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by timschmidt 809 days ago
Right-clicking on that page and selecting "inspect" (or running the web session through a transparent proxy and inspecting the traffic in transit) seems to allow me to pull out individual pages of the book through the API calls used by the web reader. If they DRM'd the individual images it wouldn't be much more challenging. Every person will draw the line in a different place, and that is why the legal system exists.

Again, if you're allowing someone to view something, there is always a way to copy it. DRM and the legal frameworks around it (which we both seem to agree that IA has applied here) are the best available deterrent to copying.

The only way to be sure something will never be copied against your will is to never distribute it to anyone.
1 comments
n9 808 days ago
the logical conclusion here is that generation of reproducible content for profit or even for sustenance is innately impossible. this is neither true not desirable. enjoy pedantism on the internet!
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timschmidt 807 days ago
Plenty of evidence to the contrary. Somehow I and everyone involved in all of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_Creative_Commons... manage to put food on the table. If your business plan requires enforcing impossibilities on the entirety of humanity, maybe consider reworking it before giving up?
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shkkmo 808 days ago
Ebook DRM is easily removable, regardless of it it comes from IA, Overdrive or Amazon itself. If you're gonna be internally consistent you have to admit that you DON'T support digital lending and by extension, don't support libraries having a place in the future.
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n9 796 days ago
wow. just so, so many things that I didn't say and do not believe. Amazon fixed their DRM issues to a great extent and the gap is narrowing, Apple's Book DRM is currently unbroken, Overdrive's DRM bypass is only available via legacy versions of the app last I checked, etc.

You are the one that is asserting that 1. All DRM is inherently bypassable, which is simply not at all true. and 2. That anyone pushing for improvement is against lending, which is not true. This is what YOU are saying, not me. I am simply saying that if the IA wants to keep going (and I would like them to) they might close an unused http route. That is LITERALLY all I am asserting. Good lord, why even bother?

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