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Read To Your Children, Go To Jail (Not Really)
The property struggle of our generation will be fought not in the streets of
Matewan
but in the tiny print in license agreements.
Glassbook
is Adobe's attempt to e-books, but they have a few details yet to iron out. Take Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for example -- check out the
permissions
you acquire when you "purchase" this "book."
Thanks to Art Medlar
and TBTF for this one.
Update:
Curiouser and curiouser. Apparently I misinterpreted the meaning of "this book cannot be read aloud"; Glassbook tech support tells me this refers to its capabilities, not, as labeled, permissions. I apologize for that. But I don't understand why, after this story was posted, they decided to change this. Now if you download Alice, you'll find it can be read aloud.
Incidentally, Adobe is using the text of Alice as transcribed by the awesome Project Gutenberg, whose entire purpose for existence is to bring reading material to as many people as possible. One of the first things I did when I got a laptop was to download a couple dozen of their books. In ASCII format. Say what you like about vi, at least it doesn't tell me to shut up.
It's real... I downloaded the eBook reader and the text. You have to register to download the eBook with a name and email address, but there's not much validation, so I used an alias (Guy Montag) in the interests of privacy. When you launch the eBook software for the first time, it says that you must allow it to do some certification to proceed, before you can read anything. I'm not sure what information is sent during the certification. Once you open the book, click on /menu/permissions, and there the restrictions are, in all there infamy.
I've used e-books a bit on the Palm, as well as on the Newton.
My take on it is this -- for just plain pleasure reading, a paper book is far superior. It is easier on the eyes, for one thing -- I think the combination of a light emitting display and the fact that the display is behind a transparent but reflective surface is a point against e-books.
Format is also an issue -- even a small paperback book is larger than any PDA screen. I cannot speak to the rockebook type machines coming out.
On the e-book side, when you need to have content related search capabilities then you are much better off with an electronic format.
Reading of literature is a stream oriented process; reference lookup is a random access oriented process. I'll read the entire data stream of Alice in Wonderlande, but the vast majority of entries in my local restaurant guide I'll never look at. I'm more likely want to find just Chinese restaurantes near the 1500 block of Broadway. I'm more likely to use the Unix manual in electronic form.
Back when I was a kid, I used to read the Unix System III then Sys V manual cover to cover over the course of a year.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I believe in this case, if they had enough evidence to press charges against you (i.e. proof that you had the reader, had downloaded the text from them, etc. etc.) AND got you into court, it would come down to your legal duty to tell the truth about where you read it from.
Practically speaking it's absolutely assinine.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I somehow doubt that the penalty of infringing the agreement imposed by a third-party on a public domain piece of literature is imprisonment.
---
seumas.com
Here's an excerpt from their FAQ
To protect copyrights, publishers establish their own guidelines for how much of their e-books can be printed and/or copied. This means that these permissions will differ from book to book. For example, some of the free books from the Glassbook Bookstore have no restrictions on copying and printing. For example, a publisher might give consumers the ability to print several pages of a cookbook within a set period of time.
Alice In Wonderland is a free book and probably has no restrictions on copying, transfering, or "reading aloud".
GEEZ!
Check out Largest recipe database on the web.
By Adobe's logic when they converted Alice in Wonderland from Project Gutenburg's format to the Glassbook format, they gained some rights over those held by the public domain original material.
By that same logic, any song that I convert to MP3 is now mine and I can do what I want with it....right?
lowkey
As far as helping Gutenberg goes......
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a nice little utility in perl that would parse a Gutenberg etext, and break the chapters out into seperate files, write them into nicely formatted html files, create a table of contents and a framset document so that all you had to do then was double click the index file and you had a nice little 2 frame interface. This could have been used to make nice ebooks using html. I offered this utility to them to provide on their web site for anyone who wanted to download or for them to even use as a cgi so that people could click a title and see it in a nice web interface. They basically told me to piss up a rope. They were not interested in offering this to anyone. I think I still have a copy of the perl scripts laying around. I know I converted a few ebooks and read them in a browser window very conveniently then moved on.
I realize that ASCII text is lowest common denominator, but its awefully nice to be able to view in a browser, when you can adjust your font and size and not drive yourself crazy reading it. If Gutenberg does not want help, screw them.
Now, the best idea would be a coupla drivers that flipped the screen 90 degrees to the right and did the same for the mouse. This way folks who have nice little light laptops could actually hold them like books and read. Hell, I'd never carry my laptop into the john as it is, but if I could sit there and hold the thing like a book and just scroll my finger down the toucpad to scroll the text, then you've got something.
As I am not a programmer, I have no idea what type of trouble this might be, so perhaps the more technically minded of you can enlighten us?
Briefs submitted this morning by an angy Florida resident suggest that by using the product, you obtain a psychic power that gives you the clairvoyant ability to discern the text of the project gutenberg manuscript of the same name.
When you speak the words of this similar but different literary access source aloud, you are not reading in contradiction to the licence, but rather exercising the explicitly unmentioned right to use "The Product" as a psychic assistance device in full compliance with the contract.
In a bizarre twist, the Supreme Court of Florida has recently ruled that this licence conflicts with the Florida election laws and even if it didn't that the word "cannot" in the last clause of the licence implies that under some cases it "can" be read aloud and that further it would be an abuse of discretion in the case of the presence of psychic powers to inhibit the public's "right to know" which is guaranteed by the Florida and US Constitutions as well as the plain meaning of the text of the licence. Therefore, the licence must be construed, in light of the clearly overriding interest that children not be kept ignorant that the licence in fact confers an affirmative obligation to speak the words of the book aloud while receiving the psychic assistance of the device. Anyone not reading the book aloud will be forced to count ballots in Miami-Dade county.
Scholars expect that the US Supreme Court may reverse the Florida Court. The familiar 5-4 conservative majority is expected to rule that the Florida Court's remedy, which, as applied, would allows some children to hear the story, also prevents children in other counties from witnessing the psychic demonstration and thus violates the equal protection clause. Scholars agree that the fact that remote counties are clearly out of earshot will play heavily in the deliberations.
However most copyright scholars predict the justices will also rule 8-1 that the original licence violates "fair use" under even the most draconian reading of the DMCA, but Justice Ginsberg is expected to argue that the Florida Court's status as the final arbiter of state contract law precludes US Supreme Court action on that grounds.
When asked for comment, George "Dubya" Bush said that it didn't matter to him because he couldn't read anyway, although he seemed interested in having Dick Cheney read the story to him. Al Gore, who seemed on the verge of tears about something else, said that while he strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court, he would accept their ruling, and noted that if Adobe didn't want people reading the book, he had a lockbox for sale. Jesse Jackson on the other hand complained that Alice in Wonderland was a racist text and compared the issue to Selma.
I think that either this story is in error or is an early "April-Fool's Day" joke.
From "Glassbook's" own FAQ (emphasis added):
What happens to the book when I'm done reading it?
Since you own the e-book, once you have read it you can store in the Library that is included with the Glassbook Reader. In the future, users will be able to loan or give their e-books to others using the Glassbook Plus Reader.
Can I print and copy my e-books?
To protect copyrights, publishers establish their own guidelines for how much of their e-books can be printed and/or copied. This means that these permissions will differ from book to book. For example, some of the free books from the Glassbook Bookstore have no restrictions on copying and printing. For example, a publisher might give consumers the ability to print several pages of a cookbook within a set period of time.
Either there's been a serious mix-up at adobe and/or glassbooks (If any of their books are printable, a public domain work copied from Project Gutenberg ought to be!), or someone's pulling our collective legs. The FAQ implies that giving "your copy" of an e-book to someone else is intended to be allowed (presumably, they're trying to find some way of ensuring that your copy disappears when you give it to someone else). I find it hard (though, sadly, not impossible) to imagine Adobe refusing to allow printing from a public domain work...
Has anyone else downloaded and confirmed this? Unfortunately, as is all-to-often the case, only Windows and Mac users can get an 'e-book' reader, so I can't download it myself and check...you can download the book from here.
If these restrictions are really printed here, it looks like we should be complaining to the publisher ("VolumeOne") more than Glassbooks.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I downloaded and tried to install Adobe's e-book reader, and it informs me that I must have Internet Explorer 4.x or better on my computer. Why must I have Internet Explorer on my computer to use Adobe's e-book reader? I should be allowed to use whatever browser I want to use this program.
It can claim anything for its viewer or books it owns but it cannot restrict the redistribution of Alice in absolutely no way.
These 'no persmission' values may just be default values associated with this e-book file... if any book could offer rights in these regards - wouldnt it be Alice in Wonderland? Could this just be a case of an overworked geek not adding the correct persmissions? it sounds like a simple answer - but I find it very difficult to believe that they would attempt to withhold rights from Alice in Wondlerland.
If Im wrong - it would be another case of Corporate America saying "you dont have any rights, you have only the rights we want to offer you - even if the terms we set forth violate previously described rights we dont care - we have the means to defend ourselves vigourously - you do not... and your government is on our side - as evidenced by their lack of action at display after display of our arrogance... piss off, see you in court.. heheheheheh "
So what if the device reads it to you? Does the device go to jail?
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
i thought after 50 years after an author deaths, and if no relative claims rights the work of lit/art becomes public domain ie it is not owned by anyone i think adobe is treading in dangerous territory they cant proceed to claim they have any sort of distribution right to this afaik
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Actually, it appears to be the Info page from some standard text reader. I suspect the legalese is standard generic boilerplate the software throws up on the screen without regard to the actual text being displayed. Alice in Wonderland itself is, of course, public domain and cannot be restricted in any of the aforementioned ways, as I'm sure even the lawyers at Adobe would acknowledge. It's far more likely that pigdogs.org will get slapped with a lawsuit for displaying a screenshot of the software than you will for reading it to your kids.
The issue here is not an over-reaching legal department, but simply poorly designed software. I just feel sorry for the poor schmucks at Adobe on the receiving end of all those angry but misinformed Slashdot e-mails.
> It other words, it prevents computers from reading the book to you, making it more
> difficult for one to create an audio tape or CD of the book and selling it for free.
Leaving aside the confusing concept of "selling it for free", the point you're missing I think is that Adobe has packaged a free book and is saying it isn't free any more. What's wrong with creating a freely available audio CD of Alice in Wonderland, or anything in Project Gutenberg? To me this is the exact kind of exploitation of free stuff that (old school, pre-good-licensing) open source folks have always worried about. "What if someone takes my stuff I offer for free and sells it?"
Hopefully informed people (and then other people) will resist buying such an eBook product until issues like this are resolved. But what will probably happen is that this product, or some other, will make itself so seductive and convenient that we will deprioritize our indignation about selling free stuff and buy it anyway. I include myself in this grim prediction. Oh well. I lost hope when GWB became president anyway.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. -- Samuel Butler
Apparently, they also wish to prevent fair-use excerpts of any book (even one where the entire text is fair game).
Hmmm... Sounds like they took a page from the MPAA workbook...
Next they will ban bad reviews, I suppose.
And that sounds like a page from the Microsoft workbook.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
I just downloaded the Adobe EBook reader (windows or Mac). , and then clicked the library button, which takes you to Adobe's eBook collection
Voila.
