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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
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
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 "
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?
;-)
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)
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
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 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...
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
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.
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...
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.
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...
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.
but i think mozilla did some funky stuff with the submitted field...
oh well... there it is...
tagline
... hi bingo
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...
How fscking ridiculous! Forget about it. I'll download the text.
sulli
RTFJ.
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
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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
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
I would actually be supportive of a CD license which prohibited the listener from singing along outloud, especially on the subway.
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
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 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?
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 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/
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.
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."
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.
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.
> 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
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-->
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.
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
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.
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"
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
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
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
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....
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 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
Well this IS coming from someone who needs documentation on how to read aloud. Maybe there's a "Reading Aloud for dummies" book he can get. :)
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.
--
RumorsDaily
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.
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
The material itself is in the public domain. However, a particular expression (i.e. publication or printing) of it may be copyrighted.
You can go to Project Guttenburg yourself and download a copy of Alice. That doesn't prevent these goofs from putting a copyright on their specific edition of it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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.
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.
--
RumorsDaily
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.
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!
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."
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.
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.
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.
many use speech synthes tools to read screen contents .... I smell an ADA suit ....
Download the E-book from Adobe's site.
Grabel's Law
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."