E-Book Copy Protection, For What It's Worth

AudioBooksForFree.Com writes "WHSmith have challenged AudioBooksForFree.Com to breaks Microsoft Reader e-book protection. It just took 30 minutes." No, they didn't break the encryption; instead, this is just an application of the idea that it's very hard to make something which can be displayed but not copied.

Comments

If you can see it, you can copy it

[bigberk]

The article hits the nail on the head: if you can see it, you can copy it. Please note that the recording industry thinks they can change this sort of thing, by requiring all analog to digital converts (ADCs) to respect some sort of digital protection. Those dumb shits... :)

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[rnd()]

DAC will have to perceptibly, modify the audio signal

You are forgetting who determines what music we all hear -- it's the recording industry, led by the RIAA.

If it became the case that the DAC would perceptibly modify the audio signal, guess what all of the music on MTV would start to sound like? Imagine if the first distorted guitar had resulted from a DRM-enabled DAC instead of the desire to create a new, innovative sound. As long as artists and record companies spin the changes as innovation, it is unlikely that there will be any negative impact in CD sales.

Of course, classical and some Jazz would sound different, but those don't make up a large percentage of sales anyway.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[ParisTG]

...and outlaw the production or import (or possession!) of any and that doesn't respect the restrictions implied in this recording...

This is not feasible. These devices are so wide-spread already, that pretty much everyone has several of these, in one form or another. Unless you went to everyone's home, and destroyed them all, then passing the law is futile.

But, just to play devil's advocate... I am currently working on a vehicle project which uses several ADCs to monitor various voltage levels. These devices can be bought for pennies each, and can also be used to sample an audio signal. If your prediciton comes true, these devices would now be illegal, and their replacements would be 1000x more complicated (since they now have to have logic to detect the watermark). So now, instead of buying a 5 cent chip to monitor my voltage levels, I have to buy something significantly more expensive and more complicated, for no good reason.

In other words, it's not gonna happen.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[WEFUNK]

Don't imagine it can't be done. It's technologically feasible, if the right laws got into place. I'd certainly hope the tech industry would fight this tooth and nail, and that WE would fight it tooth and nail, but it's certainly not outside the realm of imagination, or possibility.

Maybe theoretically it can be done, and practically it might even be legislated, but this will never work, and it better be more than the technology industry fighting it.

"If you can see it or hear it, then you can copy it perfectly" needs to become a common mantra. To express the futility of any of these copy measures to someone who doesn't understand digital technology, use a good analogy. For instance, some of these proposed laws are roughly equivalent to mandating that all sharp edges (or potentially sharp edges) must have built in safety guards and require a license to carry, whether it's a steak knife, a plate glass window, or a block of iron.

People don't seem to realize that digital components are as ubiquitous and cheap as many raw materials. Outlawing or restricting their use according to the whims of the RIAA makes about as impractical and stupid as outlawing or taxing water to prevent drowning.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[binaryDigit]

if you can see it, you can copy it

Well, sorta. One thing that you can't simply "copy" is interactivity. DVD's are an excellent example. While you could copy the film, you can't "copy" the menuing. You also can't simply "copy" the various audio tracks (directors commentary, other languages, etc) and have them selectable. Now, you could copy all these things piecemeal and then put them back together with a DVD authoring program, but who'd do all that just to save $14.99.

So I think that what we'll start seeing a lot more of is "non-linear" content. Stuff that you can't just simply "press record" to get. This combined with reasonable prices will thwart many a casual copier. Then to boot, the mass pirater gets hurt because they don't want to spend the time to make "nice" copies, so they'll just copy the movie. Which will still make them bucks because a lot of people just want to see the movie anyway. But more and more people are getting addicted to all those fancy new features. And certainly, anyone who wants to "own" a copy often will definitely want those features.

So we are in the interesting place that the media industries best weapon against piracy is to take advantage of the technology more and sell it at a reasonable price, not the worst thing in the world.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[ZakkWylde]

[i]Outlawing or restricting their use according to the whims of the RIAA makes about as impractical and stupid as outlawing or taxing water to prevent drowning.[/i] A better analogy would be to tax tap water so companies like Evian won't lose revenue.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[namespan]

People don't seem to realize that digital components are as ubiquitous and cheap as many raw materials.

Which is exactly why the poster is right. Most consumers would not know what to do. They'd end up going along with the restrictions. Engineering majors would have their moments of fun when they're poor but clever college students with access to parts to build their own ADCs, but that's about it. And with most consumers running their Trustworthy Computing Platform, mucking about with the files in software won't be legal or easy.

This is all dependent on insane legislation, but we all should be well aware by now that sanity and the legislative process as we know it in the U.S. are not necessarily correlated.

Re:If you can see it, you can copy it

[fymidos]

Of course, that is the point. It's been said that sales are NOT really affected by this kind of piracy. They are affected by high/low price ONLY.
Everybody could scan, let's say, newspapers and give them across the network. but they don't because it's just NOT worth it. The same goes for books and magazines. Why can't the ebooks fall to the same category?
Because they are so damn expensive considering their cost to manufacture. (OR reproduce!)

Great.. just what we need..

[Kwil]

..more ammo for the folks who want to legislate Palladium and hardware implemented digital restrictions management.

Re:Great.. just what we need..

[GreyWolf3000]

Or perhaps they could see that the lenghts that they'd have to go to are so incredible that it wouldn't be a) possible or b) feasible. That's the optimist in me, of course.

