Federico Heinz Re: [A2k] Bookshare DRM and selling out

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Taran and all,

  I share your sentiment.  As I have said now many times, DRM's in
their current form are evil and/or an abomination.  I would add, so
is the USG's DMCA by in large.  Yet again certainly I for one believe
that authors rights should be protected, as should TM holders and
Patent holders, but it should not be the place or responsibility of
governments to add extraordinary additional protections for those
special rights of Authors, TM holders, or Patent holders.  They have
a responsibility to defend their special rights themselves within the confines

of their jurisdictional legal framework to the extent such exists and to the
extent of same.

  Additionally criminalizing copyright, TM, or Patent law is way beyond
reasonable and is counter productive on a global scale.  Today alone,
approximately 22 publishers and their authors lost $465,000 in sales
of their works by our members due to our members boycott.  This will
continue and likely increase unless or until DRM's and the DMCA are
eliminated in their current form or significantly amended to be in line with
Fair use principals and ACTA/IPR's are made fully publicly available
for review, open to public comment, and subject to public input for likely
amendment.

"Taran A. Rampersad" wrote:

> Manon Ress wrote:
> >> However, I expect it rather to have the opposite effect:
> >> schemes like Bookshare, which subject blind readers to DRM, will
> >> reassure and support the legislators that hate our freedoms.
> >>
> >
> > You may, of course, choose to read the above as "Bookshare has sold
> > out", but
> > it's not what it says. Choosing to read it that way is seeking a
> > confrontation
> > where none exists, and I don't think that is ever a good idea, so please
> > refrain from doing so.
> >
> That same excerpt has some powerful keywords: Schemes. Subject (the
> verb). Hate. Freedoms. That's confrontational. There's really no need to
> sugarcoat what RMS says - if he doesn't bother, no one else should... he
> tends to write what he means and how he means it. I don't always agree
> with RMS, but I most certainly respect him.
>
> Since I'm between PCs right now so I don't know more of what Jim wrote -
> but unless it's something along the lines of "No, we're not sweeping
> Fair Use under the carpet in the name of DRM and thus we are supporting
> the handicapped"... well, I don't see that there's much to discuss.
>
> Fact is that if someone is selling me, or anyone else, something for
> cash - we shouldn't have to pay with our Rights as well. We shouldn't
> have to pay for the same material more than once, but we are often
> forced to by the media on which the material is. That stands for anyone.
> Anywhere. Anytime.
>
> I'll pay authors. I'll even pay publishers. But when I own something, I
> should have Fair Use. I should be able to use it in the manner that
> suits me best - be I visually impaired or have a learning 'disability'
> which allows me to absorb information better if I receive it through
> audio. If I wish to read it in another language, that should be fair
> game as well.
>
> If creators and publishers spent more time creating and publishing and
> less time defending the last things that they created or published...
>
> And in an amusing turn of events, had this email list been under DRM...
> would Jim have gotten the email to respond to in the first place? Think
> about it.
>
> T.
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Regards,

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