White House will propose new digital copyright laws

[The Old Man]

The 92-page report (PDF) reads a lot like a report that could have been prepared by lobbyists for the recording or movie industry: it boasts the combined number of FBI and Homeland Security infringement investigations jumped by a remarkable 40 percent from 2009 to 2010.

Nowhere does the right to make fair use of copyrighted material appear to be mentioned, although in an aside on one page Espinel mentions that the administration wants to protect "legitimate uses of the Internet and... principles of free speech and fair process."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com

[tubemonkey]

More damned legislation aimed at protecting campaign donors. What's new!?

[Namekuseijin]

I thought they were going to lower it to 25 years. I'm naive.

[Kali Yuga]

OK, before you all get your knickers in a twist....

The article is written by Declan McCullagh. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, he has a very strong bias on IP issues. As such, this should be treated more like an opinion piece than a factual report of the current and near-future state of affairs.

For example: The report cited in the article is specifically a report on IP Enforcement. It's not designed as a guideline for legislation, rather it states the goals and efforts of a variety of law enforcement relating to IP.

As to the report itself, it discusses increasing transparency, inter-agency cooperation, international coordination, securing supply chains (e.g. for pharmaceuticals) and lots of enforcement against non-digital counterfeiting for profit. There is one small section on digital IP, which recommends a combination of continued law enforcement and -- shudder gasp -- education, getting the private sector to assist with infringement for profit (e.g. illegitimate online pharmaceutical sales), and a focus on "entities that view infringement as a money-making venture."

(Nor should it be a cause for terror that a report on enforcements of IP laws list the actions taken by law enforcement relating to IP infringements.)

There is no particular reason for a report on IP enforcement to discuss "fair use," by the way, since that's a legal activity. It'd be like an ATF report on firearms discussing skeet shooting, hunting, target practice and other legal uses at length -- it's just not necessary and is not within the scope of the report.

To top it off, so far the only source for this claim is McCullough himself. Again it may be an accurate claim, but if so then it is the quietest official announcement of a new round of IP laws I've ever seen.


I won't say there is no cause for concern. However, the reality is that no laws have actually been proposed yet, nor is the IP Enforcement Report an 80s screed that demands draconian IP laws on digital content.

As such, there isn't anything to get upset about, at least not yet. Don't let McCullagh play you like a violin.

[jbcohen]

Personally I see this as not really relevant since its simple and easy to remove DRM and do what ever I care to with the electronic books I buy I do not see that the US Government can and will stop Calibre from removing DRM.

For my part as a network administrator its a very different issue. I need to understand exactly how DRM goes about restricting your rights to the books that you buy.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Personally I see this as not really relevant since its simple and easy to remove DRM and do what ever I care to with the electronic books I buy I do not see that the US Government can and will stop Calibre from removing DRM.

For my part as a network administrator its a very different issue. I need to understand exactly how DRM goes about restricting your rights to the books that you buy.

Actually, Calibre does not remove DRM. It lets you take a text or HTML file and turn it into files that can be read on eBook readers capable of rendering Mobi, ePUB, etc. The original file has to be free of DRM before Calibre can load it.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Don't let McCullagh play you like a violin.

Watch out for skilled operators! (Playing the violin ain't easy.)

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Personally I see this as not really relevant since its simple and easy to remove DRM and do what ever I care to with the electronic books I buy I do not see that the US Government can and will stop Calibre from removing DRM.

For my part as a network administrator its a very different issue. I need to understand exactly how DRM goes about restricting your rights to the books that you buy.

Your second question is more complicated. Calibre isn't the only tool that creates files eBook readers can render. Atlantis Word Processor and the soon to be released Scrivener for Windows can export your text in a format readable on bookreaders. When the powerhouses like Word catch up the problem of formats for documents you create in-house largely goes away.

The real problem with DRM is how it's being used. The publishers try to use it to keep people from stealing their books. I think that's a legitimate concern. The book sellers, however, are using it to restrict competition by using DRM specific to their product to prevent customers from buying books at any other book store. If you have a Kindle, you have to buy your books from Amazon, no other bookstore sells copyrighted books your Kindle can render. Barnes and Noble plays the same game but a little bit differently. Unless you have a nook it's unwise to buy books from Barnes and Noble since they have their own DRMed ePub and sell eReader DRMed books without telling customers ahead of time which format they're getting, and only the B&N nook can render both secure formats.

Consider this: B&N bought a little company called Fictionwise to get control of the DRM used by a format called eReader. eReader books were once ubiquitous but now B&N refuses to license any other eBook manufacturer to render eReader. From a customer's point of view, that means their library of eReader books will only last as long as their existing eBook reader unless they buy a nook especially to read them.

