This guy wants to make Calibre assist in illegal distribution of ebooks

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

A computer allows third party code to manipulate all files that exist on it in any manner it sees fit.

But there are plugins for your application, which are supposed to extend the functionality of calibre. Why you allow your plugins to hack in the other applications' data? ADE is not a part of Calibre, and hacking its store should not be possible from within it.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

But there are plugins for your application, which are supposed to extend the functionality of calibre. Why you allow your plugins to hack in the other applications' data? ADE is not a part of Calibre, and hacking its store should not be possible from within it.

Sigh, I give up. I suggest you go educate yourself about how computers work. As a starting point, note that in a computer, any program can access any other programs data. That is how computers work. And plugins in calibre are just ordinary programs. If you dont like it I suggest you join the war on general purpose computing, serfs like us should only be allowed access to media consumption devices, not computers.

Anyway, I have wasted enough time on this thread. Over and out.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by theducks

because: of the basic 'locked door' test used for burglary / unauthorized access.

If the door is left OPEN, it is just trespassing. at the worst (assumes no other activities after entry)

If you Force your way past a locked door, it is B & E

I'm pretty sure this doesn't apply to the Internet. If you leave data open to anyone in the world, it's not trespassing when someone decides to download it. I'm pretty sure also that a certain percentage leave them open deliberately. Wither it's to the global Internet at large or only their friends, the onus of securing data is on them.

[Divingduck]

I don't read often such a lot pseudo knowledge nonsense and blablabla at mobileread.

Seems summertime is coming and troll time starts ...

[icq70610]

That comment made my day,

summer time = 35 degrees = the trolls pop up

...

\Pete

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

Better ban Google.
Just out of curiosity, what sort of identifying details would be present in an ebook?

There is a German DRM system that has random changes in the words of the book. No two officially distributed copies of the eBook contain the same words in the same order. Keep a list of who bought each version, and you can tell who whose copy is on TPB.

One of the US DRM systems scatters the purchaser's name, address, credit card number, and expiration date around the document.

Amber

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

There is a German DRM system that has random changes in the words of the book. No two officially distributed copies of the eBook contain the same words in the same order. Keep a list of who bought each version, and you can tell who whose copy is on TPB.

One of the US DRM systems scatters the purchaser's name, address, credit card number, and expiration date around the document.

Or a Dutch based one that adds extra spaces between sentences. I assume there is some encoding in the pattern of 1 space/2 spaces between sentences that identifies the original purchaser.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

One of the US DRM systems scatters the purchaser's name, address, credit card number, and expiration date around the document.

Amber

Handy for criminals looking for that kind of information.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

There is a German DRM system that has random changes in the words of the book. No two officially distributed copies of the eBook contain the same words in the same order.

I didn't believe it so I had to check and you are right!

https://www.wired.com/2013/06/new-ebook-drm/

From the article:

By studying a list of example words and phrases that could be changed in purchased books, you can see that the changes are minor – like from "very disturbing" to "not disturbing."

That made me laugh..

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

One of the US DRM systems scatters the purchaser's name, address, credit card number, and expiration date around the document.

Not something that would make for repeat business from me. Thanks for the info.

[Apache]

I would think that listing the buyers credit card info in the document would be illegal. If nothing else it will not be long before a lawyer sues them.
Apache

[FizzyWater]

If this is referring to the old B&N > Fictionwise > eReader.com > Palm Digital Media DRM, you had to enter your name and credit card (as of the time you purchased the book). The ebook encryption saved that info as hashed data (I'm probably not saying that right) that was supposed not able to be used to pull the name/credit card from it. Back in 2002 when I first started buying ebooks, this was my DRM of choice and I read a lot about it before I decided to buy books that used it.

I tried a quick Google search, but couldn't find anything about it any more, other than "B&N is changing its DRM" blog posts.

[KevinH]

Those same programs exist as standalone python programs, no calibre needed. So are you now going to condemn the entire python programming language!?! Any python based program could be used to launch or run the drm tool GUI quite easily.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Handy for criminals looking for that kind of information.

See?
It works extremely well.
You - the person that has purchased the book legally - are going to guard it even more carefully than the CreditCard used to purchase the book

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by theducks

because: of the basic 'locked door' test used for burglary / unauthorized access.

If the door is left OPEN, it is just trespassing. at the worst (assumes no other activities after entry)

If you Force your way past a locked door, it is B & E

IANAL, and it's definitely off topic, and I don't know how it is in FL or where ever you are, but in Tennessee, it's Breaking and Entering if you unlawfully enter the house, whether or not the door is locked. "Breaking" here understood in the sense of "breaking the plane of the threshold" (i.e. crossing the threshold).
Additionally, if the house or dwelling is occupied by someone who has a right to be there, at the time of the B&E, the breakin in itself is assumed to constitute an "immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm" to the occupant, which is sufficient to permit the use of deadly force to counteract said threat.

[darryl]

In my view it is a fallacy to equate offences against physical property with actions relating to intellectual property. Let's take the example of larceny and try to apply it to copying an epub file. A nice simple explanation of the elements of larceny can be found here:

Findlaw Elements of Larceny

To prove larceny the prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. The unlawful taking and carrying away;
2. Of someone else's property;
3. Without the consent of the owner; and
4. With the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

It is very clear that neither 1 nor 4 can be proven since they have not in fact occurred. I suppose if a pirate steals someones computer or hard drive and carries it away with the requisite intention it is possible to argue that larceny has occurred not only in relation to the hard drive but also the intellectual property stored on the hard drive.

But nothing belonging to the owner is taken and carried away by simply copying a file. And the owner is not deprived of the file since it remains undamaged wherever it is stored. The point I am making is that viewing intellectual property by way of analogy to physical property only goes so far. It is understandable why rights holders equate copyright infringement with theft, since they want to attach the same odium to copyright infringement, presumably in an attempt at simplification as even young children are quickly educated to understand that theft is wrong.

Likewise, as st_albert pointed out in his reply to theducks in this thread, breaking and entering is not a good analogy for accessing a calibre server exposed to the web, whether or not there is any security on that server.

Copying ebook files without the owners permission is not larceny. It is copyright infringement, a fundamentally different thing. Accessing another computer over the internet without authorisation is not breaking and entering, though it may be one of a number of different offences created in different jurisdictions.

Whether copyright infringement is morally equivalent to larceny, or accessing a computer without permission to breaking and entering, is a different argument and will no doubt attract a variety of views. But reasoning by use of analogies between these concepts is of limited use and usually attended to attach the odium of one crime to something fundamentally different.