As an owner of a new nook e-book reader, I've been watching the related boards somewhat.
Occasionally the issue comes up of "if I buy a book from Amazon can I read it on my nook?"
Unfortunately with rare exception the answer is not really.
There are technical ways to make it happen. You'd think it would be fine to download a book from Amazon, run a conversion and upload it to your nook reader. Technically you can. It's also a violation of the letter of the DMCA though more than likely it will be unenforceable in that context if it ever made it to court.
The simple act of having the decryption program on your computer to allow this is a violation of the DMCA. Helping someone find a copy of it is considered "distributing circumvention tools." First time offenders may be subject to a $500,000 fine, imprisoned for five years, or both. That's the criminal penalties. Civil penalties may also be incurred. All because someone wanted to read a book that they bought.
Obviously the DMCA was put there to discourage piracy. It's already been used successfully in many other ways to allow complete control of content by the copyright holder, despite the old "Fair Use" doctrine.
And let's be honest - you kind of have to be a bit of a computer geek to figure out how to use the decryption tools to begin with. By themselves they are useless, and there's almost no real documentation.
The fact is, if the publisher thought you were using their content on a device it wasn't authorized for they could drag you to court, or worse, play the RIAA card and threaten you until you paid up thousands and thousands of dollars, knowing it would be cheaper than trying to defend yourself in court where when you lose because you couldn't afford a decent lawyer you might go to jail. The DMCA even states: "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use." The problem is that because publishers will have a larger pocket book you'll likely never get to use that defense in court without ruining yourself.
And don't even get me started on the HDCP crap...
Personally I feel like our country has turned into China in many ways: we're being controlled through ignorance. Most people don't realize what they've been giving up over time because to truly understand it you have to be a very technical person. You ask average joe on the street and he still doesn't know what the DMCA is except that the RIAA uses it to go after people who download music by accident, or McDonalds preventing you from posting a video of your kids online. Big business is still using the same mode of thinking that got the cigarette companies to the top of the food chain years ago. We're going to be just as hooked on their flavor of tainted media if we're not careful.
And then you get the one person who wants to buy something from Amazon and read it on his nook, and finds he's frustrated. Unfortunately most people will just buy from B&N and never think twice about what they lost because of DRM.
This not so much different
This not so much different than when AT&T rented you the phone, and never sold it to you. What big media and software companies want is to license content to us, not sell it.
If only we were allowed to own the digital content we buy and use it fairly.
I agree with content publishers that it is unfair to buy a book or a movie and then post it on P2P sites, but it is also unfair to restrict me from using what I payed for as I see fit. If I wanna switch from an Amazon Kindle to a B&N Nook I shouldn't be forced to repurchase all my eBooks.
DMCA and Piracy
Tony,
I find the DMCA does far more to encourage piracy than to discourage it, and in fact, that's why Congress passed the legislation. The main purpose was to give a safe harbor to "innocent infringers", databases and search engines that index pirated content. Without the DMCA, they (search engines and file sharing sites) would have to establish real controls to prevent piracy and to react to it quickly, such as banning member who upload pirated materials. I wrote this up a few weeks ago on my blog in detail, with examples from my own books:
http://www.fonerbooks.com/2010/03/ebook-piracy-and-moral-hazard-of-dmca....
In short, DMCA promotes piracy by making it pain free for third parties to advertise pirated materials.
Morris
Audible DRM
You're right, we're giving up the simple rights that are supposed to come with buying something. It's often a practical issue rather than a legal one. My wife and I have been reading each other's books for decades. A couple of years ago she started getting audio books from Audible and, as Audible clearly says, once she buys an audio book, she can let me listen to it. I try to listen to them on a Sansa Fuze, but between some quirks in the Fuze's OS and Audible's DRM, it's almost impossible. Frankly, if I could figure out how to crack the DRM, I would, just to get what we paid for.
And here's a thought: we often donate our old books to our children's school or another local group so they can raise money through a book fair. Can't imagine what would happen if we tried to do that will an audio book from Audible.
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