I download audiobooks from the California State Library System. The files are DRM protected, and after 14 days they cease to work.

I have software that removes the DRM from the files and converts them to MP3 format so I can listen to them on my empeg or on a portable MP3 player after the 14 day expiration.

The library's website says that they do not allow this, although I don't know why -- maybe for no better reason than "Them's the rules and you gotta follow 'em." I look at this as no more heinous than time-shifting "Mythbusters" or "Nova" on my TiVo and watching it the next day.

There are no library fees associated with downloading the audiobooks, although perhaps the library pays a fee to the publisher every time an audiobook is downloaded. I cannot fathom how my listening to the audiobook at my convenience rather than during an arbitrary two-week period can conceivably harm either the library or the publisher.

Am I missing something here?

tanstaafl.

Seems like the same argument as with the music industry. You buy the song for the convenience of listing to it at any time. Purchasing the item or advertising are usually the two methods the industry uses to recoup expenses and turn a profit.

Saying you would have never bought the song/book to begin with may help you justify keeping the item but in the eyes of the industry it is still theft.

You're right, I never would have bought the book to begin with, but that's because the library gives it to me for free. The library wants me to download their books, and if they charged me a fee for downloading a book, I would happily pay it, but I would still prefer to listen to it at my convenience rather than theirs, just like I prefer to watch Mythbusters on my TiVo on Saturday afternoon rather than at 3am on Tuesday morning when it was broadcast.

Since I am downloading the book with their blessing, am I duty or honor bound to listen to it on their timetable? It's not as though I am preventing anybody else from downloading the book, or causing any loss of revenue. In fact, I am increasing revenue to the publisher (assuming my guess is correct that the library pays a fee to the publisher when the book is downloaded) because I wouldn't download the book if I couldn't listen to it when I wanted to.

Also, it isn't theft in any case. I pay for the privilege of downloading those books through the taxes I pay that support the library system. I just want to time-shift the listening to them.

tanstaafl.

I see two different possible arguments from your position:

1. The file was provided to you for free. Since there's no profit involved in that transaction, it shouldn't be illegal to make a DRM-free copy of the file.

2. Shouldn't you be able to listen to the file any time you want, without having to keep to the library's timetable?

I think both arguments can be countered with the printed book metaphor:

What if you checked a printed book out of the library, then photocopied every page of that book before returning it to the library on its due date? This doesn't take any profit away from the library or publisher, and (like the DRM removal) requires that you go to some trouble on your part. It allows you to consume the book on your own time.

I think, whether you're talking about a book or an audio file, it's still considered breaking copyright law. And by the way, copyright law doesn't care whether "you would have bought it" or not.

There is a big difference between music and books. Music is intended to be listened to over and over. Books are not expected to be read more than once: certainly not over and over constantly.

Also, he's not buying it at all. He's borrowing it from the library, which is obviously okay with publishers, since they haven't gone after libraries for lending physical books. (Well, they have, on occasion, but not with any real force or success.)

In addition, it is not up to producers to define theft.

I'm sure that the library is following rules set up by the publisher's equivalent of the RIAA, probably the AAP. Publishers have had an adversarial relationship with libraries since book publishing became big business. Until recently, it wasn't a huge deal, as libraries still had to purchase all of the books. It was little different than a used book store. But now they can have unlimited copies.

The thing that would most accurately match how physical libraries work is if the DRM worked like a semaphore and the library had to pay for each license. Then copying the audiobook would be equivalent to photocopying the whole book. This may be the way it works for the library, only they keep track of the number of licenses, rather than there being some technological solution.

Does your library require that you relinquish the audiobook somehow? It may not make any difference; they might just assume you keep the license for the whole two weeks and not bother worrying about early returns. I'd say there's a mild ethical problem with doing what you're saying, if you're checking out their license, un-DRM-ing it, and then immediately relinquishing the license. That means that a nearly unlimited number of people can "read" the book. However, if you let the two weeks run out, then I don't see much of a problem. You are still preventing someone else from obtaining that license during the period of time that you would normally be reading it, and the publishers are okay with that. I'd say that as long as your actual "reading" time (and I'm not counting time you're not listening to it) doesn't exceed the two weeks, then there's no ethical problem; you're just time-shifting for convenience.

Laws do not define ethics.

True. But in this case, I think the two happen to synch up. Do you think it would be ethical to photocopy (or, to remove the expense of the copies from the equation, scan-in) an entire book that you borrowed from the library?

How about a different metaphor? Let's say you rent a video game or a movie from someplace that rents them, and you get around the DRM to make a copy of your own, to enjoy on your own time. One argument says you're just time-shifting, another says that you're committing an act of piracy.

