Scrambling copyright ebooks to help troubleshoot problems ???

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't think metadata is copyrighted....

Cove image is part of the metadata. Also, ^^

The ToC is on public record, if you care to look it up.

I think these 3 items would have to be 'all OK' or 'all not OK'. If it's important to obscure the Author/Title then both almost certainly appear in both Cover image and metadata. Both also frequently occur somewhere in the TOC ncx entries, e.g.
- "Other books by Joe Smith"
- "Praise for My Fabulous Tome"

Incidentally, is there any great benefit in trying to retain the cover image? It's much easier to obscure all images than it is to identify which is the cover in a badly coded ebook. It would also reduce the size of the scrambled copy if it's not retained.

Originally Posted by meeera

... the markup & CSS might constitute protected work.

Admittedly I've hardly spent any time dissecting ebooks with their DRM still intact, but when I did the only encrypted files were the html (including the markup, obviously) and the images. The CSS file and OPF file were unencrypted. Do you have a different experience?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Admittedly I've hardly spent any time dissecting ebooks with their DRM still intact, but when I did the only encrypted files were the html (including the markup, obviously) and the images. The CSS file and OPF file were unencrypted. Do you have a different experience?

Meera means "protected by copyright", rather than "protected by DRM". As I said in a previous post, the question of whether or not markup in the form of an XML schema is protected by copyright or not is one which, to the best of my knowledge, remains undecided.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Meera means "protected by copyright", rather than "protected by DRM". As I said in a previous post, the question of whether or not markup in the form of an XML schema is protected by copyright or not is one which, to the best of my knowledge, remains undecided.

I suppose I'm guilty of assuming that the Publisher's apply DRM encryption to those files they wish to keep protected. If they deliberately leave them unencrypted it implies they don't care. Again, a practical personal opinion not a legal one.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Incidentally, is there any great benefit in trying to retain the cover image? It's much easier to obscure all images than it is to identify which is the cover in a badly coded ebook. It would also reduce the size of the scrambled copy if it's not retained.

I don't know, probably not.

But if you were going to save the cover image, all you'd need to do is not replace any image with the "Cover" semantic.
If the ebook is badly coded, the worst that will happen is the cover doesn't get saved.
You don't need to try that hard.

[kovidgoyal]

Sounds like a fun plugin to code, @jackie_w, enjoy

Regarding the actual use case -- sharing books for debugging purposes, I think that simply putting the ebook file into a password protected zip file and sharing the password only via PM would do the trick. Ideally, some UI could be added to the MR upload attachment window to upload a "password protected attachement", the user then specifies the file to upload as normal, and also a password, the MR server then zips up the file in a password protected zip file which becomes the actual attachment.

[eschwartz]

...

Which leads me to another observation about "derived" works.
The same definition of "derived" that would mug a book which went through this plugin, would also apply to a password-protected ZIP file.

Because

Originally Posted by HarryT

This isn't by any means an official moderator stance; it's my personal opinion. It seems pretty clear to me that the output from an algorithmic transformation of a copyrighted work must itself be subject to copyright. It is the ultimate "derived work".

(emphasis mine)

File encryption is an algorithmic transformation.

Since we seem determined to rape words of all meaning.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

...

Which leads me to another observation about "derived" works.
The same definition of "derived" that would mug a book which went through this plugin, would also apply to a password-protected ZIP file.

Well, yes, of course it would. You're not suggesting, are you, that if you zip up a copyrighted book, the zip file is somehow free from copyright protection?

[eschwartz]

Yes.
I am suggesting that it is ludicrous to imagine running afoul, of MobileRead's laws against sharing copyrighted books, if one uploads a password-protected ZIP and PM's the password to the troubleshooter.

But perhaps you glossed over the part where I mentioned encryption.



But if I encrypt an ebook with a throwaway gpg key, and throw away the key, so even I can't decrypt it, is the resulting file protected by copyright?

It is "the output from an algorithmic transformation", but at the same time, nowhere in the world is the necessary information to translate it from white noise.


