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Adobe's ADEPT DRM Broken
An anonymous reader writes "I love cabbages has reverse-engineered Adobe's ADEPT DRM (e-book protection). On February 18, I love cabbages released code that decrypts EPUB e-books protected with ADEPT and followed that up on February 25, with code that decrypts PDF e-books protected with ADEPT. On March 4, I love cabbages was given a DMCA take down notice. And there's plenty of evidence he got it right. DS:TNG (Dmitry Sklyarov: The Next Generation)?"
DRM is like trying to make water not wet.
The MS "no sue/patent deal" with Novell/Xandros is like the Pope blessing a Jewish wedding
The tools are not on the site anymore...
But now what you're really here for - the PDF decryption tool: REMOVED. (And if you don't already have it, the key-retrieval tool: REMOVED.)
Edit: Links to tools removed due to DMCA complaint from Adobe.
This is not the next Dmitri, if anything, it may turn in to the new DeCSS as Adobe is trying to stop the tool(s) from spreading, which tends to have the opposite effect.
I really wonder if it hadn't been better for Adobe not to say anything, now they are giving it publicity it wouldn't have had otherwise.
Non-sequitur
Opening up DRM'd media so that it can legally be used in more situations by someone with a valid license is not the same as rampant piracy. Removing DRM so that consumers have a choice over how and when to use content they have paid for is a great thing.
It is regrettable that these developments are also massive boosts for piracy, but without this sort of action there would be no DVD playback on Linux.
Because sometimes (read: very often) the DRM will prevent the end-user from exercising rights he would have under standard Fair Use doctrines.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
Licensing is not copyright. Licensing is a contract you enter in depending on whether you want to use certain programs and it's code associated with. You can choose not to buy/use/change the program or you can haggle for better fitting licensing (whether it be cost or freedom). If you don't like it, make your own program that does the same job but better (or cheaper).
Copyright is forced upon you whenever the creator creates his product. Even if you go to a library or book store and DON'T buy the book, the thing is still copyrighted and you can't make copies of it nor can you make a similar book with the same or a similar story.
Copyrights are like patents in software/hardware. They prevent you from improving upon a certain work and they effectively lock the competition out of making anything that is vaguely similar or even an extension of a book.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I can't believe that this nonsense keeps being repeated. The GPL (a license I don't really like, but respect) is a distribution license. It follows both the spirit and the letter of copyright law, allowing the original author to restrict how people copy their work. DRM, in contrast, restricts how people use their work. This is counter to the spirit of copyright law - there's a reason it's called copyright not useright - and is antithetical to Free Software. Note that even laws like the DMCA talk about copy protection, rather than DRM. They are not the same thing. Copy protection only prevents copying, while DRM prevents various forms of use, for example annotating a PDF or playing a DVD from a different country.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There is of course, Google Cache ...
Or, you can just get it from pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/f1cb3663c
and
http://pastebin.com/f26972321
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
"Copyright law" does not equal "technological enforcement of whatever terms somebody feels like enforcing".
While some DRM-crackers are indeed, more or less unrelated(you don't see GPL proponents celebrating the availability of cracked copies of proprietary software), the DRM-crackers who stand up for our freedom to own and control our computers, rather than the other way around, have pretty much exactly the same objective as core GPL proponents.
If anyone other than fat, neck-bearded, Cheeto-stained, basement-dwelling gruntwaffles actually *used* Linux
Hey! I am not a gruntwaffle! Or....maybe I am...WTF is a "gruntwaffle?"
The thing is, the legal framework, the right of the copyright holder to issue a license, is the same for software with DRM as it is without.
As I understand it, the purpose of copyright is to secure for creators a limited time monopoly on the rights necessary for selling the creation, in return for them eventually enriching the cultural (and, in the case of software, technological) commons.
Some kinds of DRM prevent or obstruct use of the work in such a way that when the work enters the public domain, it doesn't enrich the commons in practice. It's like being given a car wreck that's in really bad shape: sure you can sell it as scrap metal, but it's worth so little that you're better off ignoring it.
For this reason, I think one can argue that DRM (with certain properties) goes against the spirit and purpose of copyright law, and the argument doesn't apply to GPL'ed software.
The rights-holder is the sole arbiter of the "conditions of the distribution of their content". If they want to distribute content to you which you are forbidden to use in months which end in "Y" that is their right. You're free as a consumer to say "that's horse-shit," and not purchase their content at all. But at the end of the day, the copy of the content was given to you, after an exchange of moneys, based on an agreement (the license agreement). If you're unhappy with the license agreement you're now bound by, please feel free to read the license more closely in the future. If the license wasn't adequately provided to you prior to purchase (e.g., license agreements INSIDE software boxes, etc.) feel free to use the court system to get your money back, or to prove that those particular agreements are invalid. But what you don't get to do is simply ignore the copyright restriction when it isn't convenient for you.
