RMS On eBooks

ContinuousPark writes: "There a short but compelling piece on the latest MIT Technology Review by Richard Stallman. Imagine, he says, that you are forbidden to copy the latest eBook: 'no more used book stores; no more lending a book to your friend; no more borrowing one from the public library -- no more 'leaks' that might give someone a chance to read without paying. (And judging from the ads for Microsoft Reader, no more anonymous purchasing of books either.) This is the world publishers have in mind for us.' Creepy but more common every day, which is creepier."

Comments

Score 5 (Insightful)... How about "Flamebait"?

[maynard]

Wow, here we go around the "rms is a communist" maypole again. Karzan tells rms to "shut up" instead of actually debating his points, and finally ends with some demogogary about us all working in coal mines. Riiiigggghhhhht. Next time you want to call rms a communist, why don't you read what he has to say on the issue and debate those specific points instead of flat out accusing him of being a communist. Oh, and calling people who disagree with your views on intellectual property law "anti-intellectual-property cronies" pretty much rules out informed and reasoned debate. IMO this post doesn't deserve a single moderation up... but today I'm no moderator.

So, let's deal with your assertions:

Ok, first of all, eBooks are NOT going to replace real books; people like paper books. Books are static information, and people like to have an object associated with that information, something with a smell and a feel that reminds them of the last time they read it, etc. I'm sure this has all been said before anyway.

What a ridiculous assumption. Paper is expensive to manufacture and dangerous to the environment, especially considering how much of it we throw into landfills after a single use (never mind the toxic waste released during manufacture). The limit to electronic print distribution is the initial cost of a reader plus the limited display technology of current readers on the market. Don't expect a Palm III to become the standard for electronic newspapers. But new display technology coming down the road makes your point moot:

• Xerox PARC's Electronic Paper This technology takes two plastic sheets and immerses tiny beads, one side coated black the other white, inside a wax-like substrait sandwiched between the two sheets. With a small electric current any arbitrary ball twists in the substrait and thus changes it's color. This technology should allow for a flexible 8 1/2 x 11" sheet which can represent at least 300dpi... easily good enough for an electronic newspaper or book.
  
• Then there's AT&T's eink, another technology which promises similar display capabilities.
  

Based on what I've read these two technologies aren't the only up and coming new display systems for electronic printing, but they do appear the most promising. They should be cheap to manufacture, they're flexible, and they provide reasonable display resolution for the task at hand: reading. If you could buy a re-usable reader like this for twenty, fifty, or even a hundred dollars why would you ever want to buy a printed paperback book, magazine, or newspaper?

Regarding rms's opinions on Copyright law... did you read the article he wrote? Did he say that all copyright law should be abolished? Did he say that all capitalism should be abolished? Did he suggest we would be better off working in Coal mines because that's real work? I sure didn't see anything like that in what he wrote.

Personally, given the DMCA and subsection 1201(a)(1) I'm seriously concerned that we're heading toward a society where even basic "fair use" rights for libraries, citizens conducting scholarly research, and the right to read an item multiple times are in serious jeopardy. Given the technical restrictions imposed by 1201(a)(1), a publisher could limit a reader to a specific city (just stick a GPS chip in that ebook reader), a specific user (just stick a fingerprint or retina scanner on the reader), and even have the publication wipe itself out upon first reading. As others (and myself in a previous post in this thread) point out, this could herald a real Orwellian world in which newspapers and publications could rewrite history after the fact; destroying the public historical record. And what happens if libraries, and their users, aren't exempt from paying a license fee for each access of an electronic publication?

And finally, where did Adam Smith ever claim that Capitalism depended on intellectual property law? That's a pretty ridiculous claim on the surface.

Information isn't french toast either

[maynard]

The great thing with atom based economies was that the merchants had a monopoly on the manufacturing process. Consumers were incapable of reproducing the product at negligible or economical cost. I don't think this reader software really comes to grip with the problem, and I certainly don't think anyone really knows how, least of all Stallman who doesn't really need to care about making money in this environment.

First of all I want to say that fundamentally I disagree with your final point, but that I find this an insightful and well written comment. I'll repeat what I understand of your point so that we can find common ground upon which to debate:

• The medium is not the information -- when information is tied to a physical medium it's possible to control copying the information by restricting access to manufacturing the medium.
• By monopolizing the manufacturing process for mass distribution of any arbitrary information, a manufacturer (in this case publisher) could make money exploiting the considerable capitol expense of "tooling up." IOW: printing presses weren't cheap so for end users it made more sense just to pay for the service of mass printing.
• This created a natural economic cycle of publisher producing a product and service for consumers which electronic copying breaks, because to copy electronically requires almost no capital expense (don't need to buy no expensive printing press).
• Therefore, publishers need some form of legal regulation which limits copying and allows imposing some form of "per-use" fees so that publishers and artists can earn a living, or the economic incentive to create new works will dissipate -- along with said artistic expression.

