Scrambling copyright ebooks to help troubleshoot problems ???

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

...
Even though there's less readable text in the full-length version.

To be exact, there would be none readable text at all, except the ISBN, in the cases when the ISBN can't be scrambled.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you are scrambling the ISBN number, also scramble the ID as the ISBN is sometimes used there. But you will have to use the same scrambled ID in the OPF in the NCX if the ID in the NCX matches that in the OPF. If they do not match than scramble the ID in the NCX.

Yes I'm aware there are rules about certain ids in OPF/NCX needing to match. But as these would be throwaway books there's no need to make the values anything meaningful. I may add an explicit calibre run_check to flag if the scrambled book acquires new errors in the process.

[MattW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I was under the impression that the goal was to produce a book that's structurally similar to the original, but from which the original couldn't be identified.

Of course, if that's not the desire, then there's no issue.

I am pretty sure that it would be programmatically fairly trivial to generate a fingerprint of an original ePub, azw3 file (or whatever) only taking into consideration a books's structure and the length of individual words and paragraphs.

This fingerpringt would be identical for the original work and the derived work, but differentiate any book from any other book. Given a database of these fingerprints, one could easily identify every work in that database.

I don't think that should be the issue here, however. Copyright law does not prohibit identification of a copyrighted work (otherwise, the sheer mention of "Harry Potter" would constiute copyright infringement). I think the goal should be that the original should not be recoverable, i.e. that given the scrambled file, it should not be possible to reconstitute the original work (even in parts).

If identification was a problem, posters on MR would be forbidden to mention the name of the copyrighted work when requesting help and uploading a scrambled copy. I hardly think that would accomplish anything or help the copyright owner.

Given that, I honestly don't get the hang-ups on the ISBN number. That number very obviously is not part of the copyrighted work itself in any meaninful way (again: otherwise even the mention of an ISBN number would infringe copyright[1]).

As for algorithmically scrambled books constituting derived works: that stance is so far-fetched it boggles the mind. Like another poster said, you'd be laughed out of court with an argument of that kind.

Consider, for example the following algorithm: Count the characters in a book, multiply them by the number of pages and divide by the number of letters in the title.

You get a number that is algorithmically derived from the original work and will be the same every time you apply that algorithm to a given book. Yet I think we can all agree that this would not be a "derived work" in any meaningful sense of the word. The US Supreme Court has decided on the side of the "spirit of the law" over the "letter of the law" debate in much more contested cases (No. 13–7451, Yates vs. US or the recent Obamacare decision, for example) - a case like this would be so clear-cut it would never even make it to court.

As for the question whethe or not the XHTML structure of the book itself is part of the copyrighted material, ask yourself whethe the type of paper (or font size) used in a printed book is part of the copyrighted material.

Matt


[1] I don't really suppose that anyone's arguing that mentioning the ISBN number is indeed almost copyright infringement but falls under the "fair use" clause of copyright law. The ISBN number's whole point is to make the book identifiable and it belongs to the public record.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MattW

Given that, I honestly don't get the hang-ups on the ISBN number. That number very obviously is not part of the copyrighted work itself in any meaninful way (again: otherwise even the mention of an ISBN number would infringe copyright[1]).

Nobody is suggesting that there's anything wrong with quoting an ISBN. The question was whether or not one of the goals of this work was to hide the identity of the original book. If it is, you need to get rid of the ISBN; it's not, there's no problem.

As for the question whethe or not the XHTML structure of the book itself is part of the copyrighted material, ask yourself whethe the type of paper (or font size) used in a printed book is part of the copyrighted material.

No, not the XHTML structure of the book, but the CSS definitions themselves. This is arguably a "creative" component of the book and hence may be subject to copyright. As I said in an earlier post, though, a little research suggests that there has been no legal decision made as to whether an XML scheme constitutes a programming language or a program, and hence it is up in the air as to whether or not it actually is protected by copyright.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nobody is suggesting that there's anything wrong with quoting an ISBN. The question was whether or not one of the goals of this work was to hide the identity of the original book. If it is, you need to get rid of the ISBN; it's not, there's no problem.

But it's not a free debate, is it? If these scrambled books are to be sanctioned for upload to MR then MR must have the final decision on what is acceptable to be seen,
- when viewing casually (e.g. content, metadata, links to external websites)
- when debugging (filenames, comments etc).

I do need clarification on this, but there's no great urgency. If it requires more consideration by MR, so be it.

Whether the tool is also capable of being configured to be less strict than MR requires (or possibly even more strict) is not really relevant to the discussion.