The same picture submitted by Art.
Disturbing. Very Disturbing.
But not suprising.
Yeah, and we ended up with watered down, wrong crap like the bible.
Folks I think we have been had.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Gutenburg has a standard header attached to their documents that places (some) GPL-esque restrictions on their use as long as it has that header -- but you are allowed to remove that header, and are left with a public domain work.
I think that this particular story is, in fact, a scam, but people should be aware that a work being "public domain" isn't like it being copyrighted. You can easily and legally take a public domain work, reformat it a little, and copyright the result.
You don't hold a copyright on the public domain material per se -- the copyright is on your particular expression/presentation of it.
Art galleries do this with photographs of paintings in their collections all the time. Another more "evil" example might be Bill Gates' Corbis and images of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks.
Just because something is public domain doesn't mean that you'll be able to get a copy without somebody's copyright restictions on it.
DNA just wants to be free...
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
this screen tells me what i can do with that document in this stupid viewer, not what you are ALLOWED to do. the software will not read it to you, this seems to be a feature of the pro version ...
...
i don't know if that compromises the GPL, because if you are allowed to distribute the document and give a pointer to the source (thats the ASCII gutenberg version) adobe seems to comply with the GPL
where is bruce?
;-)
This guy is not telling the truth. If he would have actually downloaded and installed the reader as he claimed he would have seen the story is in fact true. Yes the parent is in fact correct.
...../......
Okay, now that's just LAME!
Finally, a trully unneccessarily restrictive license agreement to gripe about...
:)
It helps you process the text, and depending what you're reading, it can be the only way to understand it. (For example, highly dialected texts, like Trainspotting or something like that.)
Dan
Dan
What you said, "Instead of scrolling the text, just move your eyes?" reminded me of a special I saw on Nova or something regarding the serial presentation of text. The experiment was to measure comprehension and reading speed. They had a person watch a screen, and would present sentences to them, one word at a time, at a high rate of speed.
I don't remember what the control of the experiment was, or how they qualified their speed measurement--but they found that people could read 4 times faster with about the same level of comprehension with the words flashed one at a time.
It'd be interesting to have a single word display front end for the gutenburg project, just to experiment with.
On a side note, I really don't like reading on a monitor. Even at high refresh rates, I just don't like it much. I prefer paper.
At work, when I have to read a spec, I always print it out.
From the terms and conditions
"
Can I run the Glassbook Reader and a debugger at the same time?
Our security implementation does not allow debugging of any program while the Glassbook Reader is running. However, as long as the Glassbook Reader is not running, debugging is not a problem.
"
Let's hope people don't start distributing documentation in Glassbook format then.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Mapmakers and mailing list creators often make similar alterations for copyright protection -- in the case of maps, by adding false streets or altering the length of streets; in the case of mailing lists by adding fake addresses and addresses to mailboxes which the mailing list creators own.
On another aspect of the Adobe EULA,
/. or other forums which share such info, so the general public doesn't unwittingly buy these devices, perhaps the lesson will be taught. Otherwise, we get the products and the restrictions we deserve.
From the Adobe web page:
"How can I copy my e-books from my desktop to my laptop computer?
Currently we are working on incorporating a lend/give feature into the Glassbook Plus Reader, which will allow you to transfer a book to another PC. In the interim, if you want to read a book on a certain PC you will need to download it directly to that PC.
For some background information on why you cannot freely copy copyrighted works please see:
Specific information
Fair use resources on the Web <two web links>"
I knew I was reluctant to welcome ebooks when they were first offered but this is ridiculous. Heck, my PalmPilot is welcome merely BECAUSE it allowed the data to be easily copied and now some part of the computing world wants to restrict what you can do with some data, not make it EASIER to use and duplicate and yeah, even READ ALOUD the data.
I'll NEVER buy an ebook from anybody or anything from Adobe, because of these restrictions. Take that to their IPO meetings. If everyone makes these issues known to those who don't read
In the meantime, I'll continue to frequent the Gutenberg web site though I guess I'll have to continue to used Adobe's cursed PDF reader.
Cheers from frozen Alberta where it's hovering near 30 below,
Ray
Teacher: Do you read before you go to bed?
Student: Sometimes, and sometimes my dad reads to me.
Teacher: And what does he read to you?
Student: The Adobe Alice in Wonderland...
Teacher: Oh... I see... well... your father is going away for a long long time.
When I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean -- no more, no less. H. Dumpty
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
It's just an image, not a working web page.
a dobe.jpg">here</a>
<html>
<head>
<title>You are forbidden to read this</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="ffffff">
<img src="adobe.jpg">
<!-- An alternate copy
<a href="http://i16.yimg.com/16/b7d5c7ab/h/d381eac0/
-->
</body>
</html>
Would that be a legal circumvention ?
Wonder if that new game could get the programmers in trouble. Doubt it though.
:)
The game rules anwyays
----------
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Who can we contact/complain to about this. Words cannot describe my outrage.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
It's a pretty easy inference from those restrictions that Adobe is trying to force anyone interested in getting e-Alice into getting it directly from them, and from no one else.
I'd love to see this taken to court. A healthy dose of mainstream public exposure is what's needed here to begin spreading the memetic antibodies against the trend of eroding fair use rights. I suggest we all stand outside the Adobe headquarters (it's next to the Hilton in downtown San Jose, right?) and read Alice in Wonderland aloud from our Glassbook Readers.
I can see the fnords!
--
I read books as I don't like it when my eyeballs sweat :)
umm.....the license is owned by C.S. Lewis, not Adobe. And because it is over 75 years old, the text is now owned by the public, hense public-domain. Besides, that violates the fair-use provisions(reading to my kids), and the ADA (what if they're blind?).
by Magorn on soon (#) I just went to Adobe and installed the reader and sure enough the permissions are eaxctly as stated. Now it should be noted that this is free download, so the restrictions make no sense at all.
Now the nastier question is how can they take a free Gutenberg book of a public domain text and slap all these restrictions on it. Can this possibly be legal?
The answer is unfortunately yes. Even though they are presenting a public domain work, they are legally enititled to enforce copyright on thier intellectual property in this case their "unique" recompilation of the original source text. On the other hand is it moral? well lets just say there are special places in hell for people like this.....
Are they really that much better than paper? I mean, okay, they save space. I can fit the Bible and a good half-dozen classics on my Palm and still have room for other stuff, and I don't have to lug around a few pounds of paper.
Beyond that... isn't it easier to just turn a page? Instead of scrolling the text, just move your eyes? Are we so freakin' lazy we don't even want to move our eyes, just push a button to scroll down a line?
IMHO, YES... I have a Rocket E-book one of the few dedicated electronic book readers and it's MUCH better in general, than the paper equivalents. Firstly, there is a LARGE selection of free texts available for it, including a number I wouldn't otherwise read. Check out the selection at the rocket library... These are all free to download and read.
Next, I find it a lot easier to read during my commute by train and I can carry a wide variety of books with me so that it doesn't matter if I get bored reading one particular book...
The only objection I have to this book is that If I was ever to buy a book for it I would have to have it encoded for my particular e-book and so I wouldn't be able to lend it to someone else to read.
If you're interested turning a page consists of pressing one button (Up or down), It jumps an entire page, not a little scroll, but it is good.
I can bookmark a given paragraph, underline sections, scribble notes (it uses graffiti or a keyboard) in fact do almost anything that I can do to a real book.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
I agree. The question here, however, is not whether or not the work is original, it's whether or not you or I have the financial and legal resources to challenge Adobe's implicit assertion that it is (I know I don't).
The big thing with these technological "content protection" measures is that the law doesn't matter much anyway -- you may be well within your legal rights to copy, lend, or loan the e-book version of "Alice in Wonderland", but the software doesn't see it that way. So you can't.
Likewise, SDMI-protected works aren't magically going to become unprotected when they go out of copyright.
Worse, that's probably a moot point, since copyright now lasts something like six to seven times the expected lifetime of e.g. CD media, the bits will have rotted and it'll be long gone (no backup copies, either... thanks SDMI!).
If SDMI and similar protection mechanisms become widespread, I have honestly no idea how contemporary works are going to survive past the next 25-50 years, let alone the next century.
Talk about cultural amnesia...
DNA just wants to be free...
Zero context, infinite fun.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
So sue me.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
I can't believe that it's actually legal for them to tell people they can't read aloud. Are they hiding behind the DMCA because it's an e-book? Perhaps now the people who instituted that piece of toilet paper that passes for a law will see the error of their ways.
Doubtful, though.
How you see the world is how the world sees you.
What if I memorize the entire book or some piece of it, and then declaim that in front of my children or my microphone?
scary thing is, rms kindof predicted this in The Right to Read. Of course no one took him seriously, and it looks like he was on target more than anyone thought.
tagline
... hi bingo
The text of Alice in Wonderland is in the Public Domain. What right do they have to say that I can't copy it to the clipboard? What right do they have to disable printing? What right do they have to prohibit giving it away?
This is the tendancy in digital media. There are also public domain motion pictures which are being distributed with CSS.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
it looks to me like article misrepresents what's going on. look at the other "permissions" on that screen shot. like -- it cannot be printed, and the text cannot be copied to the clipboard. they sound like capabilities of the software that this particular book is denying the user.
so it seems reasonable to me to think that this particular listing (cannot be read aloud) might mean there is a feature of the software that will use voice synthesis to read a text aloud, and this particular book has disabled that.
if that's so, shame on slashdot for posting this.
- pal
If you want to see my screen shot of the EXACT SAME thing, then check it out. Notice I chose the contents page. Or if you don't believe that, try the Title page. Yes, the period is missing on the Read Aloud part. But it's still listed there.
That screen shot is real - whether they are serious or not is another question.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Maybe a Slashbox with the Gutenberg titles du jour? That would be nice to have.
sulli
RTFJ.
"
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had
peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
"
I have the gutenberg text, I have the glassbook text. Was that a copyright infringement or not.
[although this question seems absurd for an out of copyright text]
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
- Talking about the Mona Lisa
- Reminiscing about the Mona Lisa
- Downright remembering that you were ever in the Louvre
We thank you for your attention and wish you a pleasant visit.People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Would it not be possible to write a custom reader to bypass whatever "copy to clipboard"/etc. restrictions there are in the interest of fair use? Sure, it would likely lead to a DeCSS-style legal fiasco, but fair use is fair use.
---
"Fdisk format reinstall, doo dah doo dah,
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Okay, so if I read this right, those f***** permissions mean that:
- the book cannot be purchased as a gift for someone (ie: Christmas gift), as "giving" is prohibited.
- this means that if a child wanted the book, they would have to purchase it themselves. I hope that the reader & e-book aren't too expensive!
- a blind person would not be able to have another person read it to them (can't read aloud)
- Libraries sure wouldn't be able to start carrying them (can't "lend")
- Stores can't sell them (they purchase them from manufacturer, but are prohibited to "re-sell" them.)
Sounds to me like it will die a quick death, unless Adobe lessens up those restrictions...
