Crossed the border - lost e-books
American Jim O'Donnell (Jim O'Donnell) was at a library conference in Singapore, when he noticed a message about new updates for applications on his ipad. Among them was an update to Google Play Books . As you know, in some countries through Google Play you can buy not only applications, but also e-books ( https://play.google.com/store/books ). O'Donnell at one time bought from 30 to 40 books, many of which were necessary for him to work, he writes in his blog.After the update, the program said that you need to re-download the files of electronic books and it will take a few minutes. However, the process has not been completed. As it turned out, in countries where Google Books is not available (and this is most countries of the world), he no longer has the right to download books, even if he bought them earlier in the territory of another country. Apparently, this is not a bug, and it is a feature of the DRM digital rights management system - the files of the books were deleted from the tablet (un-downloaded).
Intensive email exchanges with Google Play support did not work. The user was told that he needed to return to the United States, where he could download his books again. Curiously, at one of the stages of correspondence, support representatives asked what he would like to improve on Google Play. Jim O'Donnell responded with one phrase: “Don't Be Evil.” Nothing was answered to this letter.
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Fortunately, O'Donnell managed to find a copy of the 19th century book that he needed most in the archive.org repository. He uploaded the file and opened it in GoodReader - this program didn’t care what country it was in.
Probably, acquiring e-books protected by DRM, the buyer does not acquire ownership of them, but only pays for the right to read these books. The owner of exclusive intellectual property rights determines which countries can be granted such a right. If you cross the border, you can lose this privilege. A similar DRM system can also be applied to software and other content, although in the case of books it looks especially crazy. Well at least do not make you forget what you read.
By the way, Richard Stallman warned about such situations, who in 1997 wrote the short story “The Right to Read” . Fifteen years ago, it seemed fantastic, like many other Stallman predictions.
"Right to read"
For Dan Hilbert, the road to Tycho started at school — when Melissa Lenz asked for a loan to her computer. Her computer broke down, and if she couldn’t find another, she’d have failed her term paper. She did not dare to ask anyone except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He needed to help her - but if he lent her his computer, she could read his books. Even if you forget the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting others read your books, the very idea at first terrified him. He, like everyone else, from elementary school was taught that it was disgusting and disgusting to exchange books - only pirates do this.
And the chance that the SPA - Software Protection Service - would not be able to catch it, was not great. In the programming class, Dan learned that each book has a copyright control tool that reports to the Licensing Center when it is read, where and who read it. (They used this information to catch the reading pirates, as well as to sell personal interests to the stores.) As soon as his computer was connected to the network, the Licensing Center would know about it. He, as the owner of the computer, would receive the most severe punishment - for not having bothered to prevent a crime.
Of course, Melissa was not necessarily going to read his books. Perhaps she needed a computer only to write a term paper. But Dan knew that her family was not rich, and she could barely pay for her tuition, let alone pay for reading. Maybe his books were her last chance to get an education. He understood her position; he himself had to go into debt to pay all the scientific articles that he read. (Ten percent of this money was transferred to the scientists who wrote these articles; since Dan was a scientist, he could hope that his own scientific articles, if they were often referred to, would bring enough money to pay back the debt.)
Subsequently, Dan learned that there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read articles in magazines and even books, and did not have to pay for it. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government subsidies to libraries. But in the nineties of the 20th century, both commercial and non-commercial publications began to charge for access. By 2047, public libraries with free access to scientific literature became a vague memory.
Of course, there were ways to circumvent the SPA and the Licensing Center. They themselves were illegal. Dan had a programming fellow, Frank Martucci, who took out the forbidden debugging tool and used it to bypass the copyright control program when he read books. But he told too many friends about it, and one of them passed him to the SPA for a reward (when a student got into a deep debt trap, it is easy to incite him to betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison - not for pirate reading, but for having a debugger.
Dan later learned that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools that could be obtained on a CD or over the network. But ordinary users began to use them to circumvent copyright controls, and in the end the court ruled that this was their main use in actual practice. This meant that they were illegal; those who developed debuggers were sent to prison.
Programmers, of course, still needed debugging tools, but in 2047, debugger vendors distributed only numbered copies and only for officially licensed and committed programmers. The debugger, which Dan used in the programming classes, was kept in a special environment, so that it could only be used for training exercises.
It was also possible to circumvent the copyright controls by installing the modified kernel of the system. Dan eventually learned about free kernels, even entire free operating systems that existed at the turn of the century. But they were not only illegal, as debuggers - they could not be installed, even if you had them, if you did not know the administrator password for your computer. And you wouldn't recognize him either from the FBI or from Microsoft support.
Dan came to the conclusion that he simply could not lend his computer to Melissa. But he could not refuse her help because he loved her. Every time he spoke to her, he was overwhelmed with delight. And since she asked for his help, it could mean that she loved him too.
Dan solved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable: he lent her a computer and told her his password. Thus, if Melissa began to read his books, the Licensing Center would have thought that he was reading them. This was also a crime, but the SPA would not have known it automatically. They would know only if Melissa had reported on him.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he gave Melissa her password, the school doors would be closed in front of both, regardless of what she used the password for. According to the rules of the school, any interference with their means of controlling the use of students' computers was grounds for disciplinary action. It doesn't matter if you did any harm - it was a violation that you made it difficult for administrators to check your behavior. They considered this to be a sign that you had committed any other prohibited actions, and they were not very interested in which ones.
