Blind People Won the Right To Break eBook DRM. In 3 Years, They'll Have To Do It Again (wired.com) 74
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Advocates for the blind are fighting an endless battle to access ebooks that sighted people take for granted, working against copyright law that gives significant protections to corporate powers and publishers who don't cater to their needs. For the past year, they've once again undergone a lengthy petitioning process to earn a critical exemption to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that provides legal cover for people to create accessible versions of ebooks. Baked into Section 1201 of the DMCA is a triennial process through which the Library of Congress considers exceptions to rules that are intended to protect copyright owners. Since 2002, groups advocating for the blind have put together lengthy documents asking for exemptions that allow copy protections on ebooks to be circumvented for the sake of accessibility. Every three years, they must repeat the process, like Sisyphus rolling his stone up the hill.
On Wednesday, the US Copyright Office released a report (PDF) recommending the Librarian of Congress once again grant the three-year exemption; it will do so in a final rule (PDF) that takes effect on Thursday. The victory is tainted somewhat by the struggle it represents. Although the exemption protects people who circumvent digital copyright protections for the sake of accessibility -- by using third-party programs to lift text and save it in a different file format, for example -- that it's even necessary strikes many as a fundamental injustice.
Publishers have no obligation to make electronic versions of their books accessible to the blind through features like text-to-speech (TTS), which reads aloud onscreen text and is available on whichever device you're reading this article. More than a decade ago, publishers fought Amazon for enabling a TTS feature by default on its Kindle 2 ereader, arguing that it violated their copyright on audiobooks. Now, publishers enable or disable TTS on individual books themselves. Even as TTS has become more common, there's no guarantee that a blind person will be able to enjoy a given novel from Amazon's Kindle storefront, or a textbook or manual. That's why the exemption is so important -- and why advocates do the work over and over again to secure it from the Library of Congress. It's a time-consuming and expensive process that many would rather do away with.
On Wednesday, the US Copyright Office released a report (PDF) recommending the Librarian of Congress once again grant the three-year exemption; it will do so in a final rule (PDF) that takes effect on Thursday. The victory is tainted somewhat by the struggle it represents. Although the exemption protects people who circumvent digital copyright protections for the sake of accessibility -- by using third-party programs to lift text and save it in a different file format, for example -- that it's even necessary strikes many as a fundamental injustice.
Publishers have no obligation to make electronic versions of their books accessible to the blind through features like text-to-speech (TTS), which reads aloud onscreen text and is available on whichever device you're reading this article. More than a decade ago, publishers fought Amazon for enabling a TTS feature by default on its Kindle 2 ereader, arguing that it violated their copyright on audiobooks. Now, publishers enable or disable TTS on individual books themselves. Even as TTS has become more common, there's no guarantee that a blind person will be able to enjoy a given novel from Amazon's Kindle storefront, or a textbook or manual. That's why the exemption is so important -- and why advocates do the work over and over again to secure it from the Library of Congress. It's a time-consuming and expensive process that many would rather do away with.
Re:if you're blind (Score:5, Informative)
BAN DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like I'm that guy today
DRM does harm in many ways, but only to paying customers. It should be forcibly abolished.
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Re:BAN DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
The DRM of companies like JSTOR and textbook publishers has been very lightweight because they *know* it's fragile, and can interfere with licensed use. But if they apply no limitations, their entire libraries wind up on Bitbucket, and they can't even publish revisions for the purchasers.
Given what I know about the textbook racket, I shed no tears for them. Should I cry for JSTOR next when scientific papers SHOULD be freely available to all, for the maximum benefit to science and thus to humanity?
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Given what I know about the pirate textbook world, their entire libraries have already wound up on numerous sites.
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Unfortunately, there are many bozos in the world like Aaron Swarz who claim "information should be free!!",
Information should be free. I hope there are more "bozos" in the world like him.
Re:BAN DRM (Score:4)
DRM regularly annoys the shit out of me too, but what's your CONSTRUCTIVE solution to artists' IP being thieved them losing legitimate income then?*
*maybe it's worth pointing out that I think the current copyright length is ridiculous and obscene, but I DO believe artists are very much entitled to the fruit of their labor for at least a reasonable span.
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what's your CONSTRUCTIVE solution to artists' IP being thieved them losing legitimate income then?*
Give them the profits given to the record labels.
Re: BAN DRM (Score:2)
It doesn't matter, because DRM does not protect them.
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How did artists manage to make money before DRM was invented? Maybe they can just do that.
How about artists today that are making money without using DRM? Maybe everyone can just do what they do.
And, lastly, what about artists that are deploying DRM'd work, but the DRM is being cracked and the data shared anyway? Isn't this driving basically all artists to starvation right now? Or are they somehow making money anyway? Maybe they can just focus on whatever-it-is that they are doing to make money despite
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Remove DRM. I'm not saying it will completely eliminate piracy, but it will eliminate most of the incentive.
