[rdmond]

> Suppose Bob was the copyright owner, last year, before the work entered the public domain. He never distributed any copy without DRM, so no DRM-free copies exist. This is fine? Section 1201 of the DMCA was created to eliminate the public domain?

No law compels Bob to provide people with new copies once the work enters public domain (and remember, Bob's publication might contain separate works with their own copyrights like cover art or an introduction). Once it does, Bob can't stop you from distributing a version you created by buying a print copy and scanning it or taking screenshots of his DRM version and running them through OCR (as long as you don't include the cover art or introduction). If Bob's DRM was unique to this one book, there might be an argument that breaking it was the same (as long as there's no cover art and no introduction). Since Bob's DRM is likely used for other works not in the public domain, it's going to be hard to distinguish your breaking it for this PD work from the fact that you've broken it for lots of other in-copyright things.

[AnthonyMouse]

> No law compels Bob to provide people with new copies once the work enters public domain

The problem is not what the law requires Bob to do. The problem is what the law prohibits you from doing.

> Once it does, Bob can't stop you from distributing a version you created by buying a print copy and scanning it or taking screenshots of his DRM version and running them through OCR

"The law against breaking DRM isn't wrong but only because it is actually useless."

> Since Bob's DRM is likely used for other works not in the public domain, it's going to be hard to distinguish your breaking it for this PD work from the fact that you've broken it for lots of other in-copyright things.

That's the problem. The tools don't discriminate, so banning them goes too far and prohibits more than it is reasonable to.

[rdmond]

> "The law against breaking DRM isn't wrong but only because it is actually useless."

No. Your right to distribute a copy doesn't imply your right to get one in the easiest way that you can imagine.

> That's the problem. The tools don't discriminate, so banning them goes too far and prohibits more than it is reasonable to.

Reasonable to whom? Someone else might say it's reasonable to protect the DRM on this PD book because it protects lots of in-copyright books without harming you because there are other ways of getting a copy of this one work without breaking the DRM on all of them. You might disagree but that's what courts are for.

The bigger problem with DRM exist because of concentration in the publishing industry. Licensing books sucks and that's what harms the public domain (and libraries), but there's not enough competition for many publishers to survive by offering to sell you the ebook rather than licensing it to you. Copyright isn't the enemy. It's the monopolies that abuse it.