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from the another-brick-out-of-the-wall dept.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports
Telling users how to strip the [Debilitating Restrictions Mechanisms] from their legally purchased ebooks is not contributory copyright infringement, according to a ruling last month by [federal judge Denise Cote.]
[...]Abbey House Media operated an ebook store for the publishers Penguin and Simon & Schuster from 2010, and was contractually obligated to wrap the ebooks sold in that store with DRM. When Abbey House shut down the ebook store in 2013, it gave its customers a month's notice that they would no longer be able to add new devices to read their purchased books on--and explained that some customers were using the free software package Calibre to remove the DRM so they would be able to move their library to new hardware.
[...]Penguin and Simon & Schuster argued that, by making that announcement and pointing to a specific piece of software, Abbey House was engaging in contributory infringement and inducing people to infringe.
[...]Judge Cote dismissed the inducement claim by noting that the uses Abbey House was enabling--personal backup and device transfers--were non-infringing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Sir Garlon on Monday December 15 2014, @01:22PM
This is why I tell Simon to shove his ereader up his Schuster, and I buy dead-tree books instead. When they stop making those, I guess I'll have to get my reading material from an antique shop.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday December 15 2014, @04:09PM
I can understand you wanting to buy dead-tree books so that the author gets royalties, but once they stop making those, why pay for something from an antique shop instead of just getting a pirated ebook? Publisher DRM is strippable, downloading these ebooks without payment is trivial.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sir Garlon on Monday December 15 2014, @04:39PM
Five years in prison, $250,000 fine, or both. Sure, the chance of getting caught are tiny, but with the consequences being I lose my house and career, it ain't worth it just for the chance to thumb my nose at The Man.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday December 15 2014, @05:50PM
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Monday December 15 2014, @05:52PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Monday December 15 2014, @09:50PM
I do feel sorry for you. That's a huge penalty for something as reasonably expectable as format-shifting something you have a moral right to access legitimately.
Laws are decades behind the tech on this one - over the summer, the UK passed laws to allow format-shifting of media unencumbered by DRM. The result is that ripping your own CDs to MP3 is finally legal, but breaking/bypassing/removing DRM is still illegal so decrypting and ripping DVDs (no matter how pathetically weak the crypto has been since it's inception) to build an online library of your own stuff is still illegal.
Of course, last time I checked, books don't have DRM.
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday December 16 2014, @02:15AM
You're more likely to get into a car accident, and a car accident can have far worse consequences. Additionally, most of the nonsense about *downloading* happens to a ridiculously small percentage of people; most of the rest of the time, these scumbag companies just send out threatening letters that can be ignored, or you can challenge them to waste their time. They are extremely unlikely to take action, especially now that they have difficulty suing en masse.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday December 15 2014, @05:47PM
Agreed. Though that doesn't render e-readers altogether useless - mine hosts an ever-expanding library of classic literature, from Shakespeare to Edgar Rice Burroughs, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Not to mention an assortment of newer stuff from those many mostly-niche publishers who respect their customers enough to sell DRM-free e-books.
It is nice to have several bookshelves worth of books neatly squeezed into a single thin device (with redundant backups of course) - it has allowed my library to continue to grow even as I slash the piles of books whose storage and transportation costs (financial and otherwise) have exceeded their incremental value.
Still looking for a grade-A second-hand e-book store, but I'm not holding my breath. With nigh-infinitely compact bookshelves there's little reason for readers to ever purge their libraries to line the treasure-filled shelves of a second hand store.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday December 16 2014, @04:19AM
So you are for fucking the authors then? Cause I hate to break it to ya but the publishing racket is just as nasty as the record companies, we're talking Hollywood accounting [wikipedia.org] to the fiftieth power here. So I an understand why more and more authors are going with things like the Kindle, as they have been getting buttfucked worse than the bands have been when it comes to actually getting paid.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by jbWolf on Thursday December 18 2014, @05:09AM
Not necessarily. There are those of us who are authors and don't want DRM on the material we write. We may not be mainstream, but we exists.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]