This is Adobe's way of dealing with the ADA. PDF has traditionally been a mostly inaccessible format for the blind and visually impaired (BVI). For an application to work with a screen-reading software package, the text within its windows has to be exposed to the screen-reader. The Adobe eBook reader does not do this -- everything just looks like a graphic. This is done for security reasons, since if the text content is exposed, someone could rip it and distribute pirated copies.
Adobe's work-around appears to be to allow the eBook application to expose the text, but to implement this as a "right" that is granted to the individual user. The rights for the book are completely individualized as part of the download. Therefore, a BVI user (presumably certified as such by Adobe?) would be able to get the "read aloud" rights to the book that would allow his/her screen-reader to read the eBook application, where a "regular" user would not. I assume that Adobe is not charging for this "right" (if they are, they will be sued for sure).
As an aside, Microsoft's Reader software has exactly the same accessibility problem, which Microsoft is aware of and is working on.
Re "in public domain"... Technically, once somethig is in the public domain, anyone can do ANYTHING with it, including copying it and revoking all rights from it. That doesn't stop you from doing anything with the original copy of course.
How many people downloaded the Abode eBook Reader and the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland eBook on Dec. 14th, 2000?
Adobe could never have bought this much interest through mere advertising... If they haven't seen this article they have to be perplexed about the sudden "interest".
Don't get me wrong, I want to keep my stuff too, but don't you think that this whole concept of property bears some inspection? It's what, a rule for ensuring that resources are distributed fairly? But it's looking unfair. LOOK at it. Maybe we need a new rule.
Why not post this yourself? That way we could use them without Gutenberg's agreement. These tools sure sound useful to me.
sulli
RTFJ.
Well, assuming you need a computer anyway to read these, why not just read your kid the free version from Project Gutenburg itself?
Which is why they will fail.
sulli
RTFJ.
This amazing piece of IP licensing, really does beg the question: How many consecutive words constitutes an infraction?
My UID is prime!
I just checked Adobe's website at http://www.adobe.com/epaper/ebooks/freebooks.html and it looks like they may have changed the book. I download the 4.05 reader and their copy of Alice (after answering more nosy questions that I'd generally put up with, but this was for investigative purposes) and their current copy appears not to have any references to Project Gutenberg. (Although it does appear to be PG's text, based on the somewhat unusual emphasis style.) Project Gutenberg's license only restricts further terms of redistribution if the Project Gutenberg trademark is used. (Which is actually the Right Thing in this case, because the actual text is in the public domain, so the only lever they have on further distributor's behavior is via their trademark rights.) Adobe seems to no longer have any reference to PG in their book, so they are not bound, legally, by PG's use conditions or ethics. Incidentally, the new Document Security dialog on the book appears to no longer have the "read aloud" restriction. Still mentioned as "Not Allowed" are printing, changing the document, selecting text and graphics, and adding or changing annotations and form fields. Oh, and every now and then there's an embedded advertising page. So, not quite as bad as what was mentioned up top, but still pretty obnoxious. There are tens of thousands of on-line books out there that don't requiring knowing your personal or hardwarde information, and I think I'll stick with listing those for now. And I'll be happy to list other freely readable books that folks here want to contribute to Gutenberg or other etext archives. John Mark Ockerbloom Editor, The On-Line Books Page http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
The GPL opponents, you know, those who say the GPL is not about freedom, blah blah blah.. if something was to be truly free, put it in the public domain and let anyone do anything they want with it.
Well.. that's what Project Gutenberg did with it's books... I wonder if it's the same people who think this is wrong who whine about the GPL?
The fact is, the text of Alice is in the public domain, right? (I mean if it's not, then this argument is useless). If it IS in the public domain, nobody can lay any claim to what you can or cannot do with the material.. period. I seem to recall a ruling where it was ruled that simply slightly changing the format some media is delivered in does not suddenly make it an original work, succeptible to copyright.
Alice is Alice is Alice, no matter who prints it.
Ok people. Calm down... Deep breath...
Let's forget Alice. Anyway a child's tale.
Let's think someone does this with the Bible!
ey I'm not a christian but I do respect any feelings people may have to it. And in way or the other, the vast majority of Earth's population has some cultural relation to it. Yeah, you may be a jewish but you have something yours there anyway. You may be a muslim but Isa was the one before the Prophet. You may not be christian, jewish, muslim but somehow have something related with such book. Good or bad, it stilll is a piece of Mankind's History
So if this goes this way... You cannot speak the words of God?
If people go over this... Yeah, UCITA. The New Electronic Inquisition! Bring the electric chair, the modern way to roast all these heretics... The Road Ahead for the new Bible. But remember, you cannot read it aloud...
Could it be that Glassbook has the abilitiy to read a book aloud over the computer speakers? And that under the "Permissions" settings, they set the "Read Aloud" setting to "No"? Seeing that the other settings listed sound more like capabilities of the program rather than legal terms, I'm more inclined to believe that it's just a setting, not a jail threat.
Regardless, this screenshot certainly doesn't read like a legal document, and I doubt it would hold up in court. I'd think there are also some fair use problems, even if it were supposed to be a legal document.
Like I said, I might be talking out of my ass, but I'd rather be talking out of it than having my panties in a twist up it.
-sk
Why? They own it. They can do what they want.
:)
Who? Adobe? They own the bits and bytes that make up the book in that format, but they have no claim to the text of the book or what you can do with it.
This may apply to software, when people say "you should open source everything!" I, as a software author have no reason to do that, and if I want to distribute MY software with a license that states it may be used only when standing on your head smoking a 2 year old cuban cigar, I have the right to do that, because it is MY SOFTWARE.
Sadly, unless something has changed that I don't know about, Adobe doesn't own the words to the stories they distribute, and have no rights to say what can and can't be done with the *content*.
Of course, if you were saying that when "they own it" you meant the people who bought the book own the bits and bytes and can read it aloud if they want, I agree with you
(covering all bases you see)
Umm, any notion of "property" exists because it's been defined legally as such.
If someone has an apple but is not hungry, then they should have no right denying that apple to someone who is hungry. After all, did the person who picked it ask the tree for permission to take it? "From each according to ability, to each according to need" and all that, you know. Anything that can be manufactured can be manufactured again if needed.
They don't own this text. They may "own" the medium it's delivered on, but considering you can download the complete text from the web, as it's public domain, I don't think they have the right to say you cannot read it aloud.
Or does just making a license and attaching it to something that someone else created make me the legal "owner" of that thing? If so, I've got some writing to do!
------------
but i think mozilla did some funky stuff with the submitted field...
oh well... there it is...
tagline
... hi bingo
> If Intellectual Property wasn't property, then there'd be no need for the GPL...
umm, it's property because and only because it's been defined that way, legally speaking. also, "intellectual property" is a term that's become popular with the holders of such because it implies parity with "real" property, which, legally speaking, it doesn't have (otherwise, your estate would revert to the public domain twenty, no, fifty, no, seventy years after you die.
i'm not saying that people who copy copyrighted works aren't doing bad things that hurt the creators of said works, but your argument is silly and spurious.
(i do believe that "IP" protection has been extended to wholly stupid lengths, largely in the name of protecting one damned mouse, but that's another story...)
also the RIAA is guilty of a litany of sins that don't even relate to copyright; they're evil regardless of what you think about "intellectual property". (IMNSHO)
-k. ^-^ ^D
like, d00d, don't forget tew bring some pawt.
This is not a fake. Just go http://www.glassbook.com and download the reader and thier free copy of alice and wonderland. That is if you have access to a windows/ MacOS machine. In any case, I just checked it out for myself. And it is real.
Well some people are expressing their doubts about the validity of this story. Unfortunately I'm a Linux-only old stubborn sysadmin and they still don't have the reader available. Anyway...
If this story is true, then someone is getting into serious trouble. Carrol is not here to claim his rights. But a book, after several years becomes automatically public domain and no one has rights to revoke its free distribution. Not even republishers like Adobe. I may buy the book for their work on printing, editing it. They may be woners of pictures or draws (if they are not the original ones). But they don't have a damn right on any piece of its text. Besides, such significative works of Art, and Alice is surely one of them, are protected by international laws and it seems that UN has a big play here. So such claims are a damn HELL! If they are real. I wonder if some lawyers are not already pushing their calculators to hand...
Reminds me of when a friend said he couldn't always print from his family's new Windows computer. Sometimes he could, sometimes not, e.g. when using Encarta, sometimes the print function just wouldn't work.
Normally I stay away from Winboxen so as not to encourage my friends to think my computer expertise might actually apply to their systems, but since I wanted to set 'em up with some useful URLs and such anyway, I took a look.
Sure enough, depending on what you're viewing in Encarta, you either can print or you can't.
Couldn't see any explanation available, despite trying some online help, but my conclusion was that Encarta included licenses for some, but not all, online photos, so it disabled the print function accordingly.
Now, that isn't a complete solution, since there's always a way to print out something you see on your own computer's screen, even if the software you're using to display it isn't cooperating....
But I thought it would have been nice for the software to at least explain that it was withholding "print privileges" due to licensing issues. Ideally it would actually allow printing after warning the user against distributing the printouts, but that's not the direction in which corporate America seems to be heading.
So when I saw that screenshot for the e-book, it immediately struck me as a moderately misleading attempt to do what I thought Encarta should have somehow done -- say "this program will not permit you to do such-and-such because you haven't paid for a special upgrade [or whatever]". (Really not to different from the old crippleware concept.)
Oh, another possibility: the read-aloud function could well depend on markup to do a good job, and if the markup isn't available online, disabling the ability to engage the read-aloud engine could be a smart way to avoid lots of support calls.
After all, how exactly do you pronounce this sentence:
If you say "as `reed aloud'", you might be wrong. Ditto "as `red aloud'". Depends on the context, which can transcend even grammar. (Consider how an automated text-to-speech translator would translate these last couple of paragraphs, especially the sample sentence "Read aloud"!But, looking at the other restrictions, I lean more towards the crippleware end of things than the lack-of-adequate-markup end in this case.
Kinda silly regardless. Personally, I'm avoiding technologies and forae that include these kinds of silly (and hard-to-track) restrictions, mainly because it's too easy to become a lawbreaker just by doing normal things (like reverse-engineering something to see how it works). So I don't have any DVD players, and I've even stopped going to (or renting) movies, thanks to Jack Valenti making the agenda of the MPAA sufficiently clear for me to know to avoid any product connected with it like the plague.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
This is something that is woefully absent from Slashdot lately. You people are getting lazy and it's pissing me off.
-- Steve van Egmond, b.math
How fscking ridiculous! Forget about it. I'll download the text.
sulli
RTFJ.
The original intent behind copyright and patent law was to encourage the creation of works and to allow them to become public domain. The compromise was to allow the creator (person) a monopoly long enough to give him incentives to create and then let it become public after that. There is no benefit to society to let heirs or corporations keep copyrights and patents forever. There is actually a good reason for them to expire... to encourage the continual creation of new works.
Again, the purpose of copyright and patent law was to benefit society as a whole, not authors or inventors except just enough to encourage them to create. We've gone way overboard with this... far beyond any benefit to creators (beyond their deaths) and into an area that harms society by adding restrictions.
Bolie IV
It's quite possibly a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act to intentionally disable speech readers, though, since they aid visually handicapped people in reading the books.
