Libraries Use DRM to Expire Audiobooks

Valleye writes "CNN is reporting that some US libraries are using Microsoft Media DRM to automatically 'return' audiobooks checked out of their catalog. A patron with a valid library card visits a library Web site to borrow a title for, say, three weeks. When the audiobook is due, the patron must renew it or find it automatically "returned" in a virtual sense: The file still sits on the patron's computer, but encryption makes it unplayable beyond the borrowing period."

Comments

Re:Library Checkout System Outdated?

[MaineCoon]

It is a licensed work, with a finite number of licenses.

This is similiar to group licensing schemes, where software is licensed for a number of seats at a company but licensing is handled by a server. A limited number of users can use the software at any time. If someone needs to use it and the licenses are used up, someone else must stop using it for the time being (or more licenses must be purchased).

Re:But...

[cronotk]

Dunno how the laws handle it where you live, but in Germany it's absolutely legal to make copies this way (as long as you do NOT give it to others).
We have a right to make a private copy as long as we do not BREAK a copy-protection.

Lucky us :)

Re:Clearly Nessisary

[kahei]

The point here is that there is only a license for 1 person to read it at once -- and it is the library's responsibility to enforce that, otherwise they would be unlawfully distributing the work.

This has been a public service announcement.

Some audio cards already allow it.

[WidescreenFreak]

Most sound cards are full-duplex and allow the input to be the mixer or "as you hear it". So, they effectively already have a loopback built into them. I've done this before in Windows.

- Set the input to be the mixer or the "as you hear it" function
- Start the Sound Recorder (or other sound editing program)
- Open the audio file in another tool
- Start recording
- Start playing
- Done

Even then, how many of us have multiple computers? Here is a simple and effective DRM disabler:
Line out (PC 1) --> Line in (PC 2)

That's the thing that fervent, DRM supports just don't seem to understand. If you can hear it, you can record it.

Re:Library Checkout System Outdated?

[swillden]

As such, it's reasonable to assume that no one in the supply chain for the creation of the work itself is going to purposefully take a pay cut just to give people a digital copy of the work.

Consider another point of view, from author Eric Flint, who is the "First Librarian" of the Baen Free Library. The whole essay I linked to is interesting, but here's the conclusion:

The reason I'm not worried about the future is because of another simple truth. One which is even simpler, in fact -- and yet seems to get constantly overlooked in the ruckus over online piracy and what (if anything) to do about it. To wit:

Nobody has yet come up with any technology -- nor is it on the horizon -- which could possibly replace authors as the producers of fiction. Nor has anyone suggested that there is any likelihood of the market for that product drying up.

The only issue, therefore, is simply the means by which authors get paid for their work.

[...]

The future can't be foretold. But, whatever happens, so long as writers are essential to the process of producing fiction -- along with editors, publishers, proofreaders (if you think a computer can proofread, you're nuts) and all the other people whose work is needed for it -- they will get paid. Because they have, as a class if not as individuals, a monopoly on the product. Far easier to figure out new ways of generating income -- as we hope to do with the Baen Free Library -- than to tie ourselves and society as a whole into knots. Which are likely to be Gordian Knots, to boot.

Flint hit it right on the head, IMO. There is no reason that authors should be guaranteed their current level of income. But neither is there any reason for authors to get worried that their profession will go away. Freely redistributable digital media will change the model, and there will be some pain during the transition, but as long as people want to read, and as long as authors need to eat, there will be a way for people to get paid for writing.

You probably think I'm missing your point, which is that authors won't *choose* to take a pay cut just to provide us with digital media. I didn't miss it. But the fact is that there is demand for digital media, so some enterprising authors and publishers will begin to take advantage of it. Baen's Webscriptions model is a good example; it's both highly profitable and DRM-free. It won't work for every kind of creative work, and it may not work, as is, forever, but it's exactly the kind of creative thinking we need... people figuring out how to adapt to the new realities, rather than keep churning out the buggy whips.