You Can Remove DRM From Your Digital Books, but It's Probably Illegal
You Can Remove DRM From Your Digital Books, but It's Probably Illegal
Title from the article. Interesting article, with some good words from our DRM-free favorite Cory Doctorow.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40754848
Removing DRM has always been "illegal".
However: German concentration camps were legal, while families protecting Jewish citizens from being taken to said concentration camps was strictly illegal.
What's legal is not always right (ethically and morally), and what's right is not always legal. Remember that.
extremely self aggrandizing analogy to say the least
I'd like to clarify that removing DRM does lie in a grey zone in many countries, including in the US due to some court rulings. In some countries the right to make a backup of your e-book might have priority over copyright law for example.
Sure, but companies who employ DRM have argued against that grey area since DRM was a thing. Something something IP/copyright/licensing/whatever bullshit... IMO: fuck you, I bought it, I own it, eat shit.
The DMCA makes it pretty clear that "Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures" is illegal. There are no exceptions for whether you own or redistribute the content in question.
Sometimes doing something illegal is anti-social behavior. Sometimes it's anti-authoritarian behavior. These are not the same thing.
Illegal = against capital interests
Or just unlock protected media outside from States.
I have been listening to SO many audiobooks since getting Audiobookshelve ❤️
Libro.fm is cool too because you can download and just…own the files
Always comes to mind. Why buy it if you need to crack the DRM someday and become a criminal? Just pirate it in the first place.
If purchased, fuck you, mine not yours.
"Illegal"
Fuck them... Just do it.
From a legal standpoint, is it more illegal to remove DRM or to just download DRM-freed content?
Meta lawyers think the second is fine, BTW.
I've never heard of anyone getting arrested for removing DRM. DRM removal tools are actively sold online with no crackdown. However people keep getting busted here and there for piracy, and piracy sites keep getting shut down.
I think at the end of the day if the copyright holders are getting paid they don't really care, and the police cares about piracy way less than they do.
I remember reading that the most significant impact DRM has is on security research. Individuals don't care about bypassing DRM, but an organization is not going to fund anything involving it because of the legal concern. So if a researcher wants to look into a file format behind DRM, or the DRM mechanism itself, being used as an attack vector, that's not going to get funding.
The defense that companies will make is that they're happy to grant exceptions in these cases, but in practice the company will make the exceptions as narrow as possible to err on the side of maintaining as much control as possible, while a research organization will want to err on the side of avoiding potential grey areas, meaning the exceptions are inevitability too restrictive to allow much of anything to come of them.
It's more legal to share military secrets with journalists. Don't believe me? Wait and see how long that guy ends up spending in jail.
Just in case anyone didn't feel like reading the article, here's the last (and imo most important) paragraph:
However, without changing the DMCA, we can't expect to see real, lasting change in this space. Doctorow said as much to me: "What we really need to do is get rid of DMCA 1201, that law that makes it a crime to format shift your media...it's the same law that stops farmers from fixing their tractors, blocks independent mechanics from fixing your car, stops rivals from setting up alternative app stores for phones and games consoles...this law is a menace!"
Good guy Meta. Fighting for us little guys, downloading terabytes of books, defending against lawsuits. Maybe they'll overturn DMCA?
/s
If that's true, I'm pretty much Al Capone at this point.
Never forget it's legal to make backups.
Unless you "bypass technological measures". Which is a loophole if I've ever seen one.
It's interesting when people are put to the choice. On the one hand they could purchase a book with DRM that they don't actually own. On the other hand, they could look for alternative means by which to obtain the book. And the more the publishers f*** with you, the more you might be inclined to never give them a penny.
You can swear on the internet, your mom isn’t watching.
jaywalking is probably illegal too
I will never stop being confused by this law. Just crossing the street cannot possibly be illegal anywhere. I'm fully convinced the entire thing is an elaborate joke by the americans.
Like everything else here in the US, it’s borne out of racism. In the Jim Crow era, most black people couldn’t afford a car. White people driving around didn’t like those pesky walking people getting in their way, so they made it difficult to cross the street. It then gave cops a way to threaten/arrest/persecute them.
And the name is derived from an awful slur too. The history of that is really messed up.
wait really? i didn't know of any of its history.
off to the wikipedia rabbit hole i go
Fwiw, I've never put drm on anything I've published digitally, and never will.
Not that it matters, nobody buys my shit in the first place lol. But, as a matter of principle, even my crappy stories as a form of culture aren't only for the people with money.
Mind you, that do? I have no beef with. You make your own choices, and I ain't mad about it. But it just isn't something I can do.
I go out of my way to exclusively spend money with the one publisher I've found who does not put DRM in their ebooks. I spend lavishly with them because good practices need to be rewarded monetarily in capitalism or they die out.
The rest I pirate.
Doing illegal things is the new black, haven’t you heard?
Also, how exactly would they catch anyone doing this?
How can they catch people who have produced unlocked epubs? There are plenty of ways if they have your device at some future date.
I suppose the easiest predictable thing other than having your device seized when you're entering the country for example or when you get arrested for example is that back doors could be installed on Android or iPhone that look for unapproved media.
The technology is already good enough for that. It's only a question of implementation.
I'm too fucken old to read a book on a goddamn phone screen and my eco reader is too old to enshittify. Mwahahahahha i am untouchable
Sadly its not doable with Kindle and Linux anymore. I buy my ebooks since I only read indie but I will only do it from Itch or other DRM free sites.
So do it anyway, not like they could ever know. It's not a very enforceable thing is it.
Oh noes
Anyways
i'm glad that there is an(other) program for audible. i like this one better. it automatically converts to a file format i prefer and downloads my books immediately, which is convenient for preorders. besides that, i personally would like to not use the audible app for playback; this is just a personal preference though. i have an audiobook app that works just as well. if anything this would just be me eliminating an app from my devices than anything else.
Oh no...
I would if I could, but Kindles new DRM can get around DeDRM. Waiting for an update. Trying to find a new way to buy books but seems like you just get locked into someone else DRM, which may have less support around DRM removal
Check out my newly created community !drm@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Have you tried the guide that I posted regarding Kindles and Amazon removing Download & Transfer? https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40761027
I've been having the same problem. I'd love a drm free e-reader, but even if I found one finding drm free content is not easy.
I'm just buying analog books now. Less convenient in some ways, but at least I know what I'm getting.
Check out my newly created community !drm@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Have you tried the guide that I posted regarding Kindles and Amazon removing Download & Transfer? https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40761027