--Dan
--Dan
Web Tips
Maybe someone at Adobe reads /.?
I downloaded v1.1 of the Reader (the most recent non-beta version), and Alice, and got this. No mention of reading it out loud.
Did Adobe make changes, or is this only something that shows up with the beta versions?
It does circumvent the restrictions, doesn't it? Wasn't that the argument in the DeCSS case?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
yeah, I was saying in more general terms the restrictiveness of that license, not for that particular text, which is in the public domain. That is a good point though. And, there is no way in hell they are going to enforce that. I think it's just in the thing so that nobody can show it at a microsoft presentation or something, hehe.
//FIXME: Bad
But it's quite possible that releasing anything to the public with speech-reading capability intentionally disabled is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and could result in a class-action lawsuit by blind and visually handicapped people. I'd kind of like to see such a suit, complete with overly trumped up multi-million-dollar alleged damages, because it would "fight fire with fire" by pitting one group of overzealous lawyers against another.
--Dan
--Dan
Web Tips
Regular books are made from trees.
;O)
Trees grow back.
E books run on electricity.
Once you use electricity it is gone forever!
forth ?love if honk then
How does one answer the question posed by their 10 year old when he asks "Dad, when you used to read me this book, were you breaking the law?" What the hell is my response to that, it's ok to break the law when it is convenient? It's not really a law? Numa
Remove the *** to email me
Sometimes people put down a language or consider it to be not good enough for use when they don't know what they're talking about. They will say things such as "JavaBeans can do this, and perl can't..." or something very similar but equally as silly. For example, I had a technician at a top-rated e-commerce applications software company send me an email with the following line just a week ago:
"You might have enough RAM. It's the Perl Module. Perl is used for text modification only. However, uses Perl for files transfer in the and your files might be too large for Perl Module to handle. Thus, you'll have to manually copy those files; increasing RAM is not the solution."
If the author of this message had known anything about which they were speaking, they wouldn't have 1) said that perl was for "text modification only" (although it does it well), and 2) they would have realized that there are many ways to handle large file transfers with perl, without reading the entire file into RAM and then sending it over the network.
So my point is that while advocasy may be a negative issue, sometimes people have to stand up for a certain language because ill-minded, uneducated fools are circulating false information about the language that would prove hurtful to the userbase. And these views become popular especially in light of marketing a proprietary language such as VB and ASP in order to sell more of a product (VB and IIS). These marketing schemes sometimes hurt developers that are already established in a career because the language they program in becomes unpopular in the eyes of management (who are the worst people to chose a language), and they may lose their job if they cannot quickly expand their skill sets. Bottom line is: advocasy is an evil, but it just may be a necessary evil.
I believe that simply re-printing the book does not constitute an original, copyrightable work. You cannot simply re-type something word for word or even simply change a couple things and say it's original. IT's still the text of Alice, the book is only a delivery mechanism.
THe delivery mechanism itself can be patented/copyrighted/whatever, but the text of Alice is public domain, regardless of how it's delvered or what the publshers claim.
This reminds me of an episode of Max Headroom where people were making bootleg copies of educational tv programs, and the censorship board was trying to shut them down. Once a year during some noisy festival, they operated a printing press(since the noise would be muffled).
Geez, more and more episodes of that show are turning from fiction into fact.
Adobe is far from innocent however. The security restrictions do include the following:
Printing: Not Allowed
Changing the Document: Not Allowed
Selecting Text and Graphics: Not Allowed
Also, there are REALLY ANNOYING advertisements every 10 pages.
There is no acknowledgement of Project Gutenberg that I can find, and I cannot select text to try to compare the texts. Maybe we could find an error or something in the Gutenberg text and check if it is in Adobe's version too. Project Gutenberg allows them to do this with their texts however, so they are within their rights to use it without acknowedgement.
And worst of all is this, when you get your "Web Buy" access key:
Yes, they really do send your CPU and Hard Drive ids to register the eBook. And I cannot open the document on any other computer. I think the lifespan of paper is still much longer than the lifespan of cpus and hard drives.
Publishers have to make money just like everyone else. They are a business. With everything being electronic, what other choice do they have? Haven't you ever protected an investment you made?
--
This may be redundant but I figured it would be worth verifying the story. And like most people here, whether it is enforcable or not, the presumption of these people is inexcusable. My recently deceased mother-in-law used to volunteer reading to the blind. To make a distinction between a printed medium and an e-book like this is quite seriously braindead. Looks like I'll have to write my congressman on this one.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Ok, there's too much misinformation here. The restriction is purely electronic and prevents the ebook reader from sending the text to a text-speach converter. It other words, it prevents computers from reading the book to you, making it more difficult for one to create an audio tape or CD of the book and selling it for free.
Talk about letting your imagination run wild. Settle down people. Let's see if adobe comes out with an ebook authoring program before we complain too much. And it looks like an extension of PDF anyway, so we'll likely have open source readers and modifiers soon(which is exactly what adobe wants to prevent...)
-Adam
Bumper sticker of the day:
Honk if you've never seen an uzi fired out of a car window.
And even if it wasn't someone's name, art is publisher's jargon - a term for any illustration or photograph. Art vs. text. It is RISKy to infer any veracity from a directory spec.
I can see the fnords!
Of course, I was never able to figure out why some electronics stores are allowed to point all their TV's out the window and show movies.
As for not being allowed to read it to a large group, that particular text is in the public domain. There's no way they can restrict public readings of that text. Since they don't own the copyright to the text (no one does), they can't possible impose any restrictions on it.
Look, they're never going to take anyone to court over this, so the whole thing is stupid. Let's just ignore it, okay?
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
In this case, the "work" is apparently having converted a free Project Gutenberg text into a formatted form. Which is interesting, since it could be argued that the text itself is not their work, and thus the only infringement would be verbally describing the look of the layout or fonts...
The point of the article is that fair use is being given the runaround here, not allowing text to be copied etc., and that they have work to do, since the way it stands, it doesn't allow *anything* to read it aloud. It doesn't say specifically what can and can't read it. It merely says it cannot be read aloud.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Cannot read in an artificially or naturally lighted space.
Cannot read in the presence of a mind reader or ESP.
Cannot think while reading this book.
Cannot read in the presence of a human being. Doh! Guess you just wasted your money since this is as far as you get to read.
What a way to make money. Then the company won't even have to worry about actually creating the text for the ebook. Just the license aggreement, everything beyond that will be blank space. And anyone that complains that they bought the ebook and the text of the book isn't present automagically goes to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $100.
I think I have a business plan, are there any interested VC's reading /.? If so, have your people contact my people and we'll talk about talking.
I think this very fact makes the Adobe license very questionable legally. They can own the typefaces, the software used to display the text, etc., but they don't own the text. They can also get someone to write a new introduction to the book and copyright that, but they still don't own the body of the text. I don't think Adobe's license comes even close to squaring with "fair use" or any basic notions of "public domain" IP.
Another user made a good guess. The VolumeOne/Glassbook Alice text is absolutely AWFUL for a voice-synthesizer to decode. Vision-impaired and manually-challenged people would do lots better to download the original Gutenberg TXT file, than try to play with our highly formatted stuff. Jim Judge VolumeOne
extending Windows to capture the font rendering calls on the screen and then piping the text to a file?
It seems to me that these schemes are fundamentally flawed, since by presenting the material to the eyes of the reader in readable form, the material is decoded and can be captured somehow. Either in the software underlying the application, or worst case with digital camera and OCR.
Sure, you may be allowed to read the book aloud. however isnt' the not being able to give or lend the book to someone else exactly the backbone of the grim future future outlined in RMS's Right To Read Even with the read aloud permission being debunked. I think the other permissions are scary enough.
Hell, Disney has no problems using other peoples' non-public-domain stories for their movies. Grab a copy of Kimba, the White Lion (I believe that is the title), and compare the similarities to another Disney film...
Yawn. Slashdotters get bug up ass, waste precious bandwidth. Story at 10. Let me see if I can clarify what just happened here with a synopsis of events:
My take: The VolumeOne edition of Alice, the first true typographically accurate replica, may be freely read, printed on your laser printer, pumped through a synthesizer, or whatever, as long as you're not making a profit doing it. The creative effort that went into my edition was major; it is the first of its kind in 135 years. Any derivatives of the work, including the ones at the Glassbook, BookVirtual, and eBookNet sites, should also be open for free access.
Don't like the Glassbook edition? My computer can't even read it. Try my original PDF at eBookNet.com.
A1: Mike Hart is an old-time folk music aficionado of the Chicago School (think Old Town School of Folk Music, Earl of Old Town, Gate of Horn, Bonnie Koloc, etc.).
A2: Len Kawell of Glassbook was one of the three original authors of Lotus Notes, which itself is based on the venerable PLATO mainframe product, vintage about 1973. Patrick Ames of BookVirtual was Adobe's first evangelist for PDF. He wrote and designed the classic Beyond Paper manifesto for Acrobat.
A3: Acrobat was originally called Carousel.
A4: I won't tell you. But my original offer remains: the first person to find and report these errors will receive a free print-on-demand edition of this classic and my deep respect for life.
The requirement that the text be convertable to ASCII seems to have been violated. One of the pieces of the etext that shall not be removed, altered or modified says:
I have no trouble understanding the wording of "so the Project (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties."
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
so, if my wife asks me to read a goodnight story for her, I can tell her that it is not allowed! E-Books are great news for lazy husbands, then!
Cheers.
Even that is out of the question. The text is public domain now.
Setting aside this particular case and looking at it more generally, "that" is not out of the question, simply because the book is in the public domain.
You seem to be confusing two separate areas of law: copyright and contract law. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is in the public domain. However, you and I could legally sign a binding contract where I agree to give you $10,000, and you agree never to read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland out loud.
The fact that the book is in the public domain does not impair the enforceability of the contract. If, after entering into such a contract, you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland out loud, you would be in breach of contract. You would not be in violation of copyright law, but you would be in breach of contract.
See the difference?
Now, whether click-through licenses are enforceable contracts at all is a separate, and very fuzzy, issue which I haven't addressed here. But I wanted to make the point about the difference between copyright law and contract law.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned Stallman's article The Right to Read yet. It's almost prophetic.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
The book cannot be read aloud? Are PDFs going to come with a voice recognition plugin to make sure that you aren't reading the words in the document out loud.
I think I understand what they are saying. I think they just want public readings to be considered against the terms of the agreement. They should have it worded differently though, and specifically stating that is what they are opposing.
My favorite DOC reader for Palms can do 90 degree flips: http://www.32768.com/bill/palmos/cspotrun/
It's GPL too!
explain 1 thing to me: what part of the new typesetting can even be noticed when run through a voice synth? with these kind of ridiculous restrictions I definately will NOT use it. and please explain this to the blind. because I'm sure they will not appreciate it. I also wonder about the legalities of this in Europe.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
License:
.sig=me
This sentence cannot be read, only obeyed.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Slashdot is growing beyond the capabilites of its current editors.