Blind editors? (Score:5, Informative)
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
It’s the same article link with the exact same Slashdot headline. Do you guys even read your own site’s front page?
Re:Blind editors? (Score:5, Funny)
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
It’s the same article link with the exact same Slashdot headline. Do you guys even read your own site’s front page?
/. readers won the right to read about blind people and breaking DRM. In 13 days, they'll have to do it again.
Re:Blind editors? (Score:4, Funny)
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They read it, they see the errors and inaccuracies and dupes and they think "Not my job".
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Your response just sold an ad impression.
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Joke’s on them. Between browser extensions and pi-hole, I see no ads on Slashdot.
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"It’s the same article link with the exact same Slashdot headline. Do you guys even read your own site’s front page?"
They're BLIND! Duh!
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The Slashdot editors broke the DRM on the original story so they could copy it here.
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FTFY
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Do you guys
That's a bit gender biased isn't it? What makes you think the editors are guys? Poorly coded python scripts are gender neutral.
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That's a bit gender biased isn't it?
That's a bit presumptive, isn't it? Huge swaths of English speakers, including myself, have used the term in a gender neutral fashion for decades. On the rare occasion I do use it in a gendered fashion, I also include "gals" in the sentence.
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Is this a case where pedantry is more powerful than your sense of humour or did you not read to the end of my post...
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I read it, but the meaning evaded me. And still does, if I’m being honest. I didn’t get that it was a joke. My apologies for the overly serious rebuttal to what it sounds like was intended to be a tongue in cheek response.
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No worries, it was a subtle dig at the editors being no better than a poorly coded python script. :-)
Clearly with no funny mods my joke fell flat for everyone else as well.
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guy (noun)
2. guys, Informal. people, regardless of their sex
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wooosh (Slashdot colloquialism)
1. Used as a reply to pedants who are so focused on quoting dictionaries that they missed the obvious joke in the post. Often accompanied with a condescending request for said pedants to read to the end of their post and/or recalibrate their sense of humour.
Re: Blind editors? (Score:2)
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Yeah but there's no joke in existence that doesn't need to be explained to *someone*, even when you discount the Germans.
Bezos is a cunt (Score:2)
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I bought a Kindle HD 8. The hardware is good and it's cheap on "Prime Day". It's perfect for on-the-go Netflix!
And I sure hope they do spy on my watching habits, maybe that'll learn a thing or two. Prime Video has a horrible selection of thousands of "B" titles and it's all mixed up with dozens of "A" titles that are locked behind pay-to-watch partnerships. It's a really horrible streaming service.
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I was doing that as well. Same with the fire tvs.
Now I pay extra for a less locked down version (Shield for the TV)
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The kindles are sometimes sold at loss - not always, it depends on model and sales, but the prices are often far too low to be making a profit. Fire 7 is £50 right now, which would be cheap even for a budget terrible children's-toy tablet. The profit is made back on the media sales, as everything about the kindle is made to push users towards other Amazon services.
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Which is exactly why it's the perfect tablet to watch Netflix. Good enough hardware at impossible prices when you buy on Prime Day, when they're half price.
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There's plenty of tutorials for this that you can find through po
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Paperwhite is perfect for me. If I have a full tablet, my ADD makes me think I can multitask and I end up doing everything but reading.
For camping trips, it's even more amazing. 14+ days on a single charge with the built in backlight/
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That even happens to me when I'm reading on the Paperwhite. Thoughts begin to digest what I've read and think about the implications, but instead of taking a small break the eyes continue reading.
I choose the Paperwhite primarily because the display makes it very close to a regular book whose pages are behind a pane of glass. The screen is not glossy and the albedo of the E-Ink white is about the same as paper, allowing you t
They should not have to break DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
an direct ADA lawsuit can get tied up in courts bu (Score:2)
an direct ADA lawsuit can get tied up in courts but after a few big pay outs then all ebooks may just start shipping with no DRM.
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This is the best take.
stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
the audiobook claim is stupid on the face, an audiobook is a completely different thing than text read aloud by text-to-speech
you might as well claim that if a blind person hires a human to read aloud to them, that is a violation of the audiobook copyright
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Yeah, that's always seemed ridiculous to me.
Even with all the advances in text to speech technology, we are no where close to tts being able to even pass as a bad narrator.
I listen to audio books all the time, and there is a huge difference between someone/something reading the book aloud, and a talented person narrating the book.
Its equally ridiculous as the argument that having captions on audio books violates the copyright on the book itself.
