Penguin Yanking Kindle Books From Libraries 206
New submitter moniker writes "Penguin Group is removing Kindle ebooks from libraries using Overdrive citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content."
If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems more like a grab for money from book sales than anything technical. Has there really been security leaks coming from online readers?
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Interesting)
There needs to be a safe harbor for libraries where they can make an owned paper book accessible however they want, including digitally.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best thing that could happen is if someone like the EU were to enshrine these rights in law and force providers to conform, i.e. that when you buy a book you are buying the book, not just a licence and that there is a mechanism to sell a book with a nominal processing fee. And also that all electronic content sold should be held with decryption keys in escrow in an open format so that subject to court order, or to platform collapse that the owner can retrieve it. Better yet if there were a single platform across all devices that managed the concept of ownership and transfer of ownership.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Informative)
It's easy to strip the DRM out of the files.
Also, my local library supply audio books that you can download from home straight to your PC/Mac using Ebsco. You can take out the audio books for as short as one day. The software downloads the MP3 files to a hidden directory, I found they have no DRM attached. Copy paste to a new directory, you have the audiobook forever.
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The same thing is true for the MP3-based audio books from OverDrive. Overdrive has a nice little quirk in it though that you can't actually renew items - only delete them and check them out again. If downloading to a mobile device, this can be slow and also seems to delete any reference to where you left off in it.
I now just use OverDrive to download the books, but then open the MP3s in my phones native app to listen to them - which has a better interface when driving to. Now, is it still a violation of
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Our local library uses overdrive, and we have DRM-enabled mp3 players which support WMA as well. The WMA books don't expire off the device even though it supports it!
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I didn't say I do it, I just said you could. ;)
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That's not the point. The point is libraries offer access to items without locking them down like you see in some of the games like Assassin's Creed (a game I will not buy (and hence not play) because of DRM bullshit).
Borrowing material so you can "take it as your own" is wrong. It gets more DRM bullshit created, both electronic lockdowns and legal lockdowns. There already are some advocating the only way to play audiobooks is via your locked down iPhone or Android device.
The attitude of "copyright theft is
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> are what is driving more and more DRM and everyone loses
Wrong. Since secure DRM for books and audio is practically impossible because of the "analog hole", the thrashings of the content industry merely drive more and more people to disregard copyright law (for example, even if you cannot use the DRMed files your library supplies, you could presumably withdraw them anyway, and just download non-protected versions for use under Linux, which you would delete after you return the checked-out files to your
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Oh, bullshit. No one "drives" those people to pilfer, they *want* to pilfer and find ways.
"Old business model"? Your entire last paragraph is obsolete with the ability for people to create audio/video/text content and post it to the web. There no longer *is* control of content. You can buy books printed on demand by authors with no affiliation to *any* publisher. Mine, for instance.
Book companie
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Informative)
That is also known as stealing.
Bullshit. The files were returned in the exact same condition as he received them.
Now copyright violations OTOH...
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That is also known as stealing.
Bullshit. The files were returned in the exact same condition as he received them.
Now copyright violations OTOH...
You actually return the files? I have no experience with DRM, other than I have to use my pc speakers when I stream content to my HDTV.
One more example of DRM being about protecting business models
I like that thought, I hadn't considered it that way.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright infringement is not stealing. Look it up sometime.
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Copyright infringement is not stealing. Look it up sometime.
And hackers just means people who use a keyboard...
Sorry. I'm not saying it's right, but the media war is pretty much won on this one--copyright violation is now normatively bad, and comparable to stealing, for the upper middle class.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty sure they didn't, since the number of users doing it is ever-growing, and the only ones who ever even fire a synapse about the "morality" of the act are the two noisy sides who wank on about it on tech-and-game forums on the web (and the crybaby IP owners who equate not only downloading, but perfectly legitimate used sales as 'stealing'. The douche from the company that shat out 'Heavy Rain' being my recent favorite).
The media can say whatever they're paid to say. The zeitgeist isn't with them on this one, though.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:4, Insightful)
The media don't get to charge people with crimes. The Media don't get to play judge, jury, and jailor. Shakespeare can say "Glamis hath Murdered Sleep" all he wants, but the courts are who decides what murder is. As long as there exists a Supreme Court decision that copyright violation is not theft (and yes, there is at least one to that effect), the media can call it 'high puppy mutilating pedo-treason' if they want, but guess what it is. That's right, it's Copyright Violation. How many legs does a dog have if the Media calls a tail a leg?