Its time for some professional guidance.
actually.. blind people can and do use windows without much trouble. Yes, I know this from first hand experience. this is NOT about treadmills and wheelchairs.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
If the text is from project gutenberg how can they say that it cannot be copied? Is there something about the provisons under which proj gutenberg operates that I am missing?
Hmmm, I thought I had all my tags right, guess not, though - the article can be found here.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
I would actually be supportive of a CD license which prohibited the listener from singing along outloud, especially on the subway.
I assume this means that the book can not be read aloud in a public library or bookstore to an audiance.
Since when have EULA ever conformed to any law? just about every EULA I see says that I am not allowed to reverse engineer it. Guess what.. I can, and I am allowed. by law.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
On the other hand if you really want to read to your kids go down to your local used book store and pick up a paper copy for the dollar it would probably cost you for a used copy.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
No, the right to resell something you own is called the doctrine of first sale.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
So, let me get thi sstraight. These miserable shitbags use Project Gutenberg's hard work, do some trivial reformatting, and then threaten anyone who does a cut and fucking paste?!
I want to find these people, kick 'em in the head, and vomit on them. Since that's pretty much how I feel: angry and sick beyond words at their loathsomeness.
are of a technical nature, and are indicitive of the document's ability to be utilized/modified by the ebook system.
The system won't allow copying to the clipboard.
The system won't enable the print function.
The system won't allow this PARTICULAR electronic set of bits be lent or given to someone else
Maybe somebody should RTFM next time they want to interpret the output of a program.
-fp
Are they really -that- much better than paper? I mean, okay, they save space. I can fit the Bible and a good half-dozen classics on my Palm and still have room for otehr stuff, and I don't have to lug around a few pounds of paper.
Beyond that... isn't it easier to just turn a page? Instead of scrolling the text, just move your eyes? Are we so freakin' lazy we don't even want to move our eyes, just push a button to scroll down a line?
Sadly it's real
Here's my desktop when I downloaded it
http://thebad.idnet.net.uk/~pete/alice.jpg
We need a good website on this to demonstrate why the DMCA is bad. Buy a CD, can't play it on a computer. Buy a kids book, can't read it to your kids.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I don't think those permissions mean what you think they mean. I believe that they are instructions to the software, not the user.
And, not to sound like a broken record, but: if you don't like the license, then don't accept it. Just use the material in accordance with the restrictions (and rights) laid out by copyright law. Becoming bound by a EULA is a voluntary and optional act.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
(i do believe that "IP" protection has been extended to wholly stupid lengths, largely in the name of protecting one damned mouse, but that's another story...)
Tell me why anyone else in the world besides the Walt Disney Corporation should have any rights what so ever to Mickey Mouse? It's their character, their creation. There's no reason why anyone else ever should have rights to use Mickey however they see fit, IMO.
If someone has a great new innovative concept for a film with Mickey Mouse and that film won't fly without them getting rights to Mickey, then either that film isn't so great, or else the writer should go talk to disney about doing a joint venture deal or simply about selling his or her story to them.
You may not like it, but then you didn't develop and market Mickey Mouse across all these years, either.
If you actually download the reader and the book you will discover that the story is accurate. Also note that the permissions given for the "Getting started with Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader" book (default book provided with the software) says that "This book can be read aloud" and that "This book can be given" - indicating that the permissions are, in fact, for the book in question. Adobe is going to take some really bad press over this and they deserve it...
I mean, beyond the absolute silliness of this, isn't it fairly (for low values of fairly) common for folks who have trouble reading to read aloud in an effort to understand the text?
Sorry, you can't learn to read on this book. Hey! Stop sounding that out!
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Now my question is, what the hell? How can they restrict use of something they don't own? I guess they own the format, and hence the file itself, but that doesn't let you restrict what people can do with the intellectual content. I don't get it.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Would you be willing to kill anyone who tried to stop you from reading this book allowed? Because that's what it might take, when they come after you. If you truly believe (at least in the U.S.A.) that you have a constitutional right to something (and this might not qualify, but serves as a useful example, and damn well should qualify), surely you can legally use deadly force in defending that right, commensurate with the efforts of those who would seek to deny you it.
So, I ask you, would you be willing to kill those who would seek to prevent you from reading to your children?
If not, then the battle is lost before it is begun, for all that it will take is someone using any force to stop you.
You could've hired me.
I will read the book, remember it word by word and then recite it from my memory outloud. I am not sure how human memory works exactly but I don't think it could be considered a clipboard!
You can't handle the truth.
What I find most ironic is this: that there can be any kind of copyright question about a piece of literature that was written by an author who has been dead for over 100 years!
Yeah, I know, Adobe's trying to protect their labor, and I suppose that of Project Guetenberg and VolumeOne. Still, it speaks volumes about the state of copyrights and intellectual property in our society today.
If you actually download and install a beta copy of the eBook reader, you'll find that the "Read Aloud" permission setting has nothing to do with whether or not the book can be read aloud to your children. In fact, the setting refers to a function of reader software, which you can use to have a synthesized voice read the book aloud to you if the book comes with that permission. The book pictured does not, so the top button on that bottom line of buttons on the left only says "Read". Were the "read aloud" pemrission enabled, that button would say "Read Aloud", and a synthesized voice would read the contents of the book through your speakers. Yeah, it's stupid and maybe even slightly ominous, but it's not nearly what it has been made out to be here.
Senior CPU Editor | Ars Technica | http://arstechnica.com/
Actually, there are quite a few screen reading programs on the market. Kurzwil, Window-Eyes, Jaws and a few others. Unfornately, they usually require a sighted person to actually install it but visually-impaired and mobility-impaired people can use GUIs just fine. I've had to install these programs from time to time and are easy to use after a bit of training. They can be a bit unnerving if not configured correctly(ask a VI about what they think about hearing "GRAPHIC" when going over desktop icons. There are even screen readers drivers for Linux and a distrubtion of it called BILINUX. I personally have not seen it in action but from all accounts, it is quite good at having support for popular screen readers. The ADA was a very nessecary piece of law. Without, those with diabilities would have much harder time getting around. The best example is trying to go upstairs in a wheelchair without having an elevator nearby or trying to get through a store where the aisles are only a couple feet across. There has to be accessibilty for impaired individuals so that they can be as much a member of society as they want.
"Everybody get out of the way this idiot is going to go press his luck!" -Engineer "Martian Successor Nadesico"
yeah - it is also pretty common when small children are learning to read - it is easier. but once you become a better reader, then you no longer need to do this.- -------
hence my other comment - I see no reason it should have been moderated down.
I blame the deaf.
------------------------------------------
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I was using the Adobe Acrobat Reader, not the eBook reader, which is why I did not see the same screens.
The rest of my complaints still apply.
Leaving out that it cannot be read aloud by the builtin text-to-speech software is pretty hilarious, I think.
shit, my bad, but the point is still valid, just cause i have a bad memory about who wrote what.
It seems to me that Project Gutenberg needs to add some terms to their license - which is their right even though the material itself is in the public domain. It needs to be clearly stated that no one can use Gutenberg texts and add restrictions to them. Sort of like the GPL - if you use a Gutenberg text as the source, you must place anything you add (HTML or any other markup/formatting) in the public domain as well. This kind of use is abuse of Gutenberg's effort and should not be allowed.
There is a really easy way to help Project Gutenberg. They have setup a site where you can help proofread OCR'd books. They give you a textbox with the OCR's text and the raw image of the scanned page and all you do is correct all the mistakes. You can do as little or as much as you like. It is located here: http://charlz.dynip.com/gutenberg/
Now, that IS useful.
This has got to be a classic Slashdot kneejerk: informational message gets mistaken for legalese, and the whole community is up in arms! Sometimes I think the editorial staff at Slashdot needs some remedial classes in how to use those grey cells God gave them.
They didn't delete all references to Project Gutenberg. Hence they are bound by the other alternative.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
"My God, Vanessa's got a smashing body. I bet she shags like a minx. How do I tell them that because of the unfreezing process, I have no inner monologue?"
"I hope I didn't say that out loud just now."
Yeah... death by electrocution is Florida. The irony.... :^)
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
Disney has made their money off of Mickey, and Pluto, and Goofy, and all the others. They've made their money many times over. Now, how about I be allowed to tell people my story, in the manner in which I choose? And if that involves Mickey Mouse, why should I be prevented from telling my story?
The closest we come to a legal agreement between me and the Disney corporation is the one they accepted by becoming a company in the United States of America, wherein they agreed to abide by the rules of the Constitution which governs this country. This self-same document says that after a limited time, I'm entitled to use those previously copyrighted works to tell my story, to improve the quality of life in this country if I can. Disney is violating this agreement by getting the government of this country to extend copyrights indefinitely, so they can prevent me from doing my part.
Tell me again why I shouldn't have the right to use the character which they created long before my parents were even born, and have made (and will make) money off of through what will probably be my children's lifetimes?
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
The Hyperlaw case is a follow-on to Mead Data Central v. West, a case ultimately decided by the Justice Department in the context of a merger between West and Thomson Publishing Co. The Hyperlaw opinion follows the Justice Department's directions on use of West content exactly.
I'm not Adobe's lawyer, so I won't comment on what they do, but VolumeOne's policy has always been to protect our editorial content while encouraging the most free and open distribution possible for all works (including ours). Those who believe that the copyright act trumps EULAs should look at ProCD v. Zeidenberg, a Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, for guidance.
Jim Judge
Vice President and General Counsel
VolumeOne Publishing.
Disney is being hypocritical, they want to retain ownership of THEIR IP and prevent it from becoming Public Domain but on the other hand they gladly use the Public Domain to get stories for their movies.
So Disney could extend their rights over Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck et al but the estates of Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Victor Hugo and Milne A. A., whose works they use can't do the same (I don't believe that estates should hold copyrights for a long time but it's the principle that counts).
And you're willing to suggest that's fair?
What about people that read aloud to themselves when they read?
My next Slashdot post will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The reason copyrights expire are so that other people can benefit exactly as you describe in your example. The corporation didn't create Mickey Mouse, Walt did. So what it boils down to is protection first of the copyright holder, then the consumer. Walt can no longer be protected, so why should you have to pay $100.00 for a Mickey Mouse lamp because the company that made it has to give Walt Disney Co. $50.00 for each lamp?
It also spurs innovation. What has Walt Disney Co. done lately? Shouldn't they be more encouraged to create new material than rely on licensing fees for Mickey Mouse? I'm certainly not saying they don't create new material, and that material should be protected for a reasonable amount of time - just like the original laws stated. The original laws were much more reasonable. Of course, that's just my opinion.
----------
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Forgive me as I didn't RTFwhatever,
but doesn't the Gutenberg project copyright works that they type in?
Or is that legal to recopyright a public domain work in a new format?
If it is legal, then it should be copyrighted with some sort of "All derivations must be free" copy aggreement.
If there is no basis for such a copyright, then obviously there is no basis for re-copyrighting a Gutenberg e-book.
> It's the same as a CD.
Well, *maybe* if they actually had the copyright on it. They don't. They didn't write the book. They didn't transcribe the text. They don't own it. Even the most Disney-friendly congressmen have yet to propose that copyright be retroactively extended 135 years.
And even if they did, I don't think they'd be allowed to restrict you from lending the book out. Libraries lend books all the time (and CDs, too!).
