It is Now Illegal to Break DRM on E-Books in Canada | Hacker News Reader

It is Now Illegal to Break DRM on E-Books in Canada

teleread.com

65 pointsjonah25 comments

The article ends with: "Yes, it is ‘wrong’ to pirate. But now, it’s also ‘wrong’ to buy a Kobo book and then unlock it to read on a Kindle. So if one is ‘breaking the law’ anyway, why not have the free, unlocked copy?"

This person is confusing legality with morality. Not breaking the law has to do with not getting punished, whereas not doing things you consider immoral has to do with being a decent person and making the world a better place. Assuming you believe in copyright over digital information, it's clear that paying for the book and breaking the lock on it is a hell of a lot less wrong than quote unquote pirating it.

Cost / advantages ?

Like when I order or go to the stores buying a DVD and get un unskipable anti-piracy video, trailers and ads ... versus taking 10mn to torrent the movie and get it to actually play when I launch it.

Assuming you believe digital copyright is moral, sure, buying something and grabbing a torrent anyway is moral even if illegal. Well unless you think uploading is a sin I guess.

But the author seemed to be saying that since torrenting something has the same status of 'illegal' as buying it and then breaking the lock, you may as well not buy it in the first place and just torrent it. I just thought this was kind of a specious argument.

Personally... I don't like paying for information, it seems artificial.

When the other party behaves in what you can consider an immoral way, it's very easy to disregard a certain amount of morals in relation to them. In this case, the 'other side' is unfortunately a mix of the creators, who may or may not agree with laws like this, and the media lobbies, who have forced this immoral law into existence.

I bet most people who have any sort of intellectual or moral stance on copyright and still pirate, would happily pay the creators directly for an un-DRM'd copy. (Note that most people who pirate 'just do it' and are no part of this discussion anyway)

You're absolutely correct.

Not breaking the law here—that is, buying DRM ebooks or DRM DVDs/BRs—is also getting punished, actually, if not in the legislative sense but in usability sense.

So, it makes even better sense to pirate than buy-and-rip.

Actually, as a personal anectore I've quit ripping DVDs a long time ago. When I sometimes buy a DVD movie from the sale basket, I don't even bother to rip it. I just torrent it because the unrestricted, compact .avi file without any crap, ads, menus, propaganda and whatnot is what I want.

While you're doing the morally right thing by paying for the DVD you are also adding polution to the environment by buying a physical copy (that you do not even use!) just to satisfy a couple of dinosaur corporations that refuse to change.

Just adding another dimension to your moral compass ;-)

It's not just that, for a popular title if you have a decent network connection, it takes less time to download than to rip.

I think his point was that the law is immoral, and that's why he'd rather "protest" and pirate the copy, and use it on whatever device he wants.

So if you want to read a book on "unapproved hardware", it's now less illegal to pirate it rather than buy the book and break the DRM? Lawmakers sure have a firm grasp on technology, don't they...

Rather they have poor grasp on reality - people will break DRM no matter what idiotic laws will such "lawmakers" pass.

Exactly!

I'm also sure that there will be no DRM police, inspecting devices to ensure that you do not have any pirated material on them.

These laws are intended to hit distributors of pirated material (think small shop selling pirated DVDs) rather than tech-savvy folk who want their books on every device.

Well, nothing is ever guaranteed. Remember Fahrenheit 451? Such kind of vision while seems far fetched can happen if people let it happen.

Prisoner #1: What are you in here for? Prisoner #2: I stabbed a guy and stole the $50 out of his wallet then got caught using his credit card. Prisoner #1: What about you noobie? Prisoner #3: I cracked the DRM on a $12 eBook

How about we start movement to force segregating non-violent offenders (such as possession, cracking, etc) to separate prison(s).

Why put non-violent offenders in prison at all? Prison is a pretty extreme step to take, I would avoid using it unless the person is likely to physically harm people.

That may be some low retribution instinct but I don't want people like Madoff in the society.

Why? You think it's better to use expensive prison space to house him instead of just leaving him in society but fining him heavily and garnishing any income he might produce? That way he can pay for his own food and housing as well as his fines.

I don't get why you'd be so mad at Madoff. He's basically a scape goat for the financial crisis. He did one ponzi scheme for a few billion dollars. Some other criminals ripped off trillions and they're still at it.

Copyright Infringement Correctional Facility has a nice ring to it don't you think? Lets start a private facility and get some of those sweet sweet Government dollars. We can crowdfund it on Kickstarter as well, it's a win win.

Lest one think that Canada is a haven of DRM friendliness, publishers like Leanpub.com who are very anti-DRM hail from the very same frozen wastelands[1].

[1]I'm led to believe this is a correct description of the whole of Canada by random comments from people on the internet who have never been there.

Hopefully this will be rectified via constitutional challenge.

"Many experts believe that the government's decision to adopt one of the most restrictive digital lock approaches in the world - it creates potential liability without actual copyright infringement - renders the provision vulnerable to constitutional challenge." [0]

[0] http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6557/125/

I can't recall anybody getting successfully sued for piracy in Canada[1]. I know that some people settled, but I've never heard of anybody actually being found guilty of illegal file-sharing or a variant or that.

Given that track record, I wonder how they expect to sue people for DRM infringement. How are they going to find about it? If they can find about it, and given that they have such a hard time suing actual file-sharers, how do they expect to get anything from somebody that would unlock their DRM content.

I mean, aside from people who'd get scared and settle.

[1] I didn't do an exhaustive search on the domain, too. I googled about it and didn't find anything, and also can't recall anything related to it from memory. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

Now it's a crime in Canada it is easier for the US to extradite criminals from Canada to the US for prosecution.

>"A specific exemption to the digital lock rule is also given for those who have a ‘perceptual disability’ and need to make the file readable. If you have reading glasses prescribed by a doctor, as I do, and your preferred reader has font options which help you read, this exemption could arguably apply."

That seems like a pretty big loop hole.

Looks like this only passed because of the stated American lobbyists. I'll be watching closely the first time this is enforced, if it is at all.

no problems LibraryGenesis ( http://coinread.com ) has hundreds of thousands of ebooks already for free download, in soviet Russia DRM is irrelevant

Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/488/

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