An audio book is more like a music album than any of those things above, and I think it's still unethical to remove the DRM from recordings that were published that way.

Of course, I also think it's pretty unethical to publish DRM-protected audio files in the first place: It unnecessarily ties the file to a specific playback device (or a specific subset of playback devices). But once a publisher has chosen to publish it that way, your ethics are bound by their intentions.

Damn, did I just re-enact an XKCD?

If I was going to read it only once, keep the book checked out for an appropriate amount of time, and not redistribute it, yes.


Other than solely technologically, I vehemently disagree. The usage pattern of a book, either physical or audio, far more closely matches that of a movie or video game than a piece of music.


Once a man has loaned you his slave, your ethics are bound to return the slave and not set him free.

Is that an extreme example? Yes. But it only takes one counterpoint to disprove a rule.

The library does not allow early "returns". If I check out my allowed maximum number of books (or as you correctly state, licenses) I cannot check out any more until the two-week period is up, and during that two-week period nobody else can check those books out either. Even if I checked out the book and then immediately spent the next 10 hours listening to it, the book (or license) would be out of circulation for two weeks.

By making my non-DRM copy of the book, I avoid having to renew the license if I haven't finished it, and the book gets back into circulation so that others can enjoy it sooner than they might otherwise.

I guess it comes down to "no harm, no foul". What I do has no impact, none whatsoever, on anyone except myself and that is only for my convenience.

tanstaafl.

A statement strengthening the argument that stripping the DRM from an audiobook is an act of piracy.

(Keep in mind that through all of this, I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I personally wouldn't think twice before stripping the DRM from any audio file that I'd obtained legally: it's the only way I could play the file on my chosen playback device. It's just fun to have discussions about ethics on this BBS, everyone makes such great arguments and gives such great examples.)

Which is an understandable and logical point of view. Here's the counterargument.

Let's say I want to listen to an audiobook of the latest Dan Brown or Laurel K Hamilton novel. I could:

1. Buy it from a retailer, either in CD format or in a DRM-protected digital file format.

2. Borrow it from the library (in either of those formats), make a copy of it, and "return" it to the library on the library's terms.

As soon as two or more people do the latter, that's removed one or more potential sales from the retail food chain, and the publisher (and the author) get less money than they otherwise would have.

The argument that you wouldn't have ever done (1) and thus (2) was your only option, isn't a valid one. It's an entertainment item. That argument doesn't work for pirating video games and so it doesn't work for copy-protected audio files either: "I can't afford to buy a game for 50 bucks, so instead I rent it for 5 bucks and copy it." It's still piracy.

(Still playing devil's advocate.)

For starters, I agree with all of what Bitt and Doug have said.

Now, to provide my own opinion, I don't believe it's unethical as long as you're following the spirit of the process. Which is that the audio book is being borrowed. This means that after listening to it, it should be deleted, rather than archived as part of a permanent personal collection. In that case it has been time shifted, consumed and expired. This satisfies your schedule and as far as the library is concerned, their technical policies (because the book is available for anyone else when the initial two weeks is up). If you intend to keep a copy, it should be purchased.

That said, one person's ethics isn't another person's. Someone else will argue that your loan agreement is for 14 days, period. If you can't consume the content in those 14 days then you should try to borrow it again subject to the library's rules.

While a comparison to TV and time-shifting with a TiVo is apt for me, the same I can also see enough differences in the two. The principle one being that you're signing out the library content subject to some borrowing agreements that would be in place either when you obtained your library card or at the time of borrowing (more than likely both). No such agreement exists for broadcast TV.

In terms of legality, it's definitely illegal on at least one count. Circumventing the DRM is a violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The other argument for (potential) illegality, from a licensing standpoint, is that the library is in violation of their licensing terms which likely stipulate that they have rights to "n" concurrent copies of the work at any given time. When you time shift on your own, this has no effect on the library's system, which means they can re-issue the loan, effectively putting up to "n+1" copies in circulation.

Oh, I get it. So it's the library that is the bad guy here, letting me read (or in this case, listen to) books without my compensating the publisher/author?

But I am compensating the publisher, because (I assume) the library pays a fee every time I check out a book. The library's expense and the publisher's compensation is exactly the same whether I listen to the book in 14 days, or take 14 weeks to listen to my copy of it. If I just purchased the audiobook, the author/publisher would get a one time payment, but if I borrow it from the library, they are compensated when the library purchases the book, and when I (and everybody else) download it. If I couldn't listen to it on my schedule, then I wouldn't download it and there would be no additional compensation. By violating the letter of the copyright law, I am actually benefiting the creators of the material.