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, not the XHTML structure of the book, but the CSS definitions themselves. This is arguably a "creative" component of the book and hence may be subject to copyright. As I said in an earlier post, though, a little research suggests that there has been no legal decision made as to whether an XML scheme constitutes a programming language or a program, and hence it is up in the air as to whether or not it actually is protected by copyright.

I'll leave the philosophy to others better equipped, but it's a fair assumption that all the short extracts which have thus far been allowable as MR uploads have made no attempt to hide Author, Title, ISBN, external links etc. All the ones I've seen have also included the full CSS file, even if it's a publisher's 'house standard' stylesheet.

[MattW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, not the XHTML structure of the book, but the CSS definitions themselves. This is arguably a "creative" component of the book and hence may be subject to copyright. As I said in an earlier post, though, a little research suggests that there has been no legal decision made as to whether an XML scheme constitutes a programming language or a program, and hence it is up in the air as to whether or not it actually is protected by copyright.

It's not "up in the air" at all and I wouldn't use the word "arguably" here - again, the copyright is for the content of the book. Show me the CSS in the pbook version and you'd come close to maybe having something that remotely resembles a point. From a technical standpoint, CSS is not XML (not even close), so pardon my confusion regarding your "XML schema" comment.

Just because something hasn't been settled in court, doesn't mean it's up for discussion. The question whether cars are fruits or vegetables hasn't been decided by a court either.

And even if you could somehow make the argument that a given set of CSS files is a "computer program", the publisher would either have to register a separate copyright for the CSS as a "computer program" (which no publisher has ever done and it's doubtful that ebook CSS merits copyright protection in the first place, see below) or you'd need to show that it is substantially a part of the copyrighted work itself and not merely a technical necessity. Again, your argument strikes me as overly pedantic and literal-minded - it's akin to claiming that we can't use the colour black when discussing "Harry Potter" because "Harry Potter" is printed in black and using it would somehow infringe copyright.

A computer program is not copyrightable under all circumstances; in the US, for example, it needs, among other things, to be "sufficient to constitute original authorship." This is essentially a threshold question whether the “de minimis” maxim [that there has to be a minimum amount of originality for copyright protection] applies. Furthermore, the program needs to provide a humanly-readable copyright notice and it must be registered at the copyright office.

Neither of these three conditions apply for the CSS of an ebook (the first condition might apply for a very typographically, richly illustrated book like "The House of Leaves" which still leaves you way short of copyrightable material).

While I understand that it is necessary for MR to not even come close to copyright infringement, your claims in this thread are a little... let's just say, out there.

Matt

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MattW

A computer program is not copyrightable under all circumstances; in the US, for example, it needs, among other things, to be "sufficient to constitute original authorship." This is essentially a threshold question whether the “de minimis” maxim [that there has to be a minimum amount of originality for copyright protection] applies. Furthermore, the program needs to provide a humanly-readable copyright notice and it must be registered at the copyright office.

With the very greatest respect, Matt, you are mistaken. Copyright exists the instant that a creative work is created. It does not require a copyright notice, and certainly doesn't need to be "registered" anywhere. (It does, of course, need to be sufficiently "creative" in order to be subject to copyright.)

[MattW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With the very greatest respect, Matt, you are mistaken. Copyright exists the instant that a creative work is created. It does not require a copyright notice, and certainly doesn't need to be "registered" anywhere. (It does, of course, need to be sufficiently "creative" in order to be subject to copyright.)

That is, of course, true. I apologize for phrasing it the way I did. While the law makes a big difference between registered works and non-registered works in how easy it is to actually protect your copyright in a court of law and what kind of protections the author can claim, you're basically right. For the purposes of this discussion, though, i.e. the susceptibility of MR to copyright infringement lawsuits, it is a very relevant point: publishers usually register the copyright for their books (because it constitutes prima facie evidence in a court of law and entitles them to statutory damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation) whereas they do not register copyright for their ebook's CSS. So, while I may have overly simplified my point, I'd argue it's still valid: for the CSS to be a problem, you'd either expect it to be a computer program (that the publisher would have registered) or an integral creative part of the whole (which it is clearly not, since it is lacking in the pbook version).