I'll reiterate:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Since we seem determined to rape words of all meaning.

[Cinisajoy]

My question is would this random generator just pick a random letter for each individual letter or would it substitute one letter for a particular letter? Let me show you what I mean.

The Cat in the Hat.
Would it look like this
Atr bho pw cfe qxt
Or
Atr swa yu atr twa?

The first one would be virtually untranslatable, the second one is a cryptoquiz.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I am suggesting that it is ludicrous to imagine running afoul, of MobileRead's laws against sharing copyrighted books, if one uploads a password-protected ZIP and PM's the password to the troubleshooter.

I'm afraid that I must respectfully disagree with you. If we disallow the uploading of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder, the material doesn't magically become less copyrighted simply because it's password protected .

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

My question is would this random generator just pick a random letter for each individual letter or would it substitute one letter for a particular letter? Let me show you what I mean.

The Cat in the Hat.
Would it look like this
Atr bho pw cfe qxt
Or
Atr swa yu atr twa?

The first one would be virtually untranslatable, the second one is a cryptoquiz.

Definitely the first. Not a Bletchley Park, Enigma codebreaking for beginners game

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid that I must respectfully disagree with you. If we disallow the uploading of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder, the material doesn't magically become less copyrighted simply because it's password protected .

I'm afraid I must respectfully point out that MobileRead has allowed its members to do precisely that for a very, very long time.

On their good days (rare), moderators accompany their warnings about not uploading copyrighted books, with instructions to password-protect the book before uploading, in order to comply with the Forum guidelines.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sounds like a fun plugin to code, @jackie_w, enjoy

I expect you could have written the whole thing in the time it took me to read your post ... with time for a tea-break in the middle

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Regarding the actual use case -- sharing books for debugging purposes, I think that simply putting the ebook file into a password protected zip file and sharing the password only via PM would do the trick. Ideally, some UI could be added to the MR upload attachment window to upload a "password protected attachement", the user then specifies the file to upload as normal, and also a password, the MR server then zips up the file in a password protected zip file which becomes the actual attachment.

It seems to me that once PM-ing is involved there are less people who are willing to have a go at diagnosing the problem. Whereas if a file is attached in the OP's post it often gets quite a few downloads. Whether these downloads are by people who have any intention of trying to help the OP or whether they're scavengers hoping for a free book would be open to debate, of course

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I'm afraid I must respectfully point out that MobileRead has allowed its members to do precisely that for a very, very long time.

On their good days (rare), moderators accompany their warnings about not uploading copyrighted books, with instructions to password-protect the book before uploading, in order to comply with the Forum guidelines.

Would you be kind enough to give an example of this, please?

And please cut out the smart-ass sarcasm. It adds nothing to the discussion.

Uploading a copyrighted book even with a password would still be copyright infringement unless you had the copyright holder's permission to share the book with the person to whom you gave the password.

[eschwartz]

I don't compile links to such things happening...
I just remember the general way things work.
No moderator has ever so much as made a funny comment about uploading password-protected books.


It appears to be standard operating policy on MobileRead that someone with a problem book can upload the password-protected copy and PM the password to the person helping.
Kovid Goyal (to fix problems in calibre).
davidfor, possibly (if something isn't working right with one of the Kobo plugins. He is usually the most active).
KevinH and DiapDealer (troubleshooting Sigil issues).
Ephemerality (developer of the X-Ray generator plugin for Kindles).
And possibly pdurrant has experience with this as well, from past/present work on KindleUnpack and/or various bits of OSX glue?

Possibly other people as well, in forums I don't frequent.



Sometimes people upload sample test cases, or a first chapter or so.
Sometimes they upload the password-protected book.

Ephemerality would have a hard time troubleshooting the X-Ray generator with ANYTHING other than an actual, usable book with ALL the text that needs to be X-Rayed.


A popular alternative for calibre is of course to use the Launchpad bugtracker and file a private bug.