DRM prevents you from downloading copies of books you've purchased from online storefronts, but is it legal to bypass DRM to create backups? Cory Doctorow, an expert on the DMCA, weighs in on the subject.

Title from the article. Interesting article, with some good words from our DRM-free favorite Cory Doctorow.

  • Boomer Humor DoomergodEnglish
    19•19 days ago

    The fact that something like this is illegal undermines the rule of law. People get so used to breaking it they don’t respect the institutions which then have less power.

    I’m all for this but some folks with a fetish for hierarchy seem to have a problem with it.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍
      3•19 days ago

      I think it’s more intended to (a) prevent casual piracy, and (b) to provide a legal stick for the cases where people do things like break-and-resell.

      Don’t get me wrong; I have no illusions about the industry. If they could figure out a way to reasonably eliminate all “ownership” and charge you per read; or, better yet, charge you a recurring fee whether you read or not (hello, subscription services), they would. If there are circles of hell, most of these people would find themselves in the fourth.

      However, I think it’s only worth the effort of prosecuting for gross violations, and probably few people in the companies care about folks de-DRMing their books, as long as they aren’t sharing them. It’s not hard to break the DRM, but it does require more knowledge and effort than, say, my mom is going to bother with.

      The DMCA is still a stupid law, and should be repealed. This age of “you don’t own something you buy; you only rent it” is the ultimate stage of capitalism where it becomes almost impossible to defend.

  • Troy
    11•19 days ago

    Well the US doesn’t seem to want to honour trade agreements. Those of US outside the US should be contemplating whether to honour things like the DMCA when we’re not even in their country…

  • @DharkStare@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6•19 days ago

    As someone with a Kobo, Amazon’s DRM is really annoying especially since a number of stories I read on sites like Royal Road publish e-books only on Amazon.

    • mesaEnglish
      6•19 days ago

      Agreed, I used to be able to pull them off and redo the DRM file into Epub, but as of this year, its not possible. Its prevented me from legally getting many authors I love on Royal Road.

      I wish they would have partnered up with Baen or some other entity than Amazon.

  • @colifloro@lemmy.world
    2•19 days ago

    I am curious about how these aspects interact with the DRM of e-library ebooks, which I believe is ethically justified