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
You have to hit the menu button in the lower right, then hit info, then permissions.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
it gets better read on......
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
Disregard my Sig for this post
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
The text of alice and wonderland has long since passed into the public domain (cc1865). The only way they could enforce something like this is if THEY owned the rights to it. Even then it would be thrown out, probably, based on fair use.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I won't call ya "lawyers" out of professional courtesy -- just don't call technical writers "manual laborers." :o)
OK, reproducing the electronic version of the document I can sort of understand, because it's using some kind of proprietary encoding. But it cannot be read aloud for crissakes? C'mon, give me a freakin' break! How is that legally justifiable?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
That is a permission pertaining to the book within the Glassbook reader. It means "The Glassbook Reader does not have permission to use its internal text-to-speech engine to read this book aloud." Adobe doesn't care if you read this book to your children. Don't be stupid.
Slashdot readers used to actually think before bitching. Now you're all a bunch of lemmings. Shame on you for even posting this crap.
You're mixing trademarks and copyright. Disney will have the exclusive rights to Mickey AS A TRADEMARK forever - not even your grandgrandgrandchildren will be able to open a fast-fod chain named "Mickey Burgers" having the familiar three-circle mouse drawing as a logo, for instance.
On the other hand, everybody should be legally able to make copies of "Steamboat Willie" or "Snow White" and pass them around at will, or even at charge. That's copyright expiration, which has been unconstitutionally extended over and over. Works whose copyright DID expire can be found at Project Gutemberg (this is the same link as the article).
Now if Capitalism is the opposite of Communism, why are the two starting to sound so damn similar? What is the difference to the individual between the goverment owning everything and a oligarchy of corporations owning everything? Hello???
This bothers me immensely, and I've never been the "The only good Commie is a dead Commie" type. I have friends who think that Capitalism is the best system there is and Communism is a horrible menace to be fought to the very last right-thinking American. I'm starting to think we desperately need a new way of doing things, because it dosen't look like Capitalism is much of an improvement over Communism from where I'm standing.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Ok, this caught my eye: "No printing is permitted on this book."
Now, I know it's probably a typo, and they meant to say 'of', not 'on'. But to stick to the text of the 'Permissions' page, you could print as many copies of it as you wanted. Just don't print anything ON the book.
reverend lola
the titanium sheep
provider of steel wool
Just don't print anything ON the book.
:o) (Obligatory blonde-joke reference :o)
Umm, would that include using white-out on the screen?
Voice recognition could be used to check whats on teh screen, and automatically listen to the surrounding sounds, compare the noises to the text on screen, and if there is a 90% match or more, employ a high powered electric shock to you and flash a warning that you are violating the copyright agreement, and that further violations are punishable by death.
If you continue to read aloud, the electric shock will increase in intensity until it resembles the power that GW Bush has been sending through all of those inmates in Texas.
A just punishment for obvious copyright thiefs who are stealiong from the poor artists... THIEF...
tagline
... hi bingo
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
...of "things that won't get enforced"- -----------
--------------------------------------
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Having lawfully aquired (purchased) a copyrighted work, you're free to do with it as you please provided you do not infringe on the copyright. Lawful uses include selling your copy, giving it away to an individual, library, or charity, lending it out, reading it aloud to a child or friend, printing copies for your own personal use (perhaps in for use away from the computer or in larger type that's easier to read, or to mark up with highliter and pencil), and copying excerpts to use in critical papers or reviews. Like software end user license agreements that say you can't sell your copy of the program, lend it out, or publish benchmarks or reviews, or a sticker on a book you buy that says "not for resale or library use," the terms attached to the Alice in Wonderland E-Book are just legal masturbation. Assertions that you don't have liberty with the things you buy and own fly in the face of hundreds of years of common practice dating back to times before the United States even existed.
Members of the copyright cartel are trying to take away these physical property rights to lend and sell the original copy as well as the ability to make fair use via technology designed to cripple legally aquired copies of copyrighted works so they can not be fully used. Then they misconstrue laws such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as prohibiting individuals from working around these crippling technologies. The final outcome of Universal v. Corley and similar cases is going to be very important here, as there is a risk that the copyright cartel may use the courts to wrongly interpret laws in their favor.
The copyright compromise provides for copyright holders a limited period of limited restrictions on others ability to duplicate, peform, and distribute a work in exchange for releasing the work into the public domain at the end of the term. It was not the intent of congress to rearrange the copyright compromise to make the allowed restrictions and the time period unlimited, but this is what members of the copyright cartel are arguing. Members of congress are on the record at the time of lawmaking and have also spoken out on the record and in the press explaining that they did not intend to create unlimited copyright nor a pay-per-use copyright model. The copyright cartel's claims to the contrary are simply false.
All works created on or before December 31, 1922, are in public domain in the United States. On the other hand, all works created on or after January 1, 1923, and not expressly released by their owners into PD, are under perpetual copyright in the United States.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can see the thought police now.... patrolling the trains, the house for violations of their copyright.
I got to send this to jay leno right now!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Because the person who created Mickey Mouse, the one who should benefit from MM's fame and fortune, is long gone, so who are the laws protecting?
Politicians. Every time Congress retroactively extends copyright, every senator and representative who voted for it gets a huge chunk of change from The Walt Disney Company.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What if a blind person obtained this e-book and asked an interpreter to read it for them ? Blind people have the right to hear stories too. Of course the interpreter would be tempted to assassinate said blind person because it would take hours of boring reading to finish the book, but this can and will certainly apply to more pertinent books.
In this age where new technologies try to bridge certain physical and even psychological handicaps, Adobe certainly isn't putting their good foot forward with this absurd restriction.
What's preventing me from copyrighting my own name and suing anyone who dares say my name aloud without my permission ? This is the kind of stupidity these absurd licenses support and encourage, fueling the imminent popular desire for revolution and retribution against the big corporations. A megacorporation isn't a sentient being, people are sentient beings (for the most part). People should be defining the rules, not "artificial entities".
-Billco, Fnarg.com
How can they take a book that is in the public domain, typed in and offered for free by the Gutenberg project, and tell us we cant read it outloud?
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
I think Guetenburg should have stuck to the Bible. At least that was a clear case of a cut a dry text.
You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Judging from the context that "Read aloud" is in, it probably means that you cannot instruct your ebook viewer to read it aloud using voice synth. Those aren't license agreements, they are permissions. You can't copy it, you can't print it. These are standard PDF permissions. The ebook reader probably has other funtions (or will in later releases) for lending, giving, and reading books aloud.
-no broken link
Specifically, because copywrite does not last forever. Things eventually must pass into the public domain. Imagine having to liscense any references to homer, greek heros, the legend of king aurthur, etc. from whoever had managed to legally secure the rights. Maybe someone who could legally claim that he was a direct descendant of Illiad.
Copywrite was specifically designed to be limited, and non-absolute. Disney, if its smart, can remain the one true source of Mickey Mouse. And through trademark they can still retain their identity as well... its just that everyone else can also use Mickey in their own creations, or make derivative works of whatever (the really old cartoons only, currently)
I guess I just don't buy the argument that just because they created and marketed him that they own him _forever._
copywrite does not last forever
Bullshit. Copyright is perpetual now.
(This doesn't apply to Alice; the book was written before 1923.)Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
of all, books can be read aloud per the First Amendment
You mean, books in the public domain can be read aloud. Public performance of a copyrighted work is an exclusive right of a copyright holder.
and second, Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain
Just like every other work created on or before December 31, 1922. Works created on or after January 1, 1923, on the other hand, are under perpetual copyright in the United States.
Fuck you Walt Disney.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So blind people can go pound sand, is that it?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Just read them the EULA, if that doesn't put them to sleep, I think they've earned the right to hear the story. I have yet to read an entire EULA without yawning at least once.
I've spoken with Mike Hart on many occasions. It seems they are not interested in much of anything except getting etexts made. This is understandable, considering the amount of time it takes to do this. His basic idea is he'll be alive for X years, and in that time, he can do Y etexts. And if people volunteer to help him, even better. PG wouldn't even have a web page if it weren't for it being maintained by someone else, and the fact that it makes more people interested in helping. PG is doing the raw work to make these texts available, but its up to the rest of the world to use them. Post your utility on Freshmeat. Hell, I'll post it on my web page. But, don't say "Screw PG!" just because they're focused. I think being focused on the elimination of illiteracy is a good thing. Make your own page with your utility interfacing to their texts, and advertise it wherever you can. It sounds like you have some good ideas.
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
I see 4 programs at freshmeat for Gutenberg front ends. Are any of these widely adopted? This seems like an ideal candidate for XML. A DTD to define structure and XSL for presentation...hmmmmm
Except that the title of the page is probably the users sarcasm about the image he was posting....
They don't have to. If you want to get text out of the e-book in any way but hand-transcribing (or very time-consuming cracking), you're screwed. Adobe doesn't have to bother, the software does it for them. Note that the restrictions placed on the book are more comprehensive than just disabling the software's speech synthesis functionality.
DNA just wants to be free...
Im not a lawyer.
But I don't think that they can enforce that. It's the same as a CD. You're not supposed to play it for a large group of people, but you can play it for a small group of people. Same with NFL football games or whatever. You can tape them and watch them with a group of friends, but you can't play them for a large audience at like a banquet or something without permission. And they use pretty vague wording for that too...Something about rebroadcast. So, it's likely that you are aloud to read it for a few people, such as a spouse/child/whatever. But not for a group, such as a book reading at the library or whatever. Yes, I know it doesn't spell it out, and they need to do that. But How the hell are they going to enforce that? Are they going to burst in and fine me for reading to a kid? I don't think so. That's way too much bad publicity. THey should just rewrite the damn thing to be more clear. I'm probably talking out of my ass though.
//FIXME: Bad
Since there have been some people wondering here is this is for real or a hoax, I did the best thing I could think of - check it out for myself.
*download reader* *install* *reboot* *download book* *check permissions*
This is for real - right on my screen at this moment is Adobe eBook reader telling me that I'm not allowed to copy, print, lend, give, or read this book allowed. The display is identical to the pic in the link given in the main story - right down to the missing period after the 'This book cannot be read aloud' part.
I hope this is an oversight on Adobe's part. I really hope that that is all this is.
I game, therefore I am...
Isn't something this old place it in the public domain? I know it would here in the states....
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
judging by the other permissions on the book, they sound technical in nature..ie, "copying to clipboard" "printing" etc. Thus, "reading aloud" means there must be some kind of text-to-speech thing available for the reader (i dont know use e-books, so i wouldnt know) and this book doesnt support text-to-speech. I dont think this has anything to do with copyright permissions, but more of technical limitations. It should say "this book cannot be used with a speech synthesizer" or something similar.
-
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, the movers at PG are extremely resistant to the notion of using anything other than plain ASCII text; while they appear somewhat unreasonable about this, they are legitimately looking at a longer term scope. XML happens to be "hot" this year, but it may be something else that is "hotter" a couple years down the road.
Jumping into XML would mandate defining a whole lot more "structuring" information than anyone can necessarily agree on. One person's "not enough structure" may be another's "too much structure," and there may well not be a "happy enough" medium.
