An epiphany

[james_davis_nicoll]

Ebooks mean publishers could introduce regional coding so people in one rights zone could not read books from another. I need to patent that.

Comments

[elf]

You can also patent the hardware that contains the software that detects the zoning rights. Right now, a person's ADE or Kindle account works on any books registered to their account; the books from the "wrong" regions aren't available for sale, but if they become available (via coding glitch on the sales site, for example), the DRM software will allow them to work.

You could sell ereaders tied to a GPS system that notices what region they're in, and refuses to open books in the wrong region!

I'm sure that's exactly the kindle-killer the ebook world has been waiting for.

[jesuswasbatman]

I thought they already did that, or so my Australian reading list people complain?

[zeborah]

I'm pretty sure (as a New Zealander) the current system only prevents you *buying* the wrong-regioned ebook. This is clearly a bad implementation of the general idea, as it means you lose out on money. What you really want to do is sell the wrong-regioned book (so you get the money) but then prevent people reading it.

[cyprinella]

DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!

[mab_browne]

Nooooooo!

[james_huber]

patent it then refuse to license it, making any attempt to region lock ebooks a violation of your IP.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Too late, they've already done it.

You're in .ca? Try buying an ebook from amazon.co.uk.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

They won't sell it to be but surely if I went over there and bought it, I could read it on my Kobo or my PlayBook? I was thinking of Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs...

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

"Surely," what an interesting choice of words.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

(To expand, if you have books that are DRM'd, regions already matter, which is why Kindles have "what region are you in" options. If you don't, well.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Oh.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

And besides, since you admit that Region 1, 2, &c. DVDs exist (and Blu-Rays, too, though I'm glad that Japan and the US are both in Region A), your patent would hit prior art problems...

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought on reading James' post...

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

That implies prior art problems are a problem with patents these days...

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

If they aren't I've certainly been wasting much of my last week doing prior art analysis...

[autopope.livejournal.com]

This is why my Kindle thinks I live in the USA and I never buy ebooks I can't crack the DRM on.

(You may pause, for a moment, to savour the irony.)

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Nah, it'd only be ironic if you worked on DRM yourself at one point.

<pause> You didn't, did you?

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Not guilty, m'lud.

[monte davis (from livejournal.com)]

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

In the US, a lot of patent-troll patents consist of taking a perfectly obvious or well-established process and applying it in a new context--e.g., "banner advertising in a game" as a separate patent from "inline advertising on a web site". By that standard, "region protection for ebooks" is a separate patent from "region protection for DVDs".

Of course, that standard is COMPLETELY FUCKING BROKEN, and has been known to collapse painfully when actually tested in court. But if your purpose is to seek rent from people who are actually creating things, hey, go for it!

And if your purpose is to make the idea unpatentable, then all you need to do is publish it and not patent it.

Also, the idea of sharply limiting ebook portability is at least as old as Stallman's "The Right to Read", which was published in 1997.

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the ones with GPS in them don't even need to ask! I remember purchasing a rental movie for my Nexus 7 at LHR, but not being able to download it before my flight because the wifi there sucked too much for it to work. Then trying again in SFO, only to find "This Purchase is not valid in your Region"...

Even without the GPS, they can still make a relatively good guess at which region you're in by where the internet packets come from...

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Also, they can consult databases of Wifi routers, accumulated by corporate wardriving, to estimate position with remarkable accuracy.

My Ipad does not have a GPS, nor does it speak to cellphone towers, but its Wifi receiver is pretty good at finding its way in urban neighborhoods.

[michaelgr.livejournal.com]

DVD Regions exist because DVDs come on a physical media and have to be encoded before they are bought. Your DRM'ed ebooks are coded specifically for you on the fly when you purchase them. Same goes for DRM'ed Audiobooks.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, dvd region codes exist entirely for price fixing - to keep consumers from more affluent-on-average regions from being able to play dvds they bought from cheaper zones. I may be wrong though.

But the physical medium is irrelevant, DVD is just bits.

[andrewducker]

Also, books sold on Kindle don't work on epub/mobi readers. The Kindle app is available on many platforms, but you can't export to open formats without breaking the DRM and converting them.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Cough Calibre Cough transcode azw3 to mobi or epub Cough.

Also note that Kindle format (the current azw3) is descended from mobipocket, who Amazon bought ...

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

You do need a DRM breaker, though.

(I think if I say anything more I might violate the DMCA...)

[sean o&apos;hara (from livejournal.com)]

Change your credit card billing address to someplace in the country you want to buy, you can purchase the books and read them on your Kindle, no problem.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I currently maintain a personal policy of only buying DRM-free ebooks. If I buy a book, I want to own it -- not own a license to read it, at the whim of the book-maker/distributor/whomever.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Well. Actually, you still only have a license to read it.