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If you steal something, it is missing from its original place afterwards. Only those truly weak of mind can confuse copyright infringement and stealing or compare the two.
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Bullshit. If you steal a kiss, is a kiss missing? How about if you steal a peek? Steal away? Steal one's thunder? Steal a scene? Steal one's idea? The one unifying theme to all definitions of steal is 'without permission' or 'surreptitiously'. 'Missing afterwards' appears in no definition of steal.
In common english, 'stealing' is a valid word for copyright infringement. And if you are going to say it is not common english but a legal term, again bullshit. The legal term for what you are describing
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Copyright infringement is not stealing. Look it up sometime.
Fair enough:
The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement under certain circumstances, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
NET Act [wikipedia.org]
"Indentity Theft" has become a federal offense that can put you away for up to fifteen years.
When your bunk mate is a bruiser named Big Mike the particular sub-section of the criminal code which has you sharing a 6x8 cinderblock cell no longer matters very much.
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"Identity Theft" again is completely different. While it does not take away the identity of the victim, it does compromise that identity as an identity needs to be uniquely attached to one person to work as intended. No such limitation with copyrighted works. Your argumentation skills (or maybe your insight into reality) suck badly.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Language evolves and drifts, but legal definitions do not.
Theft is a crime with a specific definition. Copyright violation is a different crime, with a different definition. They are both criminal actions, but they are _different_ types of crime. Trying to conflate the two is very successful PR by the media industry, since "theft" has negative connotations that "piracy" does not, but they are not the same.
For reference: try to find an instance of copyright violation which has been prosecuted (successfully or not) as theft. When copyright holders start charging violators with theft, I'll agree that the definition has shifted. Until then, they're not the same and should not be confused.
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language evolves alright.. right into doublespeak if you're not careful.
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Now, look *this* up: "Language Evolves."
Yes, it does, and our language has evolved such that it has a term for taking something and depriving them of it ("theft") and another term for copying something without legal permission ("copyright infringement") and ne'er the twain shall meet, except in the minds of idiots. If you can make ten fish into twenty it's a miracle, but if you can turn one song into a hundred songs it doesn't matter who you give them to, it's still not theft.
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The blogs do not matter. The law does. And it makes a very clear distinction. In fact the two things could not be much more different.
Side note: From an evolution of law point of view, theft being a crime is natural, while copyright is entirely artificial in the first place and hence copyright infringement is too.
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And yet, the files are neither taken nor used without their owner's permission. The content of the files may be, since the content owner and the file owner are different people, but that's covered under copyright infringement, not theft.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle".
Copyright infringement doesn't deprive the owner of the song of their property. They still own the song. Copyright infringement is illegal, but calling it theft is an attempt to make it something it is not. If we want to have a reasonable discussion of the issue, we should start by being clear about what copyright infringement is and what it isn't.
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From Webster's Unabridged, and sticking with only verb transitive:
steal
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance: He stole my girlfriend.
4. t
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Google, how quaint. Use a dictionary.
Er, you might want to look up the word "quaint". Google's only a little over ten years old, dictionaries are quaint.
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Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Informative)
That is also known as stealing
Only by people who have never looked up the definitions of "stealing" and "copying."
And congratulations, you are fucking over libraries and everyone else (future versions will have ever more draconian DRM or simply not be available in libraries) for your own greed.
DRM is always doomed to fail. It attempts to solve an unsolvable security engineering problem (the secure device in an insecure environment) and the security only needs to be broken once for the whole system to fall apart. For some reason, copyright-based industries have failed to grasp this fundamental truth, and their lobbyists have convinced governments to prop up their bad security systems with undemocratic laws and censorship. They have even convinced the public school system to spread their greed-driven propaganda to young children.
Yet you defend these people.
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Yet you defend these people.
Maybe he am these people?
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It attempts to solve an unsolvable security engineering problem (the secure device in an insecure environment) and the security only needs to be broken once for the whole system to fall apart. For some reason, copyright-based industries have failed to grasp this fundamental truth, and their lobbyists have convinced governments to prop up their bad security systems with undemocratic laws and censorship.
On the contrary, the fact that they've turned to legislation shows that do in fact recognize the truth of DRM's infeasibility. When their technical solutions failed, they bought legal ones.
