[A2k] Re: [Upd-discuss] Free us from the Swindle

[Claude Almansi]

Hi, Richard, Jeffrey,  Paul and All

Maybe a basic consensus could be found towards more general action
against DRM and other anti-copy protections.

In answer to Paul's last message:

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 1:06 AM, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem, in one sentence, is that the legitimate rights of the
> disabled (being strong claims) are used as a Trojan Horse for things
> we should all oppose.

Are being used by whom? Not Amazon, who could have exploited the first
protest by the NFB on Feb 12
<http://www.nfb.org/nfb/NewsBot.asp?MODE=3DVIEW&ID=3D412&SnID=3D2> to
maintain the text-to-speech (TTS) on the Kindle, working towards
making  the Kindle3 accessible to blind people (see the problem with
the visual commands mentioned by the NFB), and telling the Authors
Guild (AG) that they could withdraw their books from being sold for
the Kindle, but not have the TTS disabled.
Instead Amazon chose to cave in to the AG.

(I'll go back on the Trojan Horse after your next paragraph)

"Things we should all oppose" is a good starting point towards action.
On the basis of Richard's messages in this thread, do we all agree
that we should oppose any technological measure limiting users' legal
rights, i.e.:
-  preventing the transfer of Kindle e-books from the Kindle to another dev=
ice
-  using a proprietary format that cannot be used on another device
-  allowing Amazon to control what users do with
- modifying retroactively e-books already bought by the user
- controlling technologically what the people do with their Kindle
?
Or to put it the other way round, that we demand that users be treated
a priori like responsible, law-abiding people and not a priori as
potential criminals?
Particularly because restrictive technological measures aren't going
to stop anyone really bent on circumventing them, and they even incite
this circumvention: I tend to actually read  EULAs first and abide by
them if they don't contradict my legal rights, or not use the products
if they do.  But  the Kindle's restrictive technological measures made
me think of how one could photograph a book displayed on it, if need
be enhance the definition with an image treatment software, then OCR
the images to get a .txt file, for instance (I'm sure technology
literate people could find simpler ways).

> This Trojan Horse dynamic does not require the
> participation or knowledge of a single person in the disability
> community and indeed I don't claim or see any bad faith in that
> community at all -- they are just chasing their legitimate interests
> or rights but other things then get tacked on like the proverbial
> christmas tree bill in Congress.

As in other threads about the Kindle, Paul, I am not sure what you
mean by Trojan Horse, or who you mean are within its belly. Elsewhere,
you referred to "Kindle e-reader: A Trojan horse for free thought" by
Emily Walshe, csmonitor.com, March 3 09
<http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0318/p09s01-coop.html>. Just to make
sure, does it mean that you agree with her that the Trojan Horse is
the restrictive technology of the Kindle and do you agree with her
warning:

"...In our rush to adopt new technologies, we have too readily
surrendered ownership in favor of its twisted sister, access.
Web 2.0 and its culture of collaboration supposedly unleashed a
sharing society. But we can share only what we own. And as more and
more content gets digitized, commercialized, and monopolized, our
cultural integrity is threatened. The free and balanced flow of
information that gives shape to democratic society is jeopardized.
For now, though, Kindle is on fire in the marketplace. Who could
resist reading "what you want, when you want it?" Access to more than
240,000 books is just seconds away. And its "revolutionary
electronic-paper display ... looks and reads like real paper."
But it comes with restrictions: You can't resell or share your books =E2=80=
=93
because you don't own them. You can download only from Amazon's store,
making it difficult to read anything that is not routed through Amazon
first. You're not buying a book; you're buying access to a book. No,
it's not like borrowing a book from a library, because there is no
public investment. It's like taking an interest-only mortgage out on
intellectual property. "
?

As to the latter part of your paragraph, I don't think disabled people
are naively letting themselves be exploited (by whom, again?).
They are just better organised than other stakeholders. See James
Love's "Norm setting on copyright limitations and exceptions at WIPO:
What is ready?"
<http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/01/28/sccr_norm-setting-lne/> ,
KEI, January 28th, 2009 : the WBU went ahead with its proposal for a
WIPO Treaty for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled
Persons because it was ready, and because there was an immediate
threat from content producers concerning all stakeholders, but more in
particular disabled people:

"Over the past several weeks there have been a several cases where
some well motivated and knowledgeable persons about copyright policy
have expressed criticism of an effort by WIPO to negotiate a treaty
for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities, on the
grounds that this is not ambitious enough, and a larger all inclusive
treaty on limitations and exceptions should be the target.
At the same time, publishers are seeking to block any WIPO norm
setting in the area of statutory exceptions to exclusive rights,
including even for reading disabled persons. Failing that, the
publishers want to narrow the scope of the exceptions as much as
possible, for example by not including many important reading
disabilities, such as persons who cannot travel to libraries, people
who suffer from severe dyslexia, or who, because of physical
disabilities, cannot turn the pages of a book.
At the 16th session of the WIPO SCCR Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and
Uruguay endorsed a broad work program for L&E  (SCCR 16/2).  This
broad agenda is supported by all of the civil society NGOs, including
KEI.  It singled out for particular attention those L&E dealing with
education, libraries, archives, innovative services and persons with
disabilities, but it is not limited to even those areas.
The stakeholder groups that are interested in global norm setting in
terms of minimum limitations and exceptions all support the larger
agenda.  However, as a practical matter, not every area is ripe for
norm setting."
(from James Love's above-mentioned  post).

And the same seems to obtain for the Reading Right Coalition's
petition about the Kindle's text-to-speech. It seems unlikely that the
organizations in this coalition are unaware of the larger agenda of
opposing restrictive technological measures in the Kindle. But the
AG's preposterous statement about TTS being like audio books for which
separate payment should be obtained was something they could - and had
to - start countering immediately.

Finally, with apologies for the length of this message, I'm  copying
below a message Cory Doctorow just sent to his mailing list, with
reference to the video of a conference he gave about books and DRM.
Particularly interesting: his demonstration, backed with examples, of
how and why DRM gets always cracked, and his appeal to the publishers
not to repeat the mistakes of the video and audio industry.

Best

Claude

 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cory Doctorow <doctorow@craphound.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 7:35 AM
Subject: [Doctorow] My DRM and ebooks talk from O'Reilly Tools of
Change for Publishing
To: Claude Almansi <claude.almansi@bluewin.ch>
Cc: doctorow@ctyme.com


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Here's a talk I gave earlier this year at the O'Reilly Tools of Change
for Publishing conference in NYC, about the way that DRM gives
distributors control over publishers and writers. This talk went down
very well, and is the source of "Doctorow's Law," which a lot of people
have asked me about: "Any time someone puts a lock on something you own,
against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, it's not being done
to your benefit."

There's some errata here, though: the Overdrive debacle was due to a
licensing dispute, not a bankruptcy; and there's now a "DRM-free" option
for the Kindle, but I can't find out if the file comes with legal
encumbrances that would prevent people who buy one of these from moving
it to a competing device (no one at Amazon will answer my queries about
this). And I've also been told by Amazon that supposedly Audible will do
DRM-free audiobooks, but they haven't answered repeated queries about
the details of this.

TOC 09 "Digital Distribution and the Whip Hand: Don't Get iTunesed with
your eBooks":
http://blip.tv/file/1996369


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