[ferbivore]

> You can, for sure, publish information relative to your discoveries to the extent UK laws allow. After study, we'll do our best to make the technology more robust. If your discourse represents a circumvention of this technical protection measure, we'll command a take-down as a standard procedure.

Disgusting behaviour, as expected from the publishing industry I suppose. This "EDRLab" outfit appears to be little more than a non-profit front for Hachette.

[nocoiner]

The author’s response was just perfect though in both tone and substance.

“As you have raised the possibility of legal action, I think it is best that we terminate this conversation.”

Once someone shoots off about getting the lawyers involved, there’s really nothing more than can productively be said (unless, of course, you are prepared to get your own lawyers involved).

[JadeNB]

> Disgusting behaviour, as expected from the publishing industry I suppose. This "EDRLab" outfit appears to be little more than a non-profit front for Hachette.

The quoted block is indeed disgusting, but it gets even weirder in the context of the full discussion, where the correspondent seems to be trying some sort of intellectual blackmail on the author of this article, saying that, as long as nobody talks about its deficiencies, DRM can be kept weak and inefficient—and so trying to blame increasingly cumbersome DRM on the people who want to access their material, rather than on the publishers. For example, with a nice and patronizing start:

> You've found a way to hack LCP using Thorium. Bravo! We certainly didn't sufficiently protect the system, we are already working on that. … If the DRM does not succeed, harder DRMs (for users) will be tested. I let you think about that aspect

[Akronymus]

> we are already working on that

so they worked on making harder to crack DRM before being informed of the weak DRM...

[kristo]

They make a software to help libraries lend ebooks for free. Without their DRM you either wouldn’t be able to borrow ebooks because publishers would never agree to it, or would be limited to kindle/libby to read them. They’re not perfect but how is it bad behavior to say you’ll issue a takedown notice if your copyright material is republished? I don’t really understand why they’re being treated as the enemy here?

[grayhatter]

> They’re not perfect but how is it bad behavior to say you’ll issue a takedown notice if your copyright material is republished?

That's not what they said. This is how you should have read their reply:

> If your discourse represents a circumvention of this technical protection measure, we'll command a take-down as a standard procedure.

If you say something we don't like, if we think we can make the argument that the information about methodology and implementation you share for free, is circumvention of our DRM, we'll follow our existing strategy to abuse the legal system silence you and prevent you from sharing information.

> I don’t really understand why they’re being treated as the enemy here?

Because they are the bad guy, they're actively working to make the world worse. They're pretending like if it wasn't for their kindness, access to these ebooks would be impossible. But in reality they only care about controlling other people by force. The legal threats, insane arguments about how it's better if how their DRM works is a secret, the intent of the software they're defending, and the messages they sent; are just ways or attempts to exert control what other people are allowed to do, or are allowed to know

I'd also like to discourage this argument generally

> Without their DRM you either wouldn’t be able to borrow ebooks because publishers would never agree to it, or would be limited to kindle/libby to read them

The (unfair) translation of this is: If it wasn't me abusing you, it would be so much worse! You should be saying thank you that it's me abusing you! Not complaining about how you don't like how you're being treated!

Everything can always be worse, the point is to make it better, not accept something harmful.

[degun]

What do you suggest as a better solution to a. give people the possibility to buy electronic books, while avoiding that the publishers and authors risk losing their intellectual property b. give libraries the possibility to lend ebooks fairly? This is a genuine question. Are there better solutions than DRMs? Is Apple, Adobe or Amazon dealing with this better?

[grayhatter]

this question reeks of

> have you stopped beating your wife?

or, more fairly

> how do we force people to pay for content?

Intellectual property, as a property, is such a fundamentally busted idea to the point of absurdity. One of the symptoms of it presents itself in your very question.

The better option comes from the question

> how do we allow people to pay for it.

If you haven't lately, watch someone stream on twitch, people enjoy paying for stuff they like. Go look at any of the artists who release their albums for donations. Same outcome, when people don't feel taken advantage of, or abused they want to contribute fairly.

Will there be people who abuse it, yes, but how's DRM working? Torrents still exist. There's not a single thing I haven't been able to download without permission. DRM doesn't stop motivated people. It only motivates people like me who consider it toxic, to break it.

If I wanted to read a book, and could download it from a library, but I had to promise to delete it when I was done. Or I had to click a button to return it. I would. I would follow those rules because I agree with them. But if I wanted to read a book, that I wasn't willing to pay for, and my library couldn't give it to me in a format that works on my remarkable. Well I know how torrents work.

Are there better solutions than DRM. Yes trusting people. Even trusting those who you know you cant trust.

And then trusting people like me, with more than enough money, who will pay more than I think you could force the average individual to pay, because I want to support people creating art I enjoy. And I want people who can't afford it, people like past me, to enjoy it too.

It's a funny thing that, the only people I'm willing to give money to, already give away their content for free...

[Uvix]

DRM for lending is one thing. I don't think I've seen a good argument against it.

DRM for sales is another. The world didn't end when Apple forced music publishers to drop DRM, and a number of smaller publishers have seen success selling DRM-free ebooks. I don't see why that couldn't happen with the wider ebook market.

[ziddoap]

>I don’t really understand why they’re being treated as the enemy here?

The gross manipulation attempt is what did it for me.

"We were planning to now focus on new accessibility features on our open-source Thorium Reader, better access to annotations for blind users and an advanced reading mode for dyslexic people. Too bad"

The legal threat at the end wasn't very cool, either.

[lxgr]

> how is it bad behavior to say you’ll issue a takedown notice if your copyright material is republished?

Which copyrighted material is TFA republishing?

And where's the takedown notice? So far, there only seems to be an attempt of emotional blackmail ("take this down or we'll have to deprioritize our accessibility efforts").

> They make a software to help libraries lend ebooks for free.

Free to the library (?), but not free to the reader. (Readers indirectly pay for it via certification fees paid by the ereader vendor.)

It might well be the lesser evil compared to Kindle (closed ecosystem) and Adobe Digital Editions (words cannot describe the pain), but it's still a DRM scheme and as such restricts reading hardware/software choice, so I can see how its mere existence upsets people.

[MyOutfitIsVague]

The effect, very often, is to force anybody with specific reading habits to buy Amazon or be unable to read their books. This is especially bad if you don't just buy books, but read through the library or especially if you get ARCs (advance reader copies, for pre-release reviews). Advance readers who don't have Kindle are jerked around constantly by DRM and especially changes in DRM schemes. It's really hard to not see this as collusion, as it suspiciously always works for the benefit of Amazon and the detriment of every single other person and company involved.

> how is it bad behavior to say you’ll issue a takedown notice if your copyright material is republished

It's not. That's not what happened here, though.

It is bad behavior when you threaten legal action against somebody working within their rights to legally allow people to read things that they paid for on devices that they've paid for. The DMCA has specific carve-outs for interoperability. Threatening legal action there is bully behavior. I'd argue that the ethics are pretty clear-cut here too. A ton of copyright law is incredibly badly balanced against the consumer and even against small artists in favor of the biggest players. If this was illegal, it would be the law that is unethical.

[Y_Y]

> They’re not perfect

Oh wow. Better make an exception in this one specific case then.