Ethics and legalities of format shifting

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You are being intentionally obtuse.

In addition, if I would buy there, then it would be against the financial laws in my country, VAT!

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Perhaps some references would be useful to the discussion of what is or is not legal.

In the EU it's the relevant national government implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001.

What past do you live in?
The last EU amendment is from 2019/790.
And in Austria the last valid version is from January 3rd, 2021
And in § 90c it says: Schutz technischer Maßnahmen (Protection of technical procedures)

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You said you were independent of any one corporation or business. You're not. You depend on them to keep their servers up and their apps working. Whereas I can read my books on anything capable of displaying text.

How often should I write that I don't care about their server operation. It is only needed once - at the beginning.

It's fine if you don't want to future-proof your purchases. Many don't. What isn't fine is to make unfounded claims and call other people stupid, shills, thieves, pirates and embezzlers because they have different priorities than you.

Well I don't know how you describe people who act illegally:
- deliberately
- uninformed

The preferred procedures here are at least EU-wide against the existing laws and steal the rewards due to them from the publishers and thus also from the authors.

[hildea]

• Scenario 1: I buy a book from Amazon, download it to my PC, and read it on my PC using the Amazon provided program "Kindle for PC".
• Scenario 2: I do everything in scenario 1, then strip DRM, convert the book to epub, and read it on my ereader, sitting comfortably in my sofa.

ottischwenk, please explain how scenario 2 steals from the author!

I don't like reading long texts on my PC, so if scenario 2 stops being available, I go to:

• Scenario 3: The book I want is only available on Amazon, and Amazon doesn't publish in formats compatible with my ereader. I don't buy that book.

That is, obviously, not a better outcome for the author.

[hildea]

Looking at another side of the issue: I think it's unethical for businesses to use restrictive formats to try to bind their customers to their ecosystem.
Ethically, all publishers and booksellers should make all books available in the most widely used formats, and all ereaders should be able to read books in at least one widely used open format (right now, that means epub).

I'd support a law which made this a requirement for ebooks published with DRM, and a requirement for ereaders having more than some specified marked share. (I'd allow small ereader manufacturers trying out different things, to allow for innovation, and I'd allow DRM-less publishers to use fewer formats, since they aren't actively trying to prevent customers from converting books themselves.)

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by hildea

[*]Scenario 1: I buy a book from Amazon, download it to my PC, and read it on my PC using the Amazon provided program "Kindle for PC".[*]Scenario 2: I do everything in scenario 1, then strip DRM, convert the book to epub, and read it on my ereader, sitting comfortably in my sofa.

ottischwenk, please explain how scenario 2 steals from the author!

You remove DRM, thereby making general readability possible.
It's against the law.
If you read the associated Kindle on the purchase account, then it corresponds to the license that you purchased.
If you read on another device, and that is only possible with DRM removal, then you withhold the purchase price for another license that you would legally need.

[*]Scenario 3: The book I want is only available on Amazon, and Amazon doesn't publish in formats compatible with my ereader. I don't buy that book.

That is, obviously, not a better outcome for the author.

Then, if you wanted to act according to the law, you'd have to buy a Kindle.
Everything would be possible without any problems with a device that can handle both Kindle and the other formats via apps - there are some.
I have registered all my EInk tablets on my Amazon, Adobe, CARE account and can read everything legally on all of these devices and do not have to worry about DRM.
The binding of a reader to a format is not God-given, and has no advantages, but brutal business management in that it binds the customer to a shop, from which he can only get out by violating the law.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by hildea

Looking at another side of the issue: I think it's unethical for businesses to use restrictive formats to try to bind their customers to their ecosystem.
Ethically, all publishers and booksellers should make all books available in the most widely used formats, and all ereaders should be able to read books in at least one widely used open format (right now, that means epub).

I'd support a law which made this a requirement for ebooks published with DRM, and a requirement for ereaders having more than some specified marked share. (I'd allow small ereader manufacturers trying out different things, to allow for innovation, and I'd allow DRM-less publishers to use fewer formats, since they aren't actively trying to prevent customers from converting books themselves.)

There are such devices.
Producers include Boyue Likebook and Onyx Boox

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Nonsense. Go to baen.com. Buy one of the books. Download the Mobi format. Side-load onto your Kindle.

Not against the law anywhere.

Format shifting was upheld by the US Supreme Court in the famous betamax case. The specific case of format shifting eBooks has never been adjudicated in US courts, probably because no one has any financial incentive to take it to court. The question of removing DRM to format shift for your personal use is one of those things that I suspect will remain a matter of purely academic interest since I doubt anyone with legal standing is interested in opening that can of worms. I suspect the question would mostly come down to what judge is the trial judge since one could make a legal argument either way. For the most part, it's a don't ask/don't tell situation of toleration.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

You remove DRM, thereby making general readability possible.
It's against the law.
If you read the associated Kindle on the purchase account, then it corresponds to the license that you purchased.
If you read on another device, and that is only possible with DRM removal, then you withhold the purchase price for another license that you would legally need.