By all means, more tools to do automated processing of PG texts would be a Good Thing; transcribing more texts would similarly be a Good Thing. Sending Project Gutenberg $20 wouldn't be the most horrible idea on earth...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I mean, no company should have ANY rights as to their text being read aloud or not. If this holds up, our freedom of speech will literally be erased at a stroke! Corporate Bastards.
All right, for arguments sake, I MIGHT understand if a company said specific corporate secrets (like passwords) cannot be read aloud BY EMPLOYEES as a necessary security precaution (if they have reason to be really paranoid). But CONSUMERS getting BOOKS that the company demanding this DOESN'T HAVE EVEN COPYRIGHT ON? Does this, for example mean, that if I have the book in my right hand and the laptop in the other I can't speak because I might be reading from the laptop? Yes it does. It may also preclude analysis like reading "Once upon a time a princess picked flowers in a meadow" and saying out loud "A long time ago a young girl played in a field."
Corporate Bastards.
-Ben
There is no way this can be correct. I suspect the image has been doctored. Look at all of the restrictions. The lines end with a period except the "Read Aloud" line.
Someone needs to pay more attention when they are doctoring images....
> Umm, any notion of "property" exists because it's been defined legally as such.
Fair enough--notions of property certainly do vary widely from culture to culture and from one economic ideology to the next, but to clarify what I *meant* to say: having defined one sort of physical object as property, it is easy to see how another physical object might by simple analogy be considered property. If you have something physical, and I take it from you, then you don't have it any more.
Most notions of personal property revolve around the simple fact that if one person is considered to possess said property, then that property cannot at the same time be possessed by another.
The problem with "Intellectual Property" is that this is not true; if I steal the words from the book you wrote, then you still possess those words. There is no barrier to multiple possession, except for artificial ones created by law and cultural regard.
I think you'll find that notions of physical theft don't vary widely from country to country: even in the old USSR, you can steal bread from me while I'm carrying it back from the commissary, and you're still a thief, even in the most Marxist of minds.
If, on the other hand, you copied a script that I was carrying back from the ministry of information, then I think you'd find that whether or not you had done something wrong (and to what extent, and whether or not I should be flattered, regardless) varies widely from country to country. Not to make any generalizations about places I've never been, but from what I've read, it seems to me that attitudes toward the right to copy have historically varied *widely* from place to place; witness china and at least a couple of southeast asian countries vs., say, europe.
i don't think the SPA and RIAA would have to spend so as much money as they do on anti-piracy efforts in asia if they were merely trying to inform people of a semi-universal value; instead, what they're doing is trying to change one arbitrary set of norms with respect to the right to copy for another. and that's harder.
newayz....
-k. ^-^ ^D
Apparently there are a bunch of bits in the book format that are toggled on or off to indicate the various permissions. Obviously whoever converted the text simply forgot to set them appropriately.
The response in this forum is really pathetic. If you're ranting here, you're either:
a) Stupid, because you really believe a company would try to assert copyright on a world-renowned piece of literature that has been in the public domain for many, many years, or
b) spiteful, because you KNOW they simply made a mistake, and you want to create a scandal by making a false accusation and hoping there are enough people who fall under a) above to buy it.
the blind that is.- -----
they always have bugged me.
--------------------------------------------
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
The IP issue is murkier than the civil right issue that started this thread. Adobe is a US company, and bound by the ADA, just as much as movie theater companies etc. In the US, it is a violation of federal law to discriminate against someone based on a disability -- such as impared vision (the topical functionality in this case -- even addressing the "reading by software" concept.) The law even requires that you take proactive steps to make "reasonable accomodation" for people with disabilities, so, even assuming that this restriction only applies to synthetically generated speach, Adobe is on very shaky ground. I'd be willing to bet that they'll be getting a love note from the DOJ reminding them of this little point. On second thought, maybe we should help out here -- you can contact these fine people at the ADA enforcment page here: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/enforce.htm#anchor218 282
Sauce for the goose, and all.
You are not allowed to remember the contents of this book
(Because that means that you're storing a copy of it in your brain - which is copyright infringement.)
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links;
OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
The only two email addresses I can find on their site are support@glassbook.com and info@glassbook.com. Their phone number is 781-434-2000. Offended slashdotters might want to ask those addresses what the hell is going on.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Voila! Poof instant explosion.
Get the same results using copyriht and Slashdot.
Relax folks. I would guess the following is the case. That the reader software needs extra bits to "Read Aloud" the book. Since the book was from Guttengerg it probably does not have these extra bits. It may be that it needs a translation dictionary to fully 'speak' all the words. Further more let's assume its like some of the original pdfs. The ones that - funny - you can't select text in. Gee then you can't copy text out of the file now can you? Perhaps the book needs these copying capabilities to either Lend or Give the book. So poof you can't give it away because their software can't deal with this book.
Before people get further up in arms about the ADA ummm think for a minute. My real book copy of Alice in Wonderland can't read itself to me. Hell even the Gutenberg version can't read itself to you. (Although you can add software to accomplish this.) Are these also violations of the ADA?
Consider that the "Permissions" are "Added Capabilities" not "You Are not Allowed to do this". I will agree that its poorly worded though.
-cpd
dude, Homer wrote the Iliad. Illiad writes some lame-ass tech support cartoon.
Debian - the distro for the sensible Linux user. Now available in 3 delicious varieties!
But aside from the obvious foolishness, what gets me is the financial damage done by preventing the giving of the book as a gift. "Hey! I've got a bright idea: Let's cut ourselves out of any chance of competing with a huge section of the retail market by never being able give this as a gift!" The eBooks idea will never get off the ground at this rate.
So what hapens if I have my computer read it to me. I might be blind (I'm not though). Is that illegal. If it is then surly this is some sort of disability discrimination?
In other words, this list of 'permissions' is little more than a list of false statements.
-A language pedant
Perhaps congress should pass a law that states that if a license agreement violates reason, that agreement becomes null and void, giving full rights to end user.
Maybe that would curb some of this sillyness.
Oh, the originality. Ho, ho, ho.
- very
simple solution. If you are offended by the "license" agreement, with this product or others, you do not have to put up with it. Just do not purchase or use the product! I have stated that I will not purchase- any
more Microsoft products until they change their "licensing" policies, and barring some kind of emergency, I am going to make it stick!What chance is there of this migrating back to paper books? If they can try to prevent people from reading electronic text, how long until it gets to paper? And what about computer books, specifically the ones with companion CD roms? I seem to remember there being some restrictions on those books as well. Forget putting it all in you palm, I want my own copyright tracker for the palm, so I can know just how many agreements I'm breaking.
That looks like a very EASILY produced phoney. I'm not sure that it is phoney, but if it is it would have been very easy. It's on a weird site and it's got no background as far as I can tell. They don't talk about where it came from or how it was captured or anything. Seems questionable.
Besides that though, doesn't it seem weird that they can admittedly take the text from project Guttenburg, and then throw on a ridiculous "You May Not Read This Out Loud" agreement to the end. Doesn't Project Guttenberg have some sort of GPL limiting what sort of stupid clauses may be attached to their works? If they don't have one, then maybe they should consider adding one.
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RumorsDaily
See: http://promo.net/pg/vol/pd.html
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Onet
You can't read aloud or print or copy any of the material. This renders it almost completely useless. The people who are going to be using software like this, I would imagine, would probably PRINT out the book or sections of the book to read, not curl up with their PC in bed to read it. Also a prof might wish to pass out a few pages of this book to a class or something. It was be incredibly convenient to just buy the e-book or whatever and print the number of copies s/he needs rather than hunt down the book and make copies. I can't see anyone actually using this software as it is essentially useless.
Actually, Disney does own rights to Winnie-the-Pooh, both the foolish red-shirted version and the original "Classic Pooh". But the others are, AFAIR, in the public domain. And don't forget all the other public domain content that Disney has made millions off of - Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Snow White, Hercules, and on and on. Imagine trying to convince Disney Corp. that Lewis Carroll's copyright should be retroactively renewed, and that Disney should pay his heirs a portion of the royalties they made off their use of Alice in Wonderland. Disney believes in principal, not principle.
I believe the world would be a better place without lawyers and marketing types.
Can't we make up a story about a ravenous star-goat and ship them to some distant planet?
Oh! By the way this book's copyright has expired. You can do absolutely anything with it you like.
Bah. Whatever. This is a stupid restriction and all involved know it. How could they possibly hope to enforce it? Voice-activated microphones in an e-book unit? Please.
I suggest getting a group of 20 or so together with Glassbook, go up in front of Adobe's corporate HQ, and just have a nice, happy reading of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Bring some cocoa or tea, maybe a few folding chairs, make a nice event out of it. What could they possibly do to you in those circumstances? Yell at you to just shut up?! "Freedom of speech!" "Not with our material!" "We memorized it! So there!"
The insanity goes on and on...
The fact they swiped the text from Project Gutenberg is just ironically nasty. May it end up being self-defeating. I personally think e-books in their current evolutionary "one person, one book, don't lend it, don't share it" path are abominable and, hopefully, a terrible financial casualty for those involved.
Man, it's so hard keeping up with these threads. I hadn't even noticed that the conversation switched to "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe"!
Uhhh... you might want to read this part again:
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
In other words, they can just delete the license and do whatever.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Do you think that some supporters of Project Gutenberg could contact Adobe's legal department and change their attitude with some strong legal language?
What Adobe is doing certainly is wrong, stealing a publically available text, and then claiming additional "rights" which they clearly don't have. We need a copyright abuse police to crack down on those who don't have a clue as to the what copyright allows, and what it does not.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
In many cases, if you completely disclaim responsibility in a warranty, that warranty becomes void, and/or it is a criminal act to do so.
For instance, I can sell you a computer *as-is* with *no warranty what-so-ever* and if you get it home and find out it's made of cardboard, or that I tested it found out that it didn't work, then sold it merely *as-is* instead of *broken*, you can return it.
If I sell you something, like a lamp, and the warranty says that the lamp contains no user-servicable parts including the bulb, and that if you mess with it the warranty is void, it's fraud. The light-bulb *is* user-servicable and to say otherwise is a lie for monetary gain, which contains all the needed elements for fraud.
So if Adobe said that their software is not reverse-engineerable in any way, knowing full well that even the oppressive DMCA says otherwise, they run the risk of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of their customers, or having the whole EULA rendered completely null and void, including any restrictions they might be legally entitled to make.
So they did the smart thing and claimed only the rights they might expect they have under current law.
Go to a Project Gutenberg page with the entire text and read that aloud, being sure to yell "Fuck you Adobe!" at the end of every other sentence.
Perhaps a bunch of pissed-off geeks should hold a "read-in", where books are read aloud. In a very public place. Then they should dare to be arrested for "broadcasting" a copyrighted work.
The stupidity, I tell ya....
