Libgourou: A Free Implementation of Adobe's Adept DRM on ePub/PDF Files (opens in new tab)

This entirely depends on your local jurisdiction.

Even in the US, not all of this is settled law.

I feel like some copyright holders would have you believe that both uploading and downloading copyrighted material is breaking the law. However, in practice, it's far more expensive to chase the downloading party as well as far less effective. Stopping the act of uploading stops the act of downloading in many cases.

Receiving a copy is unquestionably infringement. You're copying it to your computer. Even pirate streams are copying it to your RAM.

Pirating ebooks would be a way bigger crime than just stealing, but fortunately they are almost never shipped by boat, so people who want an illegitimate copy of an ebook don’t have to jump on board, kill a bunch of people, and steal that booty.

> Before anyone bothers "correcting" me with nonsense about buying a license instead of a copy, don't bother.

> It's impossible to convince me that it's wrong to share a copy with my wife, any more than it'd be wrong to lend her my physical copy after I'm done reading it.

I completely agree with you on this issue. I think it's grotesque the way digital "purchases" work, to the point where I am boycotting Kindle and every other place that has DRM (and while it's a drop in their ocean, it does cost them probably $500 to $1,000 per year in sales from me. Though I have no illusion that it's making a difference, but it matters to me).

But that said, I think closing your mind so completely before you've even heard a counter-argument is irresponsible and anti-intellectual. I doubt anybody is going to change my mind either, but I would like to hear the strongest possible arguments against my position so I can evaluate my correctness. If my position is solid, then it will be hard to make a great argument against it. If my position isn't solid, I would like to know so I can get on more solid rational ground.

I think you are ethically correct to do so. I even think you would be ethically correct to lend out your only copy (as long as you really were certain that it was and would remain the only copy, so, lending it out to somebody who was completely trustworthy).

The only thing I question about all this ethics-wise: is it really ethical to purchase the item in the first place? I feel bad about all my Amazon books at this point, I’ve spent a bunch of money supporting an ecosystem that harms people who aren’t technically savvy enough to break DRM (actually, technically this includes me, I’m sure I could, but I haven’t looked into it or put the software together!). I do worry that solutions like this make the whole bad situation more bearable for the most-engaged segment, who could otherwise be leading the charge to something better.

(Devil's advocate here)

When you made an Amazon account, and each time you purchase one of their ebooks, you agree to their "Terms of Service", which states that you won't do some of the things you want to do with your ebook. Amazon wouldn't sell/license you the book if you told them you were going to break the DRM and read it on a Kobo.

In effect, you're lying to Amazon in order to use their property in a way they specifically don't want you to.

(Devil's advocate done)

Can I ask you to consider buying your ebooks from a better vendor? Kobo is a good choice; they state whether or not a given book is DRM-free or not; if it's DRM-free, that's a clear win - and even when they do include DRM, it's Adobe, so you can load it on any e-reader (except Kindle (except if you use KOReader)). Google Play Books are basically the same as Kobo, but they don't state up-front if a book has DRM or not.

Also, it's pretty common for technical books and some fiction presses to sell e-books directly on their site, and those never have DRM in my experience.

On the other hand, supporting Amazon is supporting a company who wants to promote DRM aggressively. And you can almost always find the same books elsewhere.

Well said. The inherent flaw in anything digital is the inevitable bit rot. 30 years from now, it'll be interesting to see which ancient file formats can still be read by anything.

Or maybe it won't matter by then, because it'll all be accessible in our BrainLib persistent memory chips.

How about: you are paying Amazon to lie to you by giving them your money

Or: You are validating Amazons actions by saying if they can do that then i can too. The initial premise of doing is business with them is you saying "They can do that"

I don't think saying "If Amazon can do that..." is a good foundation for ethics

Pretty sure everyone agrees with that, even the DRM makers. It's just that in practice there is no way to allow a user to fully own a file, allow sharing that file with a few friends but disallow uploading it to a torrent site and sharing with the whole world. I get HN hates DRM and for good reason but im sympathetic to the problem the ebook distributors are trying to solve. It only takes 1 person uploading a file to the internet to cost the author thousands of sales. Some people say there is no evidence that piracy costs the content creators money which just sounds unbelievable for most content outside of a few mega hits.

Adept -> Guru is the logical association

Ah, I thought it was a play on "loup-garou", which is french[-canadian] for "werewolf". Though odd spelling did confuse me... :)

No, it’s ròu

'ro' is not valid Pinyin. Do you mean 'ru'?

Unfortunately I think buying DRM-ed books just perpetuates the shitty system. All they see are sales, and that DRM isn't affecting them. They have no idea (by it's nature) how many people are stripping that DRM.

IMHO you either need to buy it from a reputable (i.e. DRM-free) seller, or don't buy it at all. Otherwise you're voting with your money for DRM.

If you're an author, you can sell your books through Kindle or whatever, but also list them with an ethical seller that doesn't DRM them! Trust me, your book is going to pirated exactly the same amount regardless whether it has DRM or not. You are just hurting legitimate people who want to pay for your stuff (and losing sales from people like me in the process).

I want to try it today, with the book I initially bought. Since buying it I've downloaded it from a different place, and even if Libgourou works, will probably not go back to buying DRMed books.

Not that used to compiling stuff myself, wasn't able to get Libgourou working yesterday, but I'll try today :)

That would be totally illegal if Nintendo was making the laws, but yes, pretty much.

Ah okay, thanks.