The comparison to music and videogames is not appropriate because of the intended and actual usage of the material. As Bitt pointed out, Music is used and re-used, and for that the creator is compensated when I purchase it. The library book is used once, whether I use the copy I made or I use the original library copy. The creator is compensated the same either way. Video games are more like music, they are played over and over. (I still play my copy of DOOM that I purchased legally more than 10 yeas ago. Best videogame ever made!)

tanstaafl.

Yes, it is. I was going to point that out earlier, but it wasn't relevant. Of course, the argument to begin with is specious, so strengthening it isn't a huge deal.


You're not comparing apples to apples, though. You forgot the second half of part 1, which is: make a copy and then sell the original to the used book store (or even return it to the new book store).

Now which is worse?

The point is, borrowing books from the library is an accepted method for reading books. Under "normal" usage, you check out a book, preventing other people from having it for a certain period of time, and then you give it back. The "payment" part of that transaction is the fact that you're restricting other people from doing the same thing during that period of time. It doesn't make any difference if, during that period of time, you read it once, five times, a hundred times, or zero times. It is irrelevant to the transaction. Once that price has been paid, I don't see that it's relevant when your usage of the text occurs, as long as it doesn't exceed the price.

I doubt that's true. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

By "book" I mean specifically audiobooks.

You may well be right. I am just making that assumption because the library requires me to hold the license for the full 14 day period which seems like their method of restricting the circulation. The only reason I can think of for them to do that is that it reduces their cost of doing business. However, there could easily be some other business model entirely.

Does anybody have a definitive answer to this?

tanstaafl.

Here's Nebraska's contract with the company. Doesn't say anything about a per-download cost, only annual maintenance fees and per-member fees. I don't know that NoCal's contract is the same, but it seems likely to be similar.

Good point. Publishers of content *hate* used bookstores, used record stores, and used video game stores, for this very reason.

How it works in the UK, at least for printed books, is that libraries keep records of every loan over the course of a year, and then at the end of each year there's a single national pot of money that's split up among the publishers (and, ultimately, authors) in proportion to the popularity of the books. I only came across this recently: a news story saying that last year's shareout came to 6p per loan, which came as a surprise to me as I'd always kind-of assumed they got nothing.

Peter

I totally understand you're asking about moral obligation, not legal obligation, and I totally understand that those are different things. I also agree with your unspoken implication that we have no moral obligation to comply with an immoral law. :-)

It's a conditional blessing. They've provided a service subject to certain terms, which they've disclosed prior to you using the service. Your moral obligation is to either accept the terms as they've established them, or not use the service, or negotiate different terms.

If I say you can borrow my car if you have it back by 6pm, then you've got the same choice. It's not morally defensible to say, "well, he's not going to use the car, he doesn't *really* mean 6pm." Those were the terms, and you accepted them. Morally, it doesn't matter *why* I want my car back at 6pm -- it's my car so I make the rules.

Yeah, so having the book back in circulation earlier means that you "create" another copy. Finite library resources place a limit on the affect they have on publishing company sales. Putting the electronic copy back into circulation changes this equation.

Even if it had no impact at all, one's own moral peace of mind is the most important factor anyhow. Ever read Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"? If not, I think you'd really like it. Pirsig sees mechanical maintenance, and by extension, all human endeavor as essentially moral problems:

Only if you accept the legitimacy of the very concept of "slave" and that people can be owned.

Are you suggesting that you don't accept the notion of "ownership" of intellectual property such as books or music? Is your position that a book or a recording is like a human being that cannot be morally owned at all? If not, and you accept that these things can be owned, are you suggesting that the owner should not be allowed to place limitations on how his property can be used?

I was only really arguing against the unsupported "your ethics are bound by their intentions" part.

I think that right there is the key. They only want one copy of that 'book' in circulation and limit the number that are out there concurrently. Their reasons for doing so are pretty clear, the less in the wild, the more chances they have of somebody buying it to bypass that queue.

Ethics are defined on an individual basis. What I may consider right (or wrong) may not exactly match up with somebody else. This is based on experience, upbringing, etc (product of your environment). To me, the publishers clearly only want one copy in circulation from that library, so I would obey that wish and say it is 'wrong' not to follow their wishes.

This may be true, but while right and wrong is defined by the individual, that doesn't mean that all definitions are equally valid. That's a common trap for egalitarians, who know intuitively that a skinhead's definition of right and wrong is not as sophisticated as Albert Schweitzer's, but are unable to articluate why that is. See Kohlberg's stages of moral development for a commonly accepted objective classification of moral development.