Slashdot Mirror
Penguin Yanking Kindle Books From Libraries
New submitter moniker writes "Penguin Group is removing Kindle ebooks from libraries using Overdrive citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content."
All forms of DRM for ebooks will always be subject to pilfering. Such is the dirty secret of DRM and the built-in excuse for companies to yank their content whenever they feel like it suits their business agenda.
There needs to be a safe harbor for libraries where they can make an owned paper book accessible however they want, including digitally.
How is it that we're still not clear on the idea that the content (creating it, using a publisher to find a market for it, charging for it, and making money from that process) is the business model. People who create content for the pleasure of doing so give their work away all the time. There's plenty where that came from. Mechanisms to prevent people from ripping off content don't matter to people who don't have an interest in the content-selling business model.
Creative people who deliberately join up with a publisher, label, studio or other partner to handle their business affairs while they go about continuing to write, record, film and whatnot - they have decided to embrace a particular business model: not doing it for free. Whether or not every or any DRM tool is ideal or practical is beside the point. The issue is that there are people who create things (books, games, movies, music) for a living if they can find an audience, and charging for copies of what they create is the business model. If they can't find anyone to buy it, that's too bad for them. They need to work harder or choose better partners. But if people simply rip them off because it's fairly easy to do so, that's not a comment on the creative people, it's a comment on the people who like to make little entertainment slaves out them.
The submitter's silly implication - that DRM is ever used for any reason other than because being ripped off isn't part of the business model - is, well, silly.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Penguin Group is removing Kindle ebooks from libraries using Overdrive citing 'security concerns' as a weak excuse, while most likely taking a shot at Amazon. One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content."
(Emphasis mine)
I try not to criticise submissions, but what the hell? I don't care what was done by whom, I thought Slashdot was above such flagrant editorialism.
Are you new here??
Who cares? There is plenty of content, including new material, from more user-friendly publishers out there. Let Penguin learn from what I hope is an expensive lesson.
The dastard! He plans to bring illiteracy to Gotham!
That is also known as stealing.
Bullshit. The files were returned in the exact same condition as he received them.
Now copyright violations OTOH...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
That is also known as stealing
Only by people who have never looked up the definitions of "stealing" and "copying."
And congratulations, you are fucking over libraries and everyone else (future versions will have ever more draconian DRM or simply not be available in libraries) for your own greed.
DRM is always doomed to fail. It attempts to solve an unsolvable security engineering problem (the secure device in an insecure environment) and the security only needs to be broken once for the whole system to fall apart. For some reason, copyright-based industries have failed to grasp this fundamental truth, and their lobbyists have convinced governments to prop up their bad security systems with undemocratic laws and censorship. They have even convinced the public school system to spread their greed-driven propaganda to young children.
Yet you defend these people.
Palm trees and 8
First of all, slashdot is not a monolith. Different people will pipe up in different conversations to say their bit.
Second, there is a fundamental difference between physical property rights and intellectual property rights. The former is inherently scarce (e.g. if you force Apple to do X with its money, it can't do Y with the same money, in general). The latter is not (e.g. my copy of an ebook did not prohibit anyone else from having a copy of an ebook).
This is why some people (I'm not necessarily among them) object to using the word "stealing" to refer to copyright infringement. A copyright holder doesn't "lose" money when someone downloads content illegally, but they do, potentially, lose a sale. For some industries this distinction is important (various professional-level software packages don't bother pursuing pirates, because they know that it will increase its market share to sell to their real customers, the businesses which will pay hundreds for a software package).
Keep in mind that the purpose of intellectual property laws (patents and copyrights) is to encourage innovation. A temporary monopoly gives people a (greater) incentive to create original works, knowing that they can try to extract value from their creations. This inherently limits the rights of others, who would otherwise be able to use and build upon works in the public domain.
The trouble is that this model has been breaking down on a few levels from its original intent. The first is that copyright extensions have kept works from entering the public domain for quite some time. The second is that patents on some inventions, especially software, are/were often granted with too little deference (one can argue) to prior art and "obviousness". Instead of encouraging innovation by small players, big companies amass patents in a kind of cold war against other big companies, and keep small businesses from being able to enter (because in many industries it's basically impossible not to be sued for patent infringement for something). You see entire company purchases made just for the building up of patent portfolios (arguably a large part of Google acquiring Motorola, for example). This isn't innovation, it's a new cost to doing business in these industries.
Do I subscribe to all of the above? No. But it's not inconsistent to strongly believe in physical property rights but think that intellectual property rights have gone too far.
Finally, it's fine to argue that wealth inequality is not an ideal outcome. To describe it as "pre Renaissance" is to imply heading into the dark ages. Within the western world, even fairly poor people live much better than the richest of that era, by most reasonable measures. To say that "all anybody cares about is the Beatles" when the news is plastered with the Occupy Wall Street protests rings pretty hollow to my ears.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
or does anyone else find it frustrating that /.ers are in favor of unlimited property rights except when they go digital? Seriously. If you just suggest that maybe, just maybe, that we as a society shouldn't allow Apple Computer to sit on 85 billion dollars then you're drowned out in a chorus of "It's THEIR money, let them spend it however they want!". But make it digital, and you've got the same people decrying the evil of buying the White Album for the 15th time.
No, those two views are perfectly harmonious.
"It's THEIR money (they earnt it), let them spend it however they want" = "It's MY content (I bought it), let me use it however I want"
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle".
Copyright infringement doesn't deprive the owner of the song of their property. They still own the song. Copyright infringement is illegal, but calling it theft is an attempt to make it something it is not. If we want to have a reasonable discussion of the issue, we should start by being clear about what copyright infringement is and what it isn't.
Language evolves and drifts, but legal definitions do not.
Theft is a crime with a specific definition. Copyright violation is a different crime, with a different definition. They are both criminal actions, but they are _different_ types of crime. Trying to conflate the two is very successful PR by the media industry, since "theft" has negative connotations that "piracy" does not, but they are not the same.
For reference: try to find an instance of copyright violation which has been prosecuted (successfully or not) as theft. When copyright holders start charging violators with theft, I'll agree that the definition has shifted. Until then, they're not the same and should not be confused.