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off topic but the drm protection on a game called 'tom clancy's HAWX 2' was never cracked. Its been about 2 years since the release i think and it never will cracked either.
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maybe the game sucks and no one bothered.
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Websters Unabridged - steal - definition number two.
Look it up.
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Solution? *Very* simple. Don't like the price? Don't buy the item.
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No, it is copying not stealing. When you steal something you deny the other person use of it. When you copy something the other person still get's to use their copy. Copying is setting content free, if it really is 'actually' worth while you might get something back, if it sucks you get bupkis. If your concerned sell real stuff, like food, clothing, housing, medicines all stuff people really need and of course the world will celebrate if you can readily make copies.
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Overdrive is trivial to strip the DRM and keep a copy of the book. It's based on Adobe's DRM setup that is so badly broken it's a single click to strip it.
Re:If Everything was "security"? (Score:5, Funny)
Better to use a duck. Cheaper too because you can put in on their bill.
Content vs business model (Score:2)
How do you separate 'selling content' from 'business model'? Content IS the business model.
Re:Content vs business model (Score:4, Informative)
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The point is that the 'drm is not about protecting content but business models' is stupid. There is no need to protect the content if it is not part of the business model.
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I would have to disagree with this. You have your content, but now you need to distribute it. Your model can be old-style physical book publishing, electronic distribution, or just post it up on a website for free. With electronic you can then have DRM or no DRM. So while content is part of the model, it is not the entire model since you have to take into consideration things like the distribution channel(s) that I pointed out above. And don't forget marketing.
I hate DRM, I swear I do (Score:5, Insightful)
...citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content.
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It was a bit heavy handed, but if you read the article (Yeah, yeah. I know. Slashdot readers never....) you would fine the quote "...fueling speculation that Penguin’s actions may be directed at Amazon,"
But heavy handed or not, the point is a valid one.
What the Hell?! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Penguin Group is removing Kindle ebooks from libraries using Overdrive citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content."
(Emphasis mine)
I try not to criticise submissions, but what the hell? I don't care what was done by whom, I thought Slashdot was above such flagrant editorialism.
For shame.
Re:What the Hell?! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Penguin Group is removing Kindle ebooks from libraries using Overdrive citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content."
(Emphasis mine)
I try not to criticise submissions, but what the hell? I don't care what was done by whom, I thought Slashdot was above such flagrant editorialism.
Are you new here??
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Are you new here??
Not so new that I haven't seen that joke a hundred times or cracked it myself more than once. Just because it's been going on for a while doesn't make this sort of 'red top' reporting acceptable.
You must have skin much thicker than mine, honoured elder.
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Are you new here??
Not so new that I haven't seen that joke a hundred times or cracked it myself more than once. Just because it's been going on for a while doesn't make this sort of 'red top' reporting acceptable.
You must have skin much thicker than mine, honoured elder.
No, newbie douche, the failure is on your part. What you state here is not what newcastlejon objected to above where you said:
I thought Slashdot was above such flagrant editorialism.
The only possible explanation is that you are new around here. Slashdot has never been above such flagrant editorialism. The site is founded on such, and has been like that since day one.
Re:What the Hell?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Question is, does the spin make the editorialized statement any less true?
I find it disturbing that the answer is, well, "no".
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No, it just makes them seem more plausible than they actually are.
Editor shouldn't let commercial press releases... (Score:3)
...set the tone and scope of a posting when the subject is laden with conflict of interest. In this case it's DRM.
IMO Penguin's smokescreen deserved that backhanded comment and I do not consider it out of place on Slashdot.
Idiotic summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Creative people who deliberately join up with a publisher, label, studio or other partner to handle their business affairs while they go about continuing to write, record, film and whatnot - they have decided to embrace a particular business model: not doing it for free. Whether or not every or any DRM tool is ideal or practical is beside the point. The issue is that there are people who create things (books, games, movies, music) for a living if they can find an audience, and charging for copies of what they create is the business model. If they can't find anyone to buy it, that's too bad for them. They need to work harder or choose better partners. But if people simply rip them off because it's fairly easy to do so, that's not a comment on the creative people, it's a comment on the people who like to make little entertainment slaves out them.
The submitter's silly implication - that DRM is ever used for any reason other than because being ripped off isn't part of the business model - is, well, silly.