That you decided to ignore the salient points of my reply again and nitpick on something so small, however, somehow does not surprise me in the least

Matt

[RbnJrg]

Please, that nobody be offended by this comment, but as I said before, I still can't understand why it is fair to upload a short sample (with css, metadata, ISBN, etc.) where everyone can identify the book but can't be uploaded a book totally scrambled except for the ISBN. IMHO, if the CSS style sheet is a conditioning, then neither would be fair to upload a short sample.
On the other hand, if the scrambled book is uploaded here, it is to correct errors (not for "our" profit); the author should be grateful and not annoying for helping him improve his work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

Please, that nobody be offended by this comment, but as I said before, I still can't understand why it is fair to upload a short sample (with css, metadata, ISBN, etc.) where everyone can identify the book but can't be uploaded a book totally scrambled except for the ISBN. IMHO, if the CSS style sheet is a conditioning, then neither would be fair to upload a short sample.
On the other hand, if the scrambled book is uploaded here, it is to correct errors (not for "our" profit); the author should be grateful and not annoying for helping him improve his work.

Nobody's said that it's not OK to upload such a book. It's absolutely fine with me .

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nobody's said that it's not OK to upload such a book. It's absolutely fine with me .

Absolutely fine with HarryT, solid citizen of the UK or
absolutely fine with HarryT spokesperson and defender of the legal position of MR.

Maybe I'm being particularly dense here, but was there an implied answer to my questions (posts #96/#110) in that brief comment or do I need to await further instruction - to be delivered at your leisure?

I need it spelling out in unambiguous terms. You're a professional IT man, I believe, you must know how it works down at the nitty-gritty end.

[WT Sharpe]

The team is of the opinion that as long as the contents of the book are scrambled, it's okay.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The team is of the opinion that as long as the contents of the book are scrambled, it's okay.

Tom, You're replying to me, yes?

I'm reading your reply to mean it's OK if AuthorName, BookTitle, ISBN appear inside the raw files as long as they are not visible when reading the book.

Please can you also clarify these two details:

1. If there are clickable links to external websites, do I need to remove them? They may link to the Author's website, Twitter account etc. I think they would need to be 'all removed' or 'all left in'. I can't think of a practical middle ground. Unless you advise otherwise I'm going to assume you would prefer them to be 'all removed'.
   
2. Is it important to try and ensure Author, Title, ISBN are completely removed from the metadata? I've made some progress on this but, as there appears to be very little in the way of industry standardisation for every book, and I only own a finite number of books, it's hard to guarantee 100% perfection.

Thank you in advance

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The team is of the opinion that as long as the contents of the book are scrambled, it's okay.

When you say "contents", do you mean "the story text of the book", which is the problematic IP?


It appears that there is great confusion/caution about what precisely MobileRead would consider in violation of the forum guidelines.


What I would like to hear is that the (story) text of the book is a problem, but Title, Author, ISBN, Table of Contents, and other identifying information that does not help someone read the story they aren't entitled to, is not a problem (or at least is covered under "Fair Use").
More than that might end up being scrambled, at the discretion of @jackie_w, but this is the only part that is absolutely required by MobileRead.
Or so I hope.


MobileRead has always allowed short extracts under fair use, at least -- right???

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Tom, You're replying to me, yes?

I'm reading your reply to mean it's OK if AuthorName, BookTitle, ISBN appear inside the raw files as long as they are not visible when reading the book.

Please can you also clarify these two details:

1. If there are clickable links to external websites, do I need to remove them? They may link to the Author's website, Twitter account etc. I think they would need to be 'all removed' or 'all left in'. I can't think of a practical middle ground. Unless you advise otherwise I'm going to assume you would prefer them to be 'all removed'.
   
2. Is it important to try and ensure Author, Title, ISBN are completely removed from the metadata? I've made some progress on this but, as there appears to be very little in the way of industry standardisation for every book, and I only own a finite number of books, it's hard to guarantee 100% perfection.

Thank you in advance

Originally Posted by eschwartz

When you say "contents", do you mean "the story text of the book", which is the problematic IP?


It appears that there is great confusion/caution about what precisely MobileRead would consider in violation of the forum guidelines.


What I would like to hear is that the (story) text of the book is a problem, but Title, Author, ISBN, Table of Contents, and other identifying information that does not help someone read the story they aren't entitled to, is not a problem (or at least is covered under "Fair Use").
More than that might end up being scrambled, at the discretion of @jackie_w, but this is the only part that is absolutely required by MobileRead.
Or so I hope.


MobileRead has always allowed short extracts under fair use, at least -- right???

It is my belief that as long as the story itself is scrambled, other elements such as Title, Author, ISBN, Table of Contents, & etc. should not be a problem. As this is not something that has come up before, I can't guarantee you that the current policy will never be amended in light of future consequences, but I can say you will have no trouble from the mod team for posting it.