Students usually were not excluded for this — at least, literally for that. Instead, they were denied access to the school’s computer systems, and without this it was absolutely impossible to continue any classes.
Subsequently, Dan learned that such rules appeared in schools in the eighties of the twentieth century, when students began to use computers widely. Prior to this, educational institutions approached students in a different way: they punished for what was harmful, and not just for suspicion.
Melissa did not report on Dan in the SPA. His decision to help her led to the fact that they were married, and also asked them about what they said about piracy in their childhood. Spouses began to read about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union with its bans on copying, and even about the original Constitution of the United States. They moved to the moon, where they found other people who also flew there so that the long arms of the SPA could not reach them. When the uprising in Tycho began in 2062, the universal right to read quickly became one of its main objectives.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He needed to help her - but if he lent her his computer, she could read his books. Even if you forget the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting others read your books, the very idea at first terrified him. He, like everyone else, from elementary school was taught that it was disgusting and disgusting to exchange books - only pirates do this.
And the chance that the SPA - Software Protection Service - would not be able to catch it, was not great. In the programming class, Dan learned that each book has a copyright control tool that reports to the Licensing Center when it is read, where and who read it. (They used this information to catch the reading pirates, as well as to sell personal interests to the stores.) As soon as his computer was connected to the network, the Licensing Center would know about it. He, as the owner of the computer, would receive the most severe punishment - for not having bothered to prevent a crime.
Of course, Melissa was not necessarily going to read his books. Perhaps she needed a computer only to write a term paper. But Dan knew that her family was not rich, and she could barely pay for her tuition, let alone pay for reading. Maybe his books were her last chance to get an education. He understood her position; he himself had to go into debt to pay all the scientific articles that he read. (Ten percent of this money was transferred to the scientists who wrote these articles; since Dan was a scientist, he could hope that his own scientific articles, if they were often referred to, would bring enough money to pay back the debt.)
Subsequently, Dan learned that there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read articles in magazines and even books, and did not have to pay for it. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government subsidies to libraries. But in the nineties of the 20th century, both commercial and non-commercial publications began to charge for access. By 2047, public libraries with free access to scientific literature became a vague memory.
Of course, there were ways to circumvent the SPA and the Licensing Center. They themselves were illegal. Dan had a programming fellow, Frank Martucci, who took out the forbidden debugging tool and used it to bypass the copyright control program when he read books. But he told too many friends about it, and one of them passed him to the SPA for a reward (when a student got into a deep debt trap, it is easy to incite him to betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison - not for pirate reading, but for having a debugger.
Dan later learned that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools that could be obtained on a CD or over the network. But ordinary users began to use them to circumvent copyright controls, and in the end the court ruled that this was their main use in actual practice. This meant that they were illegal; those who developed debuggers were sent to prison.
Programmers, of course, still needed debugging tools, but in 2047, debugger vendors distributed only numbered copies and only for officially licensed and committed programmers. The debugger, which Dan used in the programming classes, was kept in a special environment, so that it could only be used for training exercises.
It was also possible to circumvent the copyright controls by installing the modified kernel of the system. Dan eventually learned about free kernels, even entire free operating systems that existed at the turn of the century. But they were not only illegal, as debuggers - they could not be installed, even if you had them, if you did not know the administrator password for your computer. And you wouldn't recognize him either from the FBI or from Microsoft support.
Dan came to the conclusion that he simply could not lend his computer to Melissa. But he could not refuse her help because he loved her. Every time he spoke to her, he was overwhelmed with delight. And since she asked for his help, it could mean that she loved him too.
Dan solved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable: he lent her a computer and told her his password. Thus, if Melissa began to read his books, the Licensing Center would have thought that he was reading them. This was also a crime, but the SPA would not have known it automatically. They would know only if Melissa had reported on him.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he gave Melissa her password, the school doors would be closed in front of both, regardless of what she used the password for. According to the rules of the school, any interference with their means of controlling the use of students' computers was grounds for disciplinary action. It doesn't matter if you did any harm - it was a violation that you made it difficult for administrators to check your behavior. They considered this to be a sign that you had committed any other prohibited actions, and they were not very interested in which ones.
Students usually were not excluded for this — at least, literally for that. Instead, they were denied access to the school’s computer systems, and without this it was absolutely impossible to continue any classes.
Subsequently, Dan learned that such rules appeared in schools in the eighties of the twentieth century, when students began to use computers widely. Prior to this, educational institutions approached students in a different way: they punished for what was harmful, and not just for suspicion.
Melissa did not report on Dan in the SPA. His decision to help her led to the fact that they were married, and also asked them about what they said about piracy in their childhood. Spouses began to read about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union with its bans on copying, and even about the original Constitution of the United States. They moved to the moon, where they found other people who also flew there so that the long arms of the SPA could not reach them. When the uprising in Tycho began in 2062, the universal right to read quickly became one of its main objectives.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/190468/
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