Re:Idiotic summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but if people want to make a living writing books, they will need to find a new way to monetize that. We cannot allow the Internet to become a maze of walls and restrictions, we cannot have our computers monitor what we do, all for the sake of keeping an old business model alive. Sorry if you are an author who is not creative enough to monetize your work in this century without tricking everyone into ceding control of their computers to you.
At one time we had people whose job was to tell stories around the campfire; then we discovered that stories could be written down, and storytellers who failed to adapt had to find new lines of work. Now selling books is an obsolete business model, because we have computer networks that can make nearly unlimited copies of any written work at high speed; writers who fail to adapt will have to find new lines of work.
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The scarcity is works worth reading, not the number of copies of books. Copyright was created to help eliminate that scarcity. Authors who write for money (which no doubt includes many very respected and/or popular authors) will just find something else to do if they can't make money off their writings. And that will be a loss for all of us.
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And that is exactly what the pirates are: unauthorized publishers making unauthorized copies. And since no-one has as of yet offered a workable solution for your 'best' situation, we are stuck with something that is not the best, but is workable.
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Is there some reason to think that such a thing would not
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I see nothing in there that is even marginally better for either authors or readers. It is totally unworkable. Do you really think the general public is going to shell out money for an as-yet-unwritten book? What is the magic amount that must be raised? How much time can elapse to raise the magic amount? What about people who didn't pay? I guess since you are so anti-copyright even people who didn't pay would be allowed to have a copy. What incentive is there for anyone to pay anything under those c
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Do you really think the general public is going to shell out money for an as-yet-unwritten book?
Did I say unwritten? No, I did not. People have been known to shell out money for unpublished books:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html [nytimes.com]
I guess since you are so anti-copyright even people who didn't pay would be allowed to have a copy.
Yeah, and so what? The age of copyrights is over, it is time to grow up and move on with your life.
What incentive is there for anyone to pay anything under those circumstances?
If nobody pays, the book does not get published; people who want the book will pay for it.
Furthermore, anyone who wants to try such a system is perfectly free to do it today. The fact that by far most authors don't choose such a method says volumes about what they think of such an idea.
Or that there is still a substantial market for dead tree books, and that the penetration of tablets has not yet reached a level that would m
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Sorry, this is the correct link that should have been posted.
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I iterate from another post - I'm about to publish number ten. It is completely written. How much can you send me so I can start saving to pay for it?
This is serious. I really have one slated for next year and you can actually put your method into operation.
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I think the idea is that authors start out giving their works away for free, to build a fanbase, and asking for donations. Then, they start putting more pressure for donations: "give more money and my next book will be available sooner". Just look at the free TV show "Pioneer One", which is basically being financed by public donations. I haven't checked, but I imagine it's getting more donations as it's put out more episodes: once people see something they like, they want more.
Obviously, a totally unknow
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Now, why should this be the only model?
Let's not lose sight of the fact that none of this argument is about a person's ability to publish and distribute on their own. It's easily done.
The thrust of all of this is to remove protections for the author, owner of the rights of distribution. Scarcity, lock-down, expense; all of those are red herrings thrown up because it's really difficult to explai
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How about authors refuse to publish their books until they have raised enough money? A well known author could publish a suspenseful preview or a first chapter, and then request $5 from each reader until some amount is raised, at which point the book will be published. There is no need for a publishing industry to even exist under such a system, the authors could just use the Internet and encourage, rather than attack, the copying of their books.
It's already been tried... and failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plant [wikipedia.org]
I think a better model is charging a reasonable price for ebooks and giving authors a bigger cut to reflect the nearly non-existent printing and distribution costs:
http://www.smashwords.com/ [smashwords.com]
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Explain how that works for the first time author.
By the way, I'm setting up number ten for publishing. Could you send me some cash I can put in a jar until I have what I deem to be the amount needed to publish it?
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You could have saved a lot of typing.
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"We no longer buy stamps to do things like pay our bills or send personal letters,"
You dont know anyone in the military then. WE buy stamps rapidly and send personal letters daily. and every single person that has a loved one overseas right now does the same. Just because your tiny view of the world does not is not an indicator that the rest of the world does.
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Funny thing about parenting... children tend to live up to the expectations put on them. Same goes for people.
Expect everyone out there to be conniving thieves, and set things up that way to "prevent" that? Well, they'll act like...conniving thieves.
The business model by the content creators is to have someone else deal with the business, aka, The Publishers.
