[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.