You are assuming that it's easy and legal to remove DRM but it isn't that simple. For technically minded people with the drive to do it, yes, once you have the tools it's relatively easy to remove it. But most book readers do not have the ability, or sometimes the drive, to do it. Moreover, it is not clear that it is legal to remove DRM. The language used in the law is technologically naive and results in being vague.

As a network admin it probably doesn't affect you yet, but if the people in the business you work for shift to using eBook readers, or want their documents and books delivered in a form they can read on an eBook, you will have to decide which format to enforce or keep track of who has which one and figure out how many copies of books in this or than DRM to provide. You'll need separate keys for every book reader and if you lose the keys you'll lose the ability to move that user to a new book reader, or lose that part of your library.

Maybe they won't go after private persons who buy all their books, but businesses have deeper pockets and a lot more trouble keeping track of who has which device and is using which book. If you take the DRM off how will you keep your users from sharing copyrighted material? And if you remove the DRM for them, imagine what will happen when you get audited and someone compares counts licenses and copies deployed?

[jbcohen]

Excellent discussion of DRM and how it works but I need to go to a lower level then that discussion. I need to understand the schemes that they use to restrict the electronic book. To say that B&N bought fictionwise to get control of the ereader format is at too general a level I need to understand how DRM technology acomplishes what it does.

For example what I think I know about DRM, and this illustrates the level of of knowledge that I am attempting to obtain, is DRM makes use of an older technology more frequently called PKI or Public Key Encrpyion where the whole file is encrypted and a password is applied to the file. In order to read a PKI file one will need a key, called the private key, to know how to decrypt the file. Sometimes the key is in the form of a password that will unlock the content in the file. DRM removal works by recovering the password from the file via means that I do not understand as yet and using that to decrypt the file.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Sometimes the key is in the form of a password that will unlock the content in the file. DRM removal works by recovering the password from the file via means that I do not understand as yet and using that to decrypt the file.

Current DRM removal methods rely on you already having the Key/Password for your file.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Personally I see this as not really relevant since its simple and easy to remove DRM and do what ever I care to with the electronic books I buy I do not see that the US Government can and will stop Calibre from removing DRM.

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Actually, Calibre does not remove DRM. It lets you take a text or HTML file and turn it into files that can be read on eBook readers capable of rendering Mobi, ePUB, etc. The original file has to be free of DRM before Calibre can load it.

A plain install of Calibre won't remove DRM, but there are plugins that will remove DRM. I suspect jbcohen was referring to a copy of Calibre with those plugins.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

If you have a Kindle, you have to buy your books from Amazon, no other bookstore sells copyrighted books your Kindle can render.

No.

You can buy copyrighted books for Kindles at lots of places.

[TallMomof2]

I'm amazed at how many people still state that you can only purchase Kindle books at Amazon. That *only* applies to books with DRM and there are plenty of sources for Kindle (and Sony and Kobo, etc...) books other than Amazon.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

No.

You can buy copyrighted books for Kindles at lots of places.

Suppose someone finds a nice 50% off coupon at Kobo and buys Lord of the Rings to read on her Kindle--you know what will happen. We've seen many people do just that with any number of popular titles. They are universally disappointed and usually very angry, often at eBooks in general for doing this, especially when they learn they cannot get a refund for the price of the useless ePub book.

I think we should try not to confuse people with suggestions you can trust to buying eBooks for their book reader just anywhere. That only works for those who know where and what to buy. If there was one DRM for all eBooks--and it wouldn't be hard for the publishers to bring that about--then this whole issue would be more easily addressed. But that's not reality. I really think it's important on a forum like MR to warn people what the rule is before we suggest exceptions to the rule.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Suppose someone finds a nice 50% off coupon at Kobo and buys Lord of the Rings to read on her Kindle--you know what will happen. We've seen many people do just that with any number of popular titles. They are universally disappointed and usually very angry, often at eBooks in general for doing this, especially when they learn they cannot get a refund for the price of the useless ePub book.

I think we should try not to confuse people with suggestions you can trust to buying eBooks for their book reader just anywhere. That only works for those who know where and what to buy. If there was one DRM for all eBooks--and it wouldn't be hard for the publishers to bring that about--then this whole issue would be more easily addressed. But that's not reality. I really think it's important on a forum like MR to warn people what the rule is before we suggest exceptions to the rule.

I think that people would be more confused by the flatly wrong statement that you can only buy Kindle books at Amazon than by the perfectly correct statement that you can buy books for Kindle lots of places other than at Amazon. The fact that you can buy books many places doesn't mean that you can buy books *everywhere.*