose their teeth if it went to court and from grey to black and white.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Piper_

Oh, great. I was counting on that one. Does it matter where you live? I'm in Texas under the 5th circuit...

Yes, here's an interesting article on the two decisions:
http://www.lockelord.com/art_2011law...randevanslyke/

[Barbara1955]

I didnt read ALL 4 pages LOL BUT Was wondering HOW this was sent to you? Was it purchased for you thru Amazon AS a Gift .... IF YES Contact Amazon I had a few eBooks Gifted to me that Amazon had to fix. IF your friend purchased it for them & then Emailed it to you your SOL as that Illegal. Also IF your Friend sent it to you as a 2 week Lendable ....IF IT IS Lendable Again You need to contact Amazon! Good Luck!