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Folks, we're getting a great distance afield here. As someone mentioned, the "Can't read aloud" permission applies to mechanical voice-synthesized readers. You can (and should!) read "Alice" and any other excellent literature to your kids. Our founder is very close to the Project Gutenberg people, and we're grateful that they gave us the original text file. What VolumeOne did with the text, however, was to re-typeset it with original editorial and typographic expression, converting the raw text into a new work, even though the output looks distinctly similar to the original printed edition. Our typographers spent WEEKS getting this right, with a very fragile copy of an 1860's reissue (from Chicago's Newberry Library) as a guide. This is very different than just making the raw text available, as you could imagine. It attempts to recreate the look and feel of the original, but translates it into a new medium. We are very happy that the VolumeOne electronic and book-on-demand editions of "Alice" are so popular. PLEASE read them to your kids. Just don't use them for a commercial purpose without permission.
It is in a directory called "ART" after all, implying that it is indeed nothing more than art.
I think we may very well be getting upset over somebody's idea of a joke.
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RumorsDaily
Uh sorry but Alice in Wonderland is PUBLIC DOMAIN!!!!!! Their format may be copyrighten, but the text is PUBLIC FREAKING DOMAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
Such restriction of access seems to indicate a bias towards non-compliance or thwarting of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Forbidding audible rendition of the material, whether performed by human or machine, to someone incapable of accessing the material in the sole manner provided and allowed appears to me as mean-spirited at best.
Alice In Wonderland is in the public domain, else it wouldn't be a part of Project Guttenberg. Its redistribution cannot be limited in any way. This is not like the GPL, where if you disagree with the license (contract law) you can't make a copy of it (copyright law). If the permissions are to be considered a license, then simply refuse to accept it, and exercise your rights under copyright law to do whatever you want to do with the text.
KEEP IN MIND, HOWEVER that things like formatting, page layout, fonts, etc. CAN be copyrighted, independent of the underlying text, so don't go hog wild. Feel free, however, to read it aloud.
As a side note, let's suppose that the distributor decides to sue you. What are you going to do? They are clearly in the wrong, but can you afford to hire a lawyer to respond to all their briefs, arguments, and pleadings? Can you afford to defend yourself? Unless you're richer than me (and I make good money), you can't. They can't win, but you can't fight. Ergo, you lose.
This is why lawyers should be lined up and shot. Or at least kept out of legislative bodies.
I wish I was in moderator mode right now, because this post describes exactly how I feel, and would get all my points.
When I get home I plan on digging up my copy of Alice in Wonderland.. I know I have one somewhere. I guarantee I am not going to find anything that says I cannot read the text aloud.
My question is.. how is it that I can read my text copy aloud, but not an electronic copy? The story is still the same. If I read aloud from my book, I am "publically distributing" the same content which this EULA is trying to protect. Does this EULA apply to my old text copy?.. There are too many loopholes in a license like that.. it would never hold up in court.
-gerbik
While it's been tough to make people realize why DeCSS should be legal and the DMCA is bad, examples like this will make it much easier. I bet there are very few people who would not get their dander up at being told that they can't read a book to their kids.
This is a great argument against UCITA. I would presume that it is the shrink-wrap license on this "software" that might make these permissions enforceable. Let's face it, you couldn't make up a better villian than this. "See what these companies are doing with their licenses? They're telling you that you can't read to your kids anymore!" No longer do we have to make up "what if's", we have real world examples that every person can associate with!
These rules must of have been written by the Queen of Hearts.
"Don't read out loud."
Nevermind the fact that they are totally unenforcable.
Nevermind the fact that Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain.
Nevermind the fact that this guarantees nobody is ever going to buy this book online.
These guys must be idiots.
Beware the wood elf!!!
Looking at whats in the screen shot, I get the impression that it could be referring to the fact that this book doesn't contain any information for it to be read aloud by the program.
I'm fairly sure that a big use for ebooks will be blind/paritially sighted people and for people who don't feel like reading at the moment. If a reader has a text to speech routine this would be easy, and it could be Adobe is just flagging the fact this text doesn't have any additional information to allow this.
Or it could be they are trying to impose draconian license agreements, but I couldn't really understand why they'd do this with such an old book.
Carl
Project Gutenberg is one of my favorite things on the web. I've downloaded numerous books and read them on my laptop, or Visor.
... have they no shame?
This shows better than anything how shady Adobe really is. To take a free, and classic, work and then smother it in some gnarly rights-restriction shrinkwrap
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I recently finished a project for school where i had to use a large collection of the gutttenburg e-texts, and i'm wondering if adobe can acctully place these restrictions... the guttenberg project has one of the longest disclaimers i've ever read, it's often longer then the document they're publishing....
but more to the point, two things strike me as off, they're selling the work of a non-profit organization. What gives them a right to make a profit off this? And since we all know that it's a guttenburg etext, we can and will simply give public readings of the original guttenburg text instead of thiers....
Personally, adobe let some lawyer in on the project that hasn't the brains to write anything that could possibly stand up..
If adobe wants in on the etext "raquet" their goning to have to add some original content to the feild, merely making some-one pay for somthing they can get for free won't last long..
Icars
to get your own copy of the guttenburg e-texts go to the ftp site and you'll find the e-text directory tree
... and my girlfriend can lip-read.
Are we breaking the law?
Anyway - this is "hear-surf", this is not an original, and has no authority, prove it's not UL before you assert its verity.
FP.
-- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Assuming /. readers are some of the few people in the U.S., or the world for that matter, that ever read EULAs, or other license agreements it is doubtful the masses will ever know they have done anything wrong. At least in the sense of technically or legally wrong.
Most people still think they own books, software, etc. like they own their home, car or that snazzy pocket protector. Businesses will continue to get away with ludicrous agreements until that masses suddenly wake up. Of course that alarm on that clock seems to be set well into the future.
Sigh!
I can't believe Adobe is doing this. I mean, this is the same company that makes Photoshop, which is used to alter copyrighted photos the world over. Anybody running a naked celebreties has probably used it to put say, Alyssa Milano's head on someone else's naked body.
BigCat79
"The dead have risen and are voting Republican!" --Bart Simpson
Did they mean reading aloud their copyrighted copyright or Lewis writings ? ;-)
In the former case, they should have added "Don't Salshdot"
BTW, let's ask the most important question : is there a Linux port to these devices otherwise they might never be decently used ?
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
- Discussion
You may not discuss the contents of this book including, but not limited to classrooms, book clubs, and especially SlashDot.
- Location
You may not read this book on any form of public transportation, nor in any restroom.
Herein lies the problem of copyright. One does not obtain a copyright on the content of a work, but rather on the publication of it. I can, if I so desire, download a copy of Alice and publish it with the instructions that no one may read it unless standing with one foot in a bucket of water and a fish on their head. No one will buy it, but I can legally enforce that copyright on my copyrighted edition of a public domain text.
That's what Adobe's done, the silly gits.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
one can't even use its "pages" to wipe his ass ;-)
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
OK, it's obvious that the permissions are worded vaguely (i.e., not in the usually thick legalese). If you choose to read to your children, or a blind friend, you're not violating the agreement (at least not in a way that will land you in court). Sure, if I chose to read it to a group of colleagues or at a bookstore event, that'd be a violation. There's little reason to get upset over the concise and simple language. It appears that everyone's getting really pissed that these guys didn't drown them in details. I would rather it be open for limited interpretation than have a 200 page itemization of appropriate places to read aloud. Slashdotters are often eager for a chance to scream "bloody murder!!", when all that this really warrants is "um, maybe they should change it to PUBLIC reading."
to summarize: big deal.
-We're all pink and squishy on the inside.
I'm fairly certain that this means that the book can't be run through a text-to-speach system. (Does Glassbook come with one?)
This (only this, the whole idea of permission bits like this on etext piss me off) isn't a free speach issue. It's an accessability issue, and for this, Adobe are being even bigger bastards than it looks at first glance.
Damn those crips anyway. Everyone knows they have no money to spend, so who cares?</sarcasm>
Stealing cable is stealing cable. Nothing physical is missing, but they're not selling you anything physical to you in the first place. "Theft of service". Just as if someone hired you to complete a task. You accomplish it, they don't pay you. They stole your services.
If Intellectual Property wasn't property, then there'd be no need for the GPL, because there'd be no risk of anyone stealing GPL'ed code in order to use it in propretary software. It's property. Stop this nonsense that just because someone's delivering bits to you rather than something tangible, it's any less deserving of protection.
And the moment that a CD comes with a sticker on the wrapper that states "playing this CD in the presence of unlicensed listeners is strictly prohibitted. Return to this compact disc to the place of sale if you do not agree to this license agreement" is the day i'll actually believe that the RIAA is as evil as everyone around here say they are and actually make available every CD i own to the world via napster.
They haven't and until they do, i won't.
Download the text. Do with it what you like.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
many use speech synthes tools to read screen contents .... I smell an ADA suit ....
I fear that if 'e-books' become the norm what will have to libraries if statutes like this remain? Not to mention the fact that editing history would become inifintly easier if all information was electronic. He who controls the past controls the present and the future!!!!!
I guess the next thing will be to keep you from reading the book at all. Makes Microsoft's EULA (which among other things keeps you from benchmarking their products) look tame by comparison.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Download the E-book from Adobe's site.
Grabel's Law
I strongly suspect that this is a fake (albeit a really funny/scary one).
I work (tangentially) in the e-book business and I always get the willies when discussions of Digital Rights Management come up. Content owners do not just want to protect their rights; they want to extend them greatly. The "read out loud" part of the pseudo-Glassbook "rights" screen is fake, but the rest of the rights (no cut-and-paste, no print, no lending, etc.) are well within the boundaries of normal e-book DRM discussions.
And DRM is not just a one-way street -- publishers are anxiously looking at this as a way to collect information back about the people who are reading their content. Not just direct customers (people who buy the book), but also people to whom the book has been lent, etc.
In my opinion, this thinking will doom the e-book business from getting off the ground. Who wants an e-cookbook, for example, if you can't just copy one of the recipes to send to a friend? Who wants to borrow an e-book from a friend when you know that it has the equivalent of a homing device on it sending information back to Time Warner?
Frankly, why should they care? If people are willing to pay for markup rather than getting the plaintext for free, that's fine.
There is a much better case for GPLing code, in that it can be forked, and the modifications taken private. For historical texts, already in the public domain, I don't think it is appropriate.
Besides, Gutenberg have few rights anyway: they don't own the copyright to the content, and the markup has changed. That more or less leaves them the typos (like the fake roads in streetmaps).
"You are not allowed to move your lips when you read this document."
It sickens me that corporations are trying to control the flow of information (and money for that matter). Want that program for your computer? Then agree to the EULA and give us $50. If you violate the terms of the EULA, then we will be forced to kill you. I say that if you pay money for a piece of information or software program, you should own it outright, although you should give credit to the original creator of the information (you can't claim an author's words as your own).
Just my $0.02, feel free to mod me down.
They say that it depends on the copyrights, and Alice is public domain. Curtains! We've been had!
The page title is "You are forbidden to read this." Additionally the hosting site is www.pigdogs.org and there is nothing else on the server at all related to it. I would say you can be almost certain that it is a joke.
"Hey kids, shut off the lights and close the shades...it's time for Charlotte's Web!"
Heck, most parents are already running pirated software and make copies of CDs and video tapes, so this is just one more great opportunity to teach your kids how to get around copyright law!
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Let me give you the lowdown