The business model of the publishers, however, does not seem to be "let's adapt to the marketplace", but to try as hard as possible to get the marketpl
Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
they have decided to embrace a particular business model: not doing it for free.
You are soft-pedaling a profit motive that prefers to monopolize markets. We have seen for-profit publishers associations attack people who create and use public domain, GPL and creative commons works - even attacking the very idea of the public domain in legislation and insisting that the tech sector is “mobilizing to promote ‘Copyleft’ in order to undermine our ‘Copyright.’”.
Bodies like MPAA, RIAA, Sound Exchange, ASCAP, GEMA have taken an increasingly hostile stance toward any author who is not under contract with established publishing corps even when the content is being offered for free. People who publish under CC and public domain are being DOS'ed with undeserved DMCA and 'three strikes' notices.
It is your mamby-pamby presentation of for-profit publishing that is idiotic.
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No, creating content for distribution is the business model.
If that were true, the business model would pay out based on how much is created. Instead, it is based on how much is distributed.
Or, put more simply: nobody makes money creating something. The only time that you make money on content is if you distribute it to someone.
Why do you think copyright keeps getting extended? Once you get past a certain point, longer copyright protection reduces the incentive to create something.
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The creation is a separate issue entirely from the distribution models. Each model is attached to each activity for personal reasons, but there would be no problem in switching any creative effort to any of the other models.
Oh, well. Whatever. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, well. Whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. In fact I would rephrase this sentence to say:
Penguin will soon be drawing valuable insights from what I hope will eventually become a very expensive lesson.
DRM = bad (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm not that far. I'm perfectly happy buying electronic versions of books from Pragmatic Programmers - they come watermarked with my info. At this point, it does feel like mine, and there is no value-add for me to share it randomly, nor to look into ways to strip that watermark that consists of "from the library of..." on each page. I can run it through a PDF-to-Kindle app, if I really want it on my Kindle.
But, the key concept from PragProg is that it feels like mine. There's no other DRM in their eBooks th
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If I followed that philosophy I'd be stuck playing crap little "old-school" styled indie games instead of something immersive and deep like Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which is only available on Steam, which of course uses DRM).
Something tells me you went for the upgraded neurochip in the game :P
Penguin Yanking Kindle Books From Libraries (Score:5, Funny)
When was DRM not about business models? (Score:3)
When was DRM not about protecting business models? The book and movie industries apparently think they are different from the music industry who has (mostly) learned that if they sell content in a form people want and at a reasonable price, people will buy it. Charge too much or make it too hard to get and people will find other ways to get it. I bought a lot of CD's through the original mp3.com, then after the music industry shut it down, I stopped buying music and have never bought a single DRM protected song... but have picked up a few mp3 albums after non-DRM music started becoming available. But sadly, it's still often cheaper to buy a used (or sometimes new) physical CD and rip it myself than to purchase an electronic album.
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Makes sense. I used to buy all of my music from emusic until Amazon started selling MP3s. While I was getting my music fix from emusic the big guys where losing out on selling me music. I don't think most people want to deal with the hassle of DRM, and in most cases it does make things more complicated for the user.
Is it just me... (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess what I'm ticked off about is, I'm watching our civilization regress to pre-Renaissance levels of wealth inequality and all anybody cares about is the Beatles...
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm sure those /.ers are just as frustrated when you act as if information is a form of property subject to the same rules as physical goods.
What's the difference? (Score:3)
Re:What's the difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
Things that you can buy/sell but that most people wouldn't call property:
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Basically I'm a socialist. I got this way because I saw how much power large corporations
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, slashdot is not a monolith. Different people will pipe up in different conversations to say their bit.
Second, there is a fundamental difference between physical property rights and intellectual property rights. The former is inherently scarce (e.g. if you force Apple to do X with its money, it can't do Y with the same money, in general). The latter is not (e.g. my copy of an ebook did not prohibit anyone else from having a copy of an ebook).
This is why some people (I'm not necessarily among them) object to using the word "stealing" to refer to copyright infringement. A copyright holder doesn't "lose" money when someone downloads content illegally, but they do, potentially, lose a sale. For some industries this distinction is important (various professional-level software packages don't bother pursuing pirates, because they know that it will increase its market share to sell to their real customers, the businesses which will pay hundreds for a software package).