Re:stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
This was taken from a children's book, namely Missy's Super Duper Royal Deluxe Picture Day. but wording like this can be found in all kinds of children's books and other books. It just happens to be the first one I picked up off the shelf with this kind of warning, I didn't need to look long.
Taken literally, it means you can't read the book aloud to your child, as that would be transmitting it through the air as sound waves. I know that isn't the intent of these messages, but the publishers seem to take everything a bit too far, and probably would be against people hiring others to read books for them, as they would probably feel like they are missing out on some kind of revenue from selling the audiobook version.
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It doesn't mean anything, as at least theoretically publishers don't get to write copyright law. If anything, such a statement could be used to show that the publisher failed to consider fair use in their policing of copyright and any legal action they take should be denied as a result.
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need to change the DMCA on ADA laws supreme court (Score:2)
need to change the DMCA on ADA laws will the supreme court take that case?
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THIS Court? Don't make me laugh. If it's good for a corp, it will be upheld.
Re: stupid (Score:3)
Re: stupid (Score:2)
If they get wind of the fact that people (parents) may well read aloud to other people (their kids), all families will be in trouble for copyright violation! All because you had to blab about it!
To all companies in possession of book rights: parent posting is just joking! No one reads aloud to anyone but themselves, entirely out of earshot of other people. Honest!
Hmmm (Score:2)
The victory is tainted somewhat by the struggle it represents.
This seems a bizarre thing to complain about.
Is it as it seems, or is it drumming for a bizarre loophole that can be exploited, and permanency will make it hard to roll back?
hard to understand.. (Score:2)
how does this copyright thing expire in 3 yrs?
but ole Disney and Mickey get add'l decades and decades of what might be considered just the other side of the same coin?
always be wary when common sense doesn't apply... a harbinger of phukkery
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The short form is:
The DMCA prohibits folks from breaking DRM.
The Library of Congress is allowed to declare certain actions are exempt from that prohibition, for 3 years at a time.
This doesn't mean the work isn't copyrighted forever (practically speaking), it just means that users are allowed to do something with their purchased items that the law says they can't normally do.
3 years from now, if the Library of Congress decides that the exemption isn't needed anymore (for example, if the publishers are mostly
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It also doesn't mean the publishers have to actually help, and it doesn't provide legal access to the tools. What it really means is "You can break DRM to listen to audiobooks, but only if you can defeat the publishers in a Hack Battle, your own skills vs their programmers. And you're not allowed to just download a crack someone else made, you have to do it yourself. And then you can't tell anyone how you did it."
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Tools, to be forbidden, must be primarily for cracking. A company that makes a text-to-speech program for windows that does Word and PDF might well be able to add AZW and be okay... for 3 years.
I see the future... (Score:1)
... In 3 years, this article will be re-posted with minor changes.
Am I being sarcastic, or am I proving the submitter's point? It could be both.
Slashdot Readers Got a Dupe about eBook DRM ... (Score:2)
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Some days, you're the dupe.
HOW do they do it? (Score:3)
The exemption only applies to breaking the DRM. There is still no exemption for the tools. It remains illegal to create such tools, offer to them to the public, or traffic in them.
If you were to find out what tools blind people are using, and sue the creators and vendors, the law would be on your side.
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Maybe the tools are designed to have a different primary purpose. For example, a Text-to-speech software package that works on word documents and pdfs and also happens to be able to be able to break AZW would not fall afoul of 1201(a)(2)(A) or 1201(a)(2)(B), and 1201(a)(2)(C) would depend on how they marketed it.
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Maybe the tools are designed to have a different primary purpose. For example, a Text-to-speech software package that works on word documents and pdfs and also happens to be able to be able to break AZW would not fall afoul of 1201(a)(2)(A) or 1201(a)(2)(B), and 1201(a)(2)(C) would depend on how they marketed it.
In principle, a tool that manages to read an eBook aloud even if the eBook is "protected" by DRM, without ever creating a copy with DRM removed, should be just find. But actually, the software that displays the eBook, handling the DRM, should just be able to read the text aloud.
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It should, yes. But the software maker may be contractually prevented from doing so by the publisher.
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And that's where the DMCA violation is. If you want creating and distributing the tool to be legal, then it needs to fail when given a AZW file.
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The DMCA specifies that a tool must be _primarily_ for breaking DRM and/or must not have significant uses outside of that to be directly outlawed.
Rope-a-Dope (Score:2)
Let your opponent wear themselves out. Then when they're exhausted, slaughter them.
Wait (Score:1)
Isn't this discrimination against some people with a disability? Mainly blind people
ApprenticeAlf DeDRM (Score:2)
DeDRM tools to remove Adobe DRM from (amongst others) Kindle ebooks is available on Github. ApprenticeAlf's blog is a useful resource: https://apprenticealf.wordpres... [wordpress.com]