The Fair Use Ebook Crack

Submitted by Christopher Harris on Wed, 07/25/2012 - 06:08

photo credit: Stephen Dagnall via photo pin cc

Stupid me, I bought the ebooks I needed for a recent project through Apple’s iBookstore. That meant I couldn’t legally crack the DRM on them to copy passages as part of a fair use scenario.

Let me be clear, it isn’t the legal part of that previous sentence that is the issue. In this case, I believe it would be quite legal to crack the DRM on an ebook. If you read the law, the DMCA clearly makes it illegal to bypass DRM for the purpose of circumventing access controls. Bypassing for the purpose of circumventing copying controls, however, is legal because of fair use scenarios like the one in which I found myself this week.

And so here was my chance to stand up for my legal right to tear down that DRM.

I was all set to fire up Calibre, an open source ebook library, and then download a set of plugins that help bypass copy controls that were previously featured on Wired’s Gadget Lab.

These plugins, it must be noted, do not circumvent access control protections in DRM. That is a key legal issue. In fact, you can only use them to unlock DRM on content for which you have an active and proper key. What the plugins do is leave the content unlocked after unlocking it with the key already on your computer. The plugin author suggests, then, that this is a circumvention of copying protections only, since one must use a legal access method.

In theory at least. I am not a lawyer, and this may be way out of line.

So there I was, ready to unlock my books and copy passages for my fair use, instructional purpose. And then I remembered. Stupid me, I bought the books from Apple’s iBookstore and they updated their security again. Curses, foiled again.

Anyway, let me tell you about this really nice piece of software that can OCR a screenshot from iBooks. Really, it is almost as if you were copying and pasting right from an ebook for your fair use project—if by copying and pasting you mean just re-keying the passages because it would be faster.

I’ll get you next time, DRM. Next time… .

Comments

Solution

You might have trouble downloading a new version, which requires TOR configured, for save anonymous access to a link. But there is standalone software for Windows and Mac OS X which can unlock Apple DRM if you have the key. Google for “requiem DRM” . I just read up on it a bit, and one page warned about newer iTunes-Versions complete with links to an old version, which supposedly works better.
I have used Requiem twice and it worked for me, on a music file that Apple did not offer to convert DRM-Free, a few films and also a few books (mostly free, I bought 1 book with iTunes in UK).
I will only buy books from Apple if I do not find them elsewhere, so far this was not the case.

Submitted by NoDRM please (not verified) on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 19:53.

I am familiar with Requiem,

I am familiar with Requiem, but would note two things.

1) The current version is not working as Apple updated their security (according to the Requiem forums). Requiem, like the Calibre plugins, does not break the DRM encryption (that would be illegal under DMCA). It uses a legal key on your computer to unlock the content. Obviously this should only be used for fair use purposes, with the resulting unlocked file being destroyed after use.

2) Be very careful when messing around with things like Requiem. Lots of chance for malware, viruses, etc. TOR, MD5 checksums and strong protection are needed.

Submitted by Christopher Harris on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 20:12.

Thanks for the advice. It has

Thanks for the advice.
It has been some months that I used it, but the warning that Apple had changed their DRM was true even then, I ignored it and Requiem worked fine for me. Regarding Viri (Virusses ;- )?) & Trojans I tend to be careful and most target Windows, I use Mac OS X. Using something which is of questionable legality one is well advised to be careful. I am not even too sure if I break the law, being that I am not living in USA but Germany: we have no exceptions like DMCA or even fair use (!) and our law is often strict or gets interpreted that way in the courts.

So for someone to be on the safe site he or she should research the topic before stripping DRM.
I still prefer ebooks without DRM. A good example are the recent publication of Harry Potter, which I bought (the Hardcover are getting to heavy to hold for me), they have water-signs and are traceable to an account if they are sold or given away. And of course the real english ones where more expensive, being the UK-Editions (The Philosophers Stone) vs. the US-Editions (The Sorcerer’s Stone - dunno what else was different) ;-).

Submitted by NoDRM please (not verified) on Fri, 07/27/2012 - 16:16.