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

The PC as it exists today is *dangerous* because it is a general purpose tool.

To Hollywood, your PC is something that you buy to give them the opportunity to *sell* you something.

Hey. Fuck them, okay?

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, the point isn't to 'read .lit files on Linux.' The point is to show that 'copyright protection' is a laughable concept.

Re:second impressions

[octalgirl]

It's always the simplest things. Like security, there are so many things you can do to tighten things up, but people will still tape their passwords to their monitors. I can see it now - the next wave of "innovative" copy protection will be issuing new keyboards with the Print Screen key conveniently missing.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop one's self from installing this reader on a VMware image, and doing with it what you please? Absolutely nothing, that's right.

Re:Palladium ?

[kimgh]

Y'know, if they go that far with the protection schemes (passing the additional costs on to the customer, of course), I suspect the current slump in computer sales is a walk in the part compared with what will happen then.

Really, who will buy this stuff? It's notions like this that (almost) make me certain that the current crop of dumb laws, and Palladium itself (in the current form) will never actually see the light of day.

Devil's Advocate

[the_burton]

If the world were a free and happy place, then authors and artists would be not need to be paid for their intellectual property. In this utopian land, everyone would be equals and if you provided happiness and joy with your works then that would be your job, and you wouldn't need to get paid. Unfortunately, this society does not exist and as our current one does not seem to be heading in this direction, it becomes necessary to provide the means for independant artists and authors to sell their wares.

The problem with the e-book reader is one of the greatest hurdles to overcome in order to transition to a truely electronic society. How can you protect the rights of the author when anybody with a bit of patience or some programming skills can just print screen his / her blood, sweat and tears and give it away to free for anybody on a p2p network? Anybody who argues that all information should be free obviously isn't relying on a royalty check to provide food for their children.

I have a unique idea for the e-publishing world, but there's no point in executing it if the ability to easily circumvent any security precautions exists. So basically I'm asking any programmers out there if they've come across a way to disable the print screen function in a windows app? Or to return a black window when a screen request is being made for a print screen?

The Ultimate DRM: Convenience

[Vegan Pagan]

If the lack of DRM was going to harm books, it would have happened years ago. Anyone can take a book, rip off the binding, put the pages in a self-fed scanner, use text recognition software to turn the images into text, then upload the text file into a P2P network. It only takes a few hours and almost no effort. The fact that print publishing still thrives tells me that people still value browsing through a store full of already-printed books. E-books are already inconvenient compared to printed books and free web pages (each in its own way), so DRM will kill them outright.

The "Analog Hole"

[phliar]

As the article itself says, this is no rocket science (or even clever hackery). It's just the "analog hole" that the RIAA/MPAA/Disney Axis Of Evil (TM) wants to block with Palladium and similar crap; the rights of consumers and what copyright law actually says be damned.

Reminds me of unphotocopiable paper & SimCityR

[UnknownSoldier]

Back in the late 80's, SimCity (original PC version) shipped with this dark red paper that was impossible to photocopy and just as bloody difficult to read except if you held it at the wierdest angles. All you would get is a full page of black from the copier.

A friend of mine got the bright idea of running it thru the fax machine. He ran each succesive copy thru the fax a few times, and voila! It was clear enough to read!!

Of course I just kracked the game later (gotta luv the one byte "patch" ;-), but I learnt way back then, that if you can view it, so can a machine, and hence make a copy.

--
Maybe there is a reason why the cliché "Turn off the TV, turn on your life" is true:
Television: Opiate of the masses

video overlay

[Erpo]

I believe you're referring to my post that contains video overlay. I'm aware that video overlays can be captured quite easily with the right software or when video acceleration is turned off - I was using WMP as an example to show that 'printscreen' by itself isn't a magic answer to everything. Most slashdotters (in my opinion) are aware that if something can be seen it can be copied. However, too many (again in my opinion) believe that if it can be seen, it can be copied easily (i.e. with printscreen). I see this fallacy as dangerous as it encourages people to feel secure in the false belief that DRM cannot be implemented in a way that interferes with their lives and is not worth worrying about.

Thank you for your comment, though. I did neglect to mention in my original post that directshow overlay can easily be defeated...I hope nobody got the wrong impression. :)

Re:Palladium ?

[Total_Wimp]

Nope, this is actually quite efficient and G. Lucas hates it. Camcorder pirates have been taking video of first run movies (sometimes _before_ the general release) and posting it to the web. For many people, this is good enough quality. Before my daughter figured out how to save stuff off the web, she would play audio files and put the microphone right up to the speaker. This was good enough quality from her perspective. The guy in the article is correct, if you display it, it can, and will, be captured. TW.

Re:Palladium ?

[hyperturbopete]

The problem with that method of copying, though, is that it is just horribly inefficient for any kind of routine use. You would have to dedicate a substantial portion of your time to this, as it would be difficult to automate, thus meaning that the DRM stuff is, for most purposes, effective.


Nonsense.

To take good pictures of a monitor... is easy. set up your camera on a tripod in front of monitor. turn off room lights, set exposure time etc.

Get a digital camera with an electronic trigger.

Plug USB WIRE from camera into computer. Now you can instantly read the files on drive F.

Have a trivial Visual Basic Application "SendKeys" to the reader software to advance the pages.

The same application sends the trigger signal to the camera every time a new page comes up.

now you have a bunch of high-resolution images, the rest is just as easy.