Keep in mind that the purpose of intellectual property laws (patents and copyrights) is to encourage innovation. A temporary monopoly gives people a (greater) incentive to create original works, knowing that they can try to extract value from their creations. This inherently limits the rights of others, who would otherwise be able to use and build upon works in the public domain.
The trouble is that this model has been breaking down on a few levels from its original intent. The first is that copyright extensions have kept works from entering the public domain for quite some time. The second is that patents on some inventions, especially software, are/were often granted with too little deference (one can argue) to prior art and "obviousness". Instead of encouraging innovation by small players, big companies amass patents in a kind of cold war against other big companies, and keep small businesses from being able to enter (because in many industries it's basically impossible not to be sued for patent infringement for something). You see entire company purchases made just for the building up of patent portfolios (arguably a large part of Google acquiring Motorola, for example). This isn't innovation, it's a new cost to doing business in these industries.
Do I subscribe to all of the above? No. But it's not inconsistent to strongly believe in physical property rights but think that intellectual property rights have gone too far.
Finally, it's fine to argue that wealth inequality is not an ideal outcome. To describe it as "pre Renaissance" is to imply heading into the dark ages. Within the western world, even fairly poor people live much better than the richest of that era, by most reasonable measures. To say that "all anybody cares about is the Beatles" when the news is plastered with the Occupy Wall Street protests rings pretty hollow to my ears.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
or does anyone else find it frustrating that /.ers are in favor of unlimited property rights except when they go digital? Seriously. If you just suggest that maybe, just maybe, that we as a society shouldn't allow Apple Computer to sit on 85 billion dollars then you're drowned out in a chorus of "It's THEIR money, let them spend it however they want!". But make it digital, and you've got the same people decrying the evil of buying the White Album for the 15th time.
No, those two views are perfectly harmonious.
"It's THEIR money (they earnt it), let them spend it however they want" = "It's MY content (I bought it), let me use it however I want"
Where's the evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary declares, without any evidence whatsoever, that Penguin's motives are not what they say, and furthermore that this is "One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content." If the examples are evidentially supported to the same degree as this one, then exactly how sure can we be about the trend? How much evidence do we have, in total, towards the hypothesis that companies do not use DRM to protect their content?
I'm not trying to take the companies' side here. It just frightens me that the standard of evidence required to become slashdot fact is so very low. Once you believe something to be fact, it will influence your beliefs, and what you believe to be fact in the future. If one starts accepting facts with such a low standard of evidence, the bullshit can snowball until the most tenuous of hypotheses can seem so sure that one will defend it against anything but the most blatant of contradictions. I've seen it many times, and I've had it happen to me before.
Here's another topic to think about. Everyone knows that the government is simply eating out of Big Corporation's wallet, right? How do they know this? Think back to all the times you think you've seen examples of this, and really consider the following questions: "Is this the only explanation that this at all likely? Can you find some kind of contradiction in the version of events that they offer? Did you even listen to their version of the events?". While seemingly disproportionate mistrust of government is vital to democracy, it doesn't hurt to fact check once and a while!
Thank you for reading. I hope you take some of this on board.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know... It would seem like a little bit of a step down from the pure mathematics and philosophy that I do every day.
Your argument boils down to a burden of proof issue. You claim that the burden is on me to disprove Big Corporation's influence on government. Why? Explain to me exac
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Thank you for demonstrating my point so
"Lending" ebooks makes no sense (Score:2)
We complain about "intellectual property" being confused with "property" but this is doing exactly the same thing. It's completely arbitrary, and the suggestion you should be able to lend electronic data makes as much sense as eternal copyright.
We don't need the same rights but we do need new rights. Ones that aren't available with physical media.
Re:"Content" is a business model. (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not.
The content gives you something to sell, exactly what you do with it is the business model.
Re: (Score:3)
Except for the fact that the pay-for-content copyright-based business model is often the best business model when measured in revenue (especially for high-development-cost content). Sure, you can give your content away for free and attach ads, but then you're often making pennies on the dollar. That's why ad-based content has the cheapest development costs - because the profits can't support expensive develo
Re:Congratulations on the FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
the real world marketplace works differently than the artificially supported one that runs acadamia
Ironically, music, movie, software, and book distribution are all artificially supported markets, propped up by increasingly draconian copyright laws, and academia is becoming more and more profit-oriented.
Re: (Score:2)
This is simply not true. There's not a goddamn thing to prevent you or me from distributing all of the above without a single major player.
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