Are we on the same wavelength here?

OK, so here's where I disagree given the DMCA that's currently our law:

While I think it's reasonable for publishers to require a fee for multiple use, the DMCA goes way too far. For example, I can accept that when I purchase an ebook I should have to pay twice if I want to display that ebook on two display devices at once; just like I should have to pay twice to run a program on two separate computers at once (or two separate instances of a program). Though I argue that an exception should be made for libraries -- readers who enter a library should have access to all the materials therein without the requirement for paying copying fees. But the DMCA, and specifically section 1201(a)(1) of the DMCA provides for Draconian copy protectionschemes. For example it would be possible to electronically limit a newspaper (eventhough there's an exception for newspapers in the DMCA the newspaper lobby is working hard to remove these exceptions; here's their reply comment to the US Copyright office regarding the DMCA and section 1201(a)(1) to this effect.) like so:

• Wrap the newsprint in an encryption copy protection scheme in order to enact the 1201(a)(1) DMCA Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for access control technologies.
• Now enact all sorts of draconian limits on per-use of copyrighted work through technical limitations in the electronic newsprint reader, such as: Install a GPS chip in the reader and limit reading the news paper to a single city, make it illegal to pass the reader to another person (use biometrics such as fingerprint on reader, retina scans, whatever or even legally prevent (though unenforceable) someone else reading over your shoulder.

This could have the chilling effect of destroying the history of newsprint -- creating just what Orwell prognosticated in 1984 with newspapers that were edited for "truthfullness" after the fact -- and no one could either legally stop, or even track such changes to the historical record.

The way 1201(a)(1) in the DMCA is worded could very possibly kill off libraries in this country if we go all electronic in the publishing industry. This is far more serious than just the DeCSS and Matel (CyberPatrol) cases, though they threaten to set legal precedent which could harm citizens liberties dramatically in the near future.

I think what most people are reacting to here is not that these companies want to earn money selling artistic works... fine by me. But that they plan on implementing a monopoly on distribution which could very well effect the rights of individuals to distribute their own copyrighted works. Just look at UCI TA (Infoworld article) and how the provisions in these state bills (and at least one law -- Virginia) derail basic "Fair Use" for legal reverse engineering, copying for archival, and even allow for remote disabling software on demand by publishers... this is not democratic, nor does it even meet the basic guidelines of original Copyright intent. What people fear is that big business, along with our congress critters, are getting together to forge new laws which will greatly undermine our basic civil liberties WRT information flow and copyright. They've shown themselves quite willing to trample all over our basic human rights set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (War on Drugs -- government stealing property without due process, spraying protesters willy nilly with chemical pepper spray and limiting their right to hold signs of protest in Seattle, police killing innocent unarmed citizens and then releasing confidential juvenile records in defense, using electronic surveillance technologies to spy on the world for private corporate gain, illegally funding the Contra war in direct violation of congress... the list goes on and on). So citizens are rightly fearful of what kind of authority might be handed over to monopoly content distributors over the next several years.

I really DO fear the possibility of these outcomes. This is NOT grand conspiracy theory; it's reasonable prediction based on past events. When ya'll figure out it's the grays, those bug eyed alien fiends behind all this -- well then we can start arguing about grand conspiracies. :-)

"Like a book"

[ucblockhead]

I've long thought that what we need in software is a return to the old "like a book" licensing schemes that companies like Borland and others used to use. Allow any sort of copying as long as the user guarantees that two people never use the work at the same time.

Obviously this would be just as ideal here.

I also think that a huge part of the problem is that these companies are hellbent to drive out every little abuse, by both technical and legal means. This is counterproductive. Most people are basically honest. If you just tell them, ("treat this like a book") most of them will. They'll follow a reasonable license agreement.

Some won't, of course, but I suspect that the money spent to catch them, or to implement technical solutions to prevent it far outweighs the extra money made in sales were you able to perfectly prevent it. Yes, millions of teenagers copy crap around, but the truth is, those teenagers likely wouldn't have bought anything (or much at least) had they been prevented.

A warning that should have been heeded

[dsplat]

Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation among numerous other books, write an article for the Boston Globe nearly two years ago. His warning in that article was remarkable considering what happened with DeCCS. For those of you inclined to view RMS as an alarmist, read Garfinkel's article and consider the fact that he got it right.

Dystopian fiction from Stallman

[dsplat]

RMS also wrote a dystopian story story Right To Read which was supposed to depict a worst-case scenario. It is a quick read. Take a look and consider the question it indirectly poses: How do we retain the freedoms we love?