3 ms·

> They had been operating a lending library of ebooks, where you could 'check out' an ebook file and they wouldn't let anyone else read it until you had 'put it

by nimih 2y ago

> They had been operating a lending library of ebooks, where you could 'check out' an ebook file and they wouldn't let anyone else read it until you had 'put it back'. They had many options for evading DRM and told you to delete the file when you 'put it back' on the honor system This is basically how checking out ebooks from my "regular" library works. Not only is the DRM relatively easy to remove (even for non-technical users), returning the books is also on the honor system (to wit: on a Kindle, you retain access to books indefinitely so long as you're in airplane mode; on a Kobo, so long as you keep the book open and avoid returning to the home screen; these tricks are both easily discovered and, IME, routinely shared among people with ereaders). It's possible IA should've avoided poking the bear by removing these nominal restrictions during the pandemic, but framing their normal operation as substantially different from that of more traditional libraries is rather disingenuous.

pie_flavor 2y ago
1. There's a difference between a weak DRM format, and a "download as PDF" option. 2. "Poking the bear by removing these nominal restrictions" is the "branding" I was talking about. Their "emergency library" was a pirate site, plain and simple. You can describe it as a procedural difference from what they were doing before, but that doesn't stop it from being piracy.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > was Vacuous labels. A library provides access to texts; the idea of lending single texts serially just comes from the physical restrictions of physical books, which loses meaning with the electronic format. A library lends books. There is little difference if the queue is respected when such queue is artificial.
  - account42 2y ago
    Right and if the IA was following that logic it should have never bothered with any DRM in the first place.
  - pie_flavor 2y ago
    No, it comes from the legal restrictions of copyright, which forbid making and distributing copies without the permission of the copyright holder. "Library" is not a magic word that exempts you from all copyright restrictions.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      And in fact the copyright holder has no power about its product, when published, not being acquired by key libraries. It was so for example under Ptolemy III Euergetes (who mandated that every found book be copied for the Museum in Alexandria), and it is so today. Libraries are there for collection of and access to recorded knowledge. The modalities of accession had a form with the physical book, and may lose meaning with current new formats (there is no natural exclusive access to a single token). So, labelling "piracy" simultaneous access may easily be just vacuous technicality.
      - pie_flavor 2y ago
        'Vacuous' is a good word to describe comments about Ptolemy and tokens, when copyright law forbids making and distributing copies without permission from the copyright holder, and that is exactly what IA was doing.
        mdp2021 2y ago
        Reference to the traditional historical intention about having libraries and to relation between codified law and practicalities will remain vacuous to you in meaning for as long as you will refuse to see the communicated point about a clash between principles, which makes the copyright laws you mention, as part of a dialectic, even weaker than normal positive law.
- finnless 2y ago
  There is no download as PDF option for works in-copyright.
- nimih 2y ago
  > There's a difference between a weak DRM format, and a "download as PDF" option. Can you direct me to a book available to borrow in the IA, which both requires copyright protection, and is available to download as a DRM-free PDF? My understanding is that no such book currently exists, nor did it exist in the pre-pandemic regime. > "Poking the bear by removing these nominal restrictions" is the "branding" I was talking about. Their "emergency library" was a pirate site, plain and simple. You can describe it as a procedural difference from what they were doing before, but that doesn't stop it from being piracy. I don't think there's any great contradiction in the ideas that a) the barriers the IA had prior to the pandemic (and still has, to my knowledge) against piracy are perfunctory and largely ineffective, b) they are the same barriers that any US-based library with an ebook rental program uses, and c) even slightly weakening those barriers caused the IA to be de facto facilitating piracy in a legal sense, regardless of their intentions.

by nimih 2y ago

pie_flavor 2y ago

1. There's a difference between a weak DRM format, and a "download as PDF" option. 2. "Poking the bear by removing these nominal restrictions" is the "branding" I was talking about. Their "emergency library" was a pirate site, plain and simple. You can describe it as a procedural difference from what they were doing before, but that doesn't stop it from being piracy.

mdp2021 2y ago
> was Vacuous labels. A library provides access to texts; the idea of lending single texts serially just comes from the physical restrictions of physical books, which loses meaning with the electronic format. A library lends books. There is little difference if the queue is respected when such queue is artificial.
- account42 2y ago
  Right and if the IA was following that logic it should have never bothered with any DRM in the first place.
- pie_flavor 2y ago
  No, it comes from the legal restrictions of copyright, which forbid making and distributing copies without the permission of the copyright holder. "Library" is not a magic word that exempts you from all copyright restrictions.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    And in fact the copyright holder has no power about its product, when published, not being acquired by key libraries. It was so for example under Ptolemy III Euergetes (who mandated that every found book be copied for the Museum in Alexandria), and it is so today. Libraries are there for collection of and access to recorded knowledge. The modalities of accession had a form with the physical book, and may lose meaning with current new formats (there is no natural exclusive access to a single token). So, labelling "piracy" simultaneous access may easily be just vacuous technicality.
    - pie_flavor 2y ago
      'Vacuous' is a good word to describe comments about Ptolemy and tokens, when copyright law forbids making and distributing copies without permission from the copyright holder, and that is exactly what IA was doing.
      - mdp2021 2y ago
        Reference to the traditional historical intention about having libraries and to relation between codified law and practicalities will remain vacuous to you in meaning for as long as you will refuse to see the communicated point about a clash between principles, which makes the copyright laws you mention, as part of a dialectic, even weaker than normal positive law.
finnless 2y ago
There is no download as PDF option for works in-copyright.
nimih 2y ago
> There's a difference between a weak DRM format, and a "download as PDF" option. Can you direct me to a book available to borrow in the IA, which both requires copyright protection, and is available to download as a DRM-free PDF? My understanding is that no such book currently exists, nor did it exist in the pre-pandemic regime. > "Poking the bear by removing these nominal restrictions" is the "branding" I was talking about. Their "emergency library" was a pirate site, plain and simple. You can describe it as a procedural difference from what they were doing before, but that doesn't stop it from being piracy. I don't think there's any great contradiction in the ideas that a) the barriers the IA had prior to the pandemic (and still has, to my knowledge) against piracy are perfunctory and largely ineffective, b) they are the same barriers that any US-based library with an ebook rental program uses, and c) even slightly weakening those barriers caused the IA to be de facto facilitating piracy in a legal sense, regardless of their intentions.