Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up: Why Your Books Are No Longer Yours

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by TommyCooper

I little paranoia and a lot of skepticism are good things. Trusting any power which controls our lives without those two questioning elements is, I believe, a big mistake.

No argument there.

Originally Posted by Trenien

I've said it before on this forum, and sorry if I'm a bit harsh: Steve, you're delusionnal in your faith in DRM.

And speaking of delusional, Trenien... if you check through my past posts, you will never find one in which I either support, or show any faith in, DRM. That's why I do not use it myself.

I do have an expectation, based on laws and tech that have already been applied to other digital systems, that we will eventually see other forms of control, such as document tagging and tracking... that's not the same as DRM, by a long shot, though I'm sure that from your point of view, it's equally as heinous.

[Taylor514ce]

I think an encryption-based system, as with certain high-end software packages, will prevail. The keys to all your purchased content could be stored on a dongle. The dongle could be placed into any device, and thus provide access to your content on that device. This could even work for rented or temporary devices. You store your library on a server, and access it with any device, as long as you have your dongle with you.

This system would impose no restrictions on where you store your content, or how many copies you make.

[JSWolf]

It's still DRM no matter how you look at it.

[Taylor514ce]

No, it isn't. DRM seeks to impose limits on the uses, copies, and/or distribution of (essentially) a file. It further seeks to impose these controls in a particularly stupid manner, from a security/programming standpoint.

Standard public-key encryption does not. You can distribute an encrypted file however you please, copy it however many times you like, and store it on any device you own. To read it, you have to decrypt it, and that decryption relies on an established shared key. That sounds awfully like a "transaction", to me, between a publisher and a consumer.

I don't want to buy crippled books that only work on certain devices. However, I support authors' and publishers' rights to earn a living from what they do, and part of that means finding some way of preventing me from giving away a thousand copies of a book.

Again, this is a problem that has already been addressed in the software industry, with good results, via digital signatures and public-key cryptography.

[xianfox]

Two problems I see with DRM (any kind of DRM), the first of which was outlined in the CNet article:

1) If I can access the data, I can copy it. It may take some programming knowledge/work, but it can be done.

2) Laws were never designed to PREVENT someone from committing a crime, only to provide for the PUNISHMENT of those who do. Our lawmakers need to realize that they cannot PREVENT someone from breaking the law. Once they come back to that realization, many of our problems--in society as a whole--will vanish. Until then, be prepared to disrobe at the airport and jump through increasingly esoteric hoops to read your ebooks.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by xianfox

2) Laws were never designed to PREVENT someone from committing a crime, only to provide for the PUNISHMENT of those who do.

This is true... security is designed to prevent someone from breaking the law, in some cases. In others, security may not be able to prevent someone breaking the law, but it can provide enough information to allow for that person to be caught and punished. Security cameras are such an example.

In the case of digital files, security would come in the form of software that could identify a document as it traveled the web, and that could identify where that file originated, and where it was received. Such security would operate "invisibly" to the user, but would provide enough data to identify and punish someone who illegally disseminated a file. (It would not prevent the owner from making copies for themselves... just from giving them to others via a web transaction.)

These security methods are already in the works (mainly as applied to child porn, but the music industry is also keeping a weather eye on it).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by xianfox

2) Laws were never designed to PREVENT someone from committing a crime, only to provide for the PUNISHMENT of those who do.

Surely, though, the idea is that fear of the punishment has a deterrent effect, is it not?

For example, in the UK, if you carry a gun while committing a crime, they basically lock you up and throw away the key. The result is that burglars, etc, don't (if they have any sense) carry guns, because they know that if they get caught, they might go to prison for 6 months for burglary, but it would be a 10 year sentence if they were caught carrying a gun while doing so.

That is an example of punishment changing the behavior of criminals.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Surely, though, the idea is that fear of the punishment has a deterrent effect, is it not?

Absolutely. Any MP3 file sharer has only to think about Jammie Thomas, to think twice about breaking the law. But it only works if they expect they will be caught at it, and have a belief that they will be punished.

Laws and punishment have to go hand in hand with the security system. That's what actually caught Thomas (and that can catch an e-book file sharer, too).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Tommy, going back to an earlier point,

Originally Posted by TommyCooper

I'm well aware that they are being used. Unfortunately, I don't share your benevolent view of the role or intentions of government. As for people buying things - did they have a real choice about what they bought? How much surveillance are you personally willing to accept? When you wake-up one morning and find that you've changed your mind about some aspect of surveillance that you thought was benevolent, how are you going to change it back?

Many people don't like the idea that they are being watched by surveillance cameras in their local grocery store. However, they value the convenience of shopping there enough to overweigh their dissatisfaction, and they shop anyway... and most of them eventually put the cameras out of their mind.

American cable TV users are generally aware that the cable box on their TV not only provides shows to them, but it can report back on what they are watching, in real time, can report on its own ID information, and if some information doesn't sgree with the info at the cable company, it can be remotely disabled. Sounds horrible! But their desire for cool TV overweighs their horror, and they gladly pay money for that box and watch TV, and the "Big Brother Eye" staring back at them is put out of their mind.

