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German Library Allowed To Crack Copy Protection

Posted by timothy on from the clashing-aims dept.

AlexanderT writes "The EU Directive 2001/29/EU (also known as the European Copyright Directive) has made it "a criminal offence to break or attempt to break the copy protection or access control systems on digital content such as music, videos, eBooks, and software". Since today, at least in Germany there is one notable exception: The Deutsche Bibliothek, Germany's national library and bibliographic information center, has received a "license to copy", i.e. the official authorization to crack and duplicate DRM-protected e-books and other digital media such as CD-Audio and CD-Roms. The Deutsche Bibliothek achieved an agreement with the German Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the German Booksellers and Publishers Association after it became obvious that copy protections would not only annoy teenage school boys, but also prohibit the library from fulling its legal mandate to collect, process and bibliographic index important German and German-language based works."

6 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Right to read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this would be a brilliant time to point of this essay, the right to read!
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read .html

    It'll take you 5 minutes to get through but I think everyone should check it out :)

    1. Re:Right to read by nkh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What if tomorrow DVD's are replaced by some other technology?

      There is a problem already happening right now: I still use old programs on my 386, programs I can't use anymore on Windows 9X or even XP (shared-memory, not enough EMS...). I have to install emulators to use them and even "crack" their copy protection just to launch them.

  2. Now, if only they could decompile stuff too... by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cracking copy protection on books and music is great, but what about software? N years from now we'll be able to read the books, but all the old abandonware will be useless because the source code is long gone... And no, emulation doesn't cut it because you can't make derivative works.

    (BTW, I do realize that software isn't included in their mandate, but it's still an important related issue!)

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  3. But how will they do it? by jlar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least in the Danish implementation of the EU copyright directive it is illegal to produce, import, spread, sell, lease out, advertise for or in a commercial setting own products or components that are subject to advertised as usable for circumventing technological protection measures, only have limited use besides circumvention of technological protection measures or is primarily produced to make it possible to circumvent technological protection measures.

    The German implementation is probably similar. My question is: How can the German Library break the copy protection when it is illegal to produce tools to do it?

  4. Great, it doesn't solve the problem though. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The European Copyright Directive and other laws in that nature make it increasingly difficult for libraries to deliver meaningful content to their users. This is especially obviouse when it comes to university libraries.

    Take subito (http://www.subito-doc.de/) for example. It's a service provided by university libraries that let's you order copies of articles in case the relevant journal is not available in your local library. Now with universities always getting less money than actually needed, it's quite common that much of the journals you need are not available locally and so subito really provides a very useful service to students and scholars.

    However, this will probably stop in a short while as there is a legal battle raging against it brought by the same institutions that gave the Deutsche Bibliothek to crack DRM.

    To sum it up, these laws are in fact hindering innovation and research in Germany (and I'm sure also in other countries) right now and to give some special rights to one library won't change that.

  5. In Sweden...:D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Haha funny. A ruling from a couple of week ago in Sweden made it legal for anyone to crack programs and other schemes as long as it is for personal use. You are also allowed to distribute the cracked software to personal friends.

    (This is the case against the cracker group DOD, Drink or Die. While the American members all got jailed the Swedish member (who actually did most of the cracking) was freed of all charges)

    And yes, Sweden is also in the EU but thankfully our local laws can override BS laws like this (i think)