There was a Humble Bundle a while back, with various DRM-free ebooks. I already had a couple of them, so I asked both the authors and the Humble Bundle people if I could give the duplicates to friends.

The authors both said yes. Humble Bundle response, however, was that no, I didn't own it, I only had a non-transferable license.

What DRM gets you is the ability to more easily ignore that... but that doesn't mean the license limitation isn't still there.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Possibly. It may depend on the laws in the particular country one lives in.

It looks like a purchase. Smells like a purchase. My link for getting the books says,

"This page is claimed by you.

Thanks for purchasing the Humble eBook Bundle! "

Not, "thanks for licensing the content in the Humble eBook Bundle", but "Thanks for purchasing".

That sure looks like a purchase.

I will choose to treat that as a purchase. And, with the books being DRM-free, I can do so.

[brett-dunbar.livejournal.com]

You purchased a licence, you only ever buy a licence of any copyright material, you don't own the text. With a paper book, you have the specific printing and that's it, you do not have the right to copy the text. You own one specific printing of the text. The reason for DRM is to prevent you from duplicating and distributing the text, ebooks make doing so easy while with paper it was difficult. The legal blurb in a paper book does usually forbid it as well but the fact the inherent nature of the technology made it difficult was the main obstacle to duplication.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

With a book, I own the book. The physical item. I can give it to someone else. I can lend it to someone else. I can rent that book to someone else -- all of these are things I can do. I can do these because I own that physical item which is the book. I can tear that book up and hand various pages to different people. All of these are things I can do with that book. I don't have a license to that book. If I have bought the book twice, I can keep one -- and give the other away. I have not licensed the book.

I am restricted, by law, though, to not copy the contents of that book. (With, of course, certain fair-use exceptions.)

[brett-dunbar.livejournal.com]

You've bought a licence to the text, you don't own that. You are forbidden to copy the text. The ownership of that licence is directly bound with the physical medium of the text. If you sell the book you also sell the licence. The nature of the technology makes breaching the licence difficult, it is largely self-enforcing. With ebooks the text isn't bound to the medium in the same way so the traditional methods of rights management don't work. DRM is an attempt to devise a data format that will make it difficult to breach the licence the same way that paper books do.

The reason that the licence works so well with paper is that is the context in which it was developed

[autopope.livejournal.com]

+1.

Of course, the problems with DRM are:

a) It lends itself to more restrictions than the first sale doctrine (on paper books) would permit. For example, I just got bitten by a purchase that restricted itself to five downloads. (I have: an iphone, two ipads, a laptop, a kindle, and an android phone. Guess what happened?)

b) When the DRM servers go bye-bye because the business curled up and died in a corner (thank you, Microsoft .lit format) you are no longer able to move the content to any new type of device.

c) It annoys the readers so much that they will find ways to break it. I'm convinced that DRM doesn't so much prevent piracy as cause much of it.

[brett-dunbar.livejournal.com]

Oh indeed, DRM is an understandable response, I'm not convinced that it is a good response. The traditional licence terms were partly determined by the nature of the format the things that are forbidden are difficult to do anyway. Digital formats make easy some things that were difficult. On the one hand Digital licences typically allow you to have multiple copies on various devices, which print didn't. On the other they are frequently non-transferable. Amazon don't control the terms of the licence on DRM ebooks, in most cases the publisher if they do impose limits allow you up to five copies.

A more effective method of control seems to be via a cloud system, it's convenient to have your books stored on Amazon's cloud or your games on Steam so you can download them whenever you like to whichever computer you happen to be using and easily sync your bookmarks and cloud saved games between devices. The DRM is then largely invisible (you get people complaining about a game on steam using GFWL not apparently realising that steam is itself DRM). You use the system not because you have to but due to it actually being better.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

c) You, me, and anybody who's actually looked at studies.

Not the first time anyone's dared ask this, one expects.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

And I should buy into this as a creative talent and/or reader-customer for exactly what reason(s)?

Re: Not the first time anyone's dared ask this, one expects.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Look at this idea from the point of view of a writer: Imagine you could get paid for selling or leasing the rights to publish your books in individual counties or boroughs or states?

Hell, imagine if you could sell the rights of individual GPS locations; Someone wants to read a book on one side of their couch? Need to buy a new license for that position, want to read it in the northwest corner of your garden? Need a new license.

And the great thing about that last idea: As time goes on the smallest size area a GPS signal can track will decrease, so as time moves on and the GPS systems get upgraded and improved, the number of publishing rights a writer has will increase, so publishers will have to renegotiate at regular periods to make sure their rights extend through out whole houses or streets.

And there you'll be, reaping the licensing money, which you'll practically be printing yourself!

Re: Not the first time anyone's dared ask this, one expects.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

Of course, by then you won't be getting paid in money, but in licenses to make certain purchases. In certain locations.