The point is, people will willingly put up with surveillance and monitoring, if they see it as convenient to do so. iTunes will tell you that they'll even put up with DRM to easily get the music they want. These lessons can be applied to e-books as well... and probably will, in one form or another (as I said, I expect it to be an ID and tracking system, not DRM, but at this stage, anything's possible.

Your last question is a lot harder, of course...

[TallMomof2]

DRM is dying. Nowadays you can purchase, at a reasonable price, most MP3s without DRM. I've spent more money at Amazon on MP3s recently than I've spent in years on CDs. Why? Because I can get the content I want, at a reasonable price, without silly restrictions that only penalize consumers who obey the laws. I have no intention to share any content I've purchased with anyone, except my immediate family, and that's probably true of the vast majority of consumers.

Ebooks are a pain in the .... because of the DRM. At least I can easily bypass the DRM, except on DRMed PDFs, and be able to read any of my ebooks on any of my devices. It may be violating the law but I will not share any of these books and I strongly disagree with the law as it may apply for personal use.

People who download illegally most likely wouldn't be a customer anyway so the publishers haven't lost any revenue. Same with the record companies. The people who download illegal music would've been making recordings of friends' music or recording it off the radio a generation ago.

You can't legislate morality. There will always be people who want something for nothing so why penalize the rest of us?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

People who download illegally most likely wouldn't be a customer anyway so the publishers haven't lost any revenue. Same with the record companies. The people who download illegal music would've been making recordings of friends' music or recording it off the radio a generation ago.

I've never accepted the contention that illegal sharers are non-buyers. They are just buyers who've found a free ride. If they want a product (be it music, e-books, or anything else), and they find they cannot steal it, they generally will buy it. They rarely just go without. If what you said was true, there would be no industry for anything, because all goods would be stolen, or they wouldn't be bought at all. Therefore they really are costing producers revenue.

(This obviously doesn't cover the people who collect illegal material by the terabyte, just because they can. I'm talking about someone who likes and wants a certain product.)

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

You can't legislate morality. There will always be people who want something for nothing so why penalize the rest of us?

Look at this from the proper perspective: It's the pirates that are penalizing you, by taking things for free that you had to pay for, and thereby causing protective laws to be written.

You can legislate morality... social morality. And you have to demonstrate to the majority of society, i.e. individuals, that the social morality must take precedence over individual morality. The laws are put in place, not because someone wants to make your life harder, but because someone wants an artist to be paid for their work. That is pro-social, and any individual who wants to deny another individual due compensation for their work is anti-social.

Think about it this way... if the existence of pirates means tough laws to control them, then it's not the laws that are "penalizing" you... it's the pirates. If it weren't for the activities of pirates, there would be no need for laws that "penalize" anybody.

[astra]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

People who download illegally most likely wouldn't be a customer anyway so the publishers haven't lost any revenue. Same with the record companies. The people who download illegal music would've been making recordings of friends' music or recording it off the radio a generation ago.

I do agree with this statement. It is my point of view on the current maters.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I was a member of one of those generations. Sure, we recorded songs off the radio, or copied tapes of friends' tapes (well, actually I never did, but I could've). However, we also bought albums, for 2 reasons: Because our friends didn't always have the stuff we liked, or we found something they would like and bought it first; and most importantly, because tapes of tapes, and radio recordings, weren't as good in quality as the albums.

Back then, we bought music and shared it with our friends, by getting together and playing the albums for each other. Don't confuse those generations with people who buy 1 copy of a song and share it with thousands of people they don't know.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

People who download illegally most likely wouldn't be a customer anyway so the publishers haven't lost any revenue. Same with the record companies. The people who download illegal music would've been making recordings of friends' music or recording it off the radio a generation ago.

That's like saying "it's OK to ride on a train without buying a ticket" on the grounds that nobody is losing out as a result of you doing so. The train is going to run anyway, so where's the harm?

The fallacy in the argument (and in the analogous eBook argument too) is that if everyone took the same attitude, the train WOULDN'T run, and the book WOULDN'T be published. In both cases, by being a "freeloader" the person concerned is preying on the honest people; the ones one whose behalf the train runs and the books is published.

It's an attitude which cannot be ethically justified, IMHO.

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's like saying "it's OK to ride on a train without buying a ticket" on the grounds that nobody is losing out as a result of you doing so. The train is going to run anyway, so where's the harm?

The fallacy in the argument (and in the analogous eBook argument too) is that if everyone took the same attitude, the train WOULDN'T run, and the book WOULDN'T be published. In both cases, by being a "freeloader" the person concerned is preying on the honest people; the ones one whose behalf the train runs and the books is published.

It's an attitude which cannot be ethically justified, IMHO.

He didn't say "it is OK". He just merely stated the fact that people who download staff illegally would not buy it in aynyway.