Ah, but I didn't ask if it was legal. You earlier claimed that doing this hurt the author, that's what I'm asking about.
I'm aware that what I do hurt Amazon, I see that as somewhere between morally neutral and morally beneficent.

The binding of a reader to a format is not God-given, and has no advantages, but brutal business management in that it binds the customer to a shop, from which he can only get out by violating the law.

Yes, I agree completely! That's why I think it's ethically fine to break that binding. And as long as the legal consequences are unlikely to be worse than I'm prepared to chance, I'll continue to do so.

[cfrizz]

I hope you enjoy sitting on your mountain of dubious moral high ground, looking down on the rest of us.

Personally once I buy a book it is mine to do what I want with it. That means downloading to my pc, sending it to Calibre for disinfection if needed, formatting it to suit my preferences and then putting said book on all my devices so that I can read it with whatever device I choose.

The authors get their money, and I get to enjoy my book. These books and devices always stay in my poccession, so there is nothing to worry about.

Now if you don't like the fact that I format shift to read on my device of preference, please understand that I DON'T CARE! Learn to live and let live and you will be much happier, or at the least have more friends.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

What past do you live in?
The last EU amendment is from 2019/790.
And in Austria the last valid version is from January 3rd, 2021
And in § 90c it says: Schutz technischer Maßnahmen (Protection of technical procedures)

I won't try to follow the Austrian legislation, since I don't speak German. It will be implementing the EU directives.

Yes, 2019/790 amends 2001/29. It carves out some more exceptions, and details how 'out-of-commerce' works should be handled, i.e. orphan works. It has very little to say (if anything?) about the subject at hand.

If you can find a link somewhere that integrates the original texts with the amendments, that would be really useful. I did find such links for USA, Canada and UK laws, and gave them.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

How often should I write that I don't care about their server operation. It is only needed once - at the beginning.
.

The issue is not about your caring or not. No one cares if you care. You make false claims of independence in threads where people ask for advice and leave them with an impression that isn't true. They will lose their independence the moment their device or app stops working. You don't care, but those you give this advice to well may. And you don't explain it it to them. That's deliberate misleading, as you're well aware of all this.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

How often should I write that I don't care about their server operation. It is only needed once - at the beginning.

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

I have registered all my EInk tablets on my Amazon, Adobe, CARE account and can read everything legally on all of these devices and do not have to worry about DRM.

You don't have to worry about DRM yet. When Amazon turn off their ADE servers, and your booksellers have gone out of business, you'll find that DRM really annoying.

I have 1,249 ebooks I bought at Fictionwise between 2003 and 2012. The vast majority used MOBI DRM, and were downloaded for my registered devices.

Those devices have died long ago. Fictionwise has died. There's no way to download fresh copies, even if there were still devices that provided MOBI PIDs.

Without having removed the DRM I would be unable to read any of the 158 of those books I haven't read yet, nor could I re-read any of the others.

I do not believe a court would find that I had done anything illegal in removing the DRM from my personal copies.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I hope you enjoy sitting on your mountain of dubious moral high ground, looking down on the rest of us.

Personally once I buy a book it is mine to do what I want with it. That means downloading to my pc, sending it to Calibre for disinfection if needed, formatting it to suit my preferences and then putting said book on all my devices so that I can read it with whatever device I choose.

The authors get their money, and I get to enjoy my book. These books and devices always stay in my poccession, so there is nothing to worry about.

Now if you don't like the fact that I format shift to read on my device of preference, please understand that I DON'T CARE! Learn to live and let live and you will be much happier, or at the least have more friends.

The problem with this is that you don't buy a book, just a license for a file that is handled in a similar way to a paper book.
If you want a second paper book, you have to pay for it again. You can of course photocopy it, then only you have permission to read the original and the copy at the same time.
The moment you pass one of these on to someone else, you must destroy the other copy.
I know that hardly anywhere else is so much stolen as from EReader owners, because hardly anyone pays for the file copies actually used.
And I allow myself to consider those who do this consciously as thieves.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

Everything would be possible without any problems with a device that can handle both Kindle and the other formats via apps - there are some.

No, it wouldn't be possible without any problems. It still makes the customer dependent on those apps. If the apps stop working, the customer will be left unable to read his/her purchases. I'd call that a very big problem. Yes, I know you don't care, but I do and such a solution is unacceptable to me.