Opening up DRM'd media so that it can legally be used in more situations by someone with a valid license is not the same as rampant piracy.
As a rights-holder? Bull. Shit. "You have the right to use content provided you do so in a manner consistent with the license provided with it." That's the same basic principle protected in the GPL, as well as in DRM-licensing terms.
You fail (again). The GPL does not, in any way, restrict your use of the licensed code. It only restricts the way you redistribute that code (if you should choose to do so). And, newsflash, even if the GPL wanted to restrict your use, it couldn't, because the GPL is based on copyright law. A license can only grant you MORE freedom than is already allowed to you by copyright law. And copyright law regulates distribution, not private usage.
The GPL is an additive license. You don't loose the right to do anything under it, you gain the right to do things you weren't otherwise allowed if you follow it.
The DRM license an eBook is published under is subtractive, you don't gain anything from the license that your money hasn't already purchased. The sole point of the license is to force you to give up rights 'in favor' of the rights holder position.
Apples and Oranges my friend.
When you come up with a DRM backed license that at leasst actually gives, in exchange for what it's taking, something of value, then you might have an arguement. Till then, when I purchase a book, I expect to be able to use it. And since the law explicitly allows circumvention of DRM for the purposes of interoptability, I'd say so does the law.
I'm really getting tired of these same straw men getting trotted out every time the issue of DRM comes up.
You bet. You may use GPL software in any way you see fit. Freedom 0 guarentees that:
In fact, the license specifically forbids a copyright holder from taking steps to control how you use the software. The GPL only puts restrictions on how the software is distributed. The only person being restricted by the GPL is the copyright holder.
This is as it should be.
DRM has nothing to do with copyright. It's purpose is to controls access to the copyrighted work, to control how the person who paid for the copyrighted work uses it.
DRM is an attempt by copyright holders to claim additional rights for themselves beyond what copyright allows for. In many cases, it prevents citizens from exercising fair use without defeating it, making it incompatible with copyright law. If a copyright holder wishes to employ DRM, they should forfeit copyright protection, as they are not holding up their end of the bargain.
You know, one fucking "right" will do, thanks.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Copyright law allows the rights-holder to determine the conditions upon which they are willing to give you rights to use the content.
Wow. You failed twice in a row, and some idiot mod still modded you up.
Copyright. Read it carefully. Say it out loud. It is literally the right to copy. Copyright only deals with redistribution, whether in original or modified form. It does not deal with usage. Get it into your thick skull already; copyright cannot stop you from using what you bought the way you want it. It only stops you from copying what you bought and giving it to others. (Fair use covers the part where you copy something for backup purposes.)
Seesh. Get it right, or go troll somewhere else.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Wow, all the trolls have come out of the woodwork.
What makes you think people are going to stop creating works of art just because somebody else is going to copy them? What makes you think that people are going to stop singing, painting, writing, telling stories, just because somebody else can sing the same song, paint the same picture, write the same words and tell the same stories?
Without copyright, people might not make money out of it. But nobody says people are supposed to make money for everything they do. Making money is not a right.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
So the manufacturer gets to decide how we use their product after we purchase it? Kellogs can prevent me from using their product to make Rice krispie squares? You don't believe in private property?
I think you need to think this through a little.
I don't care why you're posting AC
At this point this discussion should probably be modded Flaimwar, but from the biased opinion of a self-publisher and a GPL content consumer, I think both arguments are correct. GPL advocates need to differentiate why they should be able to disable the rights claimed by DRM content or else it comes off as "we want freedom to do what we want (in the interests of consumers) AND to prevent you from doing what you want (in the interests of producers).
Not respecting the rights that DRM imposes isn't too far off from not respecting the right that GPL imposes. Either copyright is valuable, or it isn't. Pick a side.... and know that you can't have your cake and eat it too. There are benevolent and greedy consequences on each side of the copyright argument.
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Legally murky, as software with little or no purpose other than circumventing copy protection, software which is marketed for circumventing copy protection, or primarily designed to break protection would be a violation of US Code Section 1201, which would leave the service provider open for secondary infringement. So while the DMCA may not be the "right" way to ask, once the copyright holder has knowledge of a tool as described above, they could be legally liable if they don't remove it.
As far as the legal ramifications of (possibly) abusing the "safe harbor provision", I'm not sure.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this does not constitute legal advice, etc.
Where did I agree to those terms and conditions when purchasing a DVD or CD @ Best Buy?
My Babylon