Removing DRM from Kindle Ebooks, is it sinful?

[Dpoc41]

Is it morally wrong to remove DRM from kindle ebooks after purchasing so you can use on a different device? Its a violation of Amazon’s T&Cs to strip DRM from Kindle books, but DRM removal is not illegal in the UK; there is no law which prohibits it. Format conversion technically is illegal, but nobody has ever been prosecuted for it, (Does removing DRM count as format conversion?) and the recording industry body in the UK has said that they will not take action against anyone shifting formats for personal use (eg ripping a legally-bought CD to an MP3 player).

Is it a mortal sin?

 

[edwest2]

Is it morally wrong to remove DRM from kindle ebooks after purchasing so you can use on a different device? Its a violation of Amazon’s T&Cs to strip DRM from Kindle books, but DRM removal is not illegal in the UK; there is no law which prohibits it. Format conversion technically is illegal, but nobody has ever been prosecuted for it, (Does removing DRM count as format conversion?) and the recording industry body in the UK has said that they will not take action against anyone shifting formats for personal use (eg ripping a legally-bought CD to an MP3 player).

Is it a mortal sin?

Digital Rights Management is there for a reason. I work in publishing and know why it’s there. Yes, I understand the convenience factor in having it transferred to a different device. Legal or illegal, just ask yourself if you would like your book to be treated in this fashion. Ask your priest regarding the sinfulness of doing it. As you know, there are laws for other things that people want to do and they don’t like those laws. Motivation is part of it.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Dpoc41]

Digital Rights Management is there for a reason. I work in publishing and know why it’s there. Yes, I understand the convenience factor in having it transferred to a different device. Legal or illegal, just ask yourself if you would like your book to be treated in this fashion. Ask your priest regarding the sinfulness of doing it. As you know, there are laws for other things that people want to do and they don’t like those laws. Motivation is part of it.

God bless,
Ed

To be honest, if someone had bought a book that I wrote , I would have no problem with them changing it to another format for personal use, but if someone can elaborate to why this is wrong, I’m open to persuasion.

 

[Mintaka]

Format conversion of music, computer files, DVDs, etc. is covered under the “fair use” clause if done for personal use.

This has been the case in US law since the days when the music industry tried to forbid people to tape music off the radio for personal use, and to charge fees to the makers of magnetic cassette tape for every single tape ever made, because of its potential to be used to tape records, etc. The same battle was fought over “time shifting,” when people started to use VCR tape to watch TV programs later than when they were broadcast, or to avoid watching commercials. Now we’re back to trying to say that real property is only “licensed,” and trying to deprive people of various normal property rights. This too shall pass.

The entertainment industry keep trying to deprive ordinary consumers of their ordinary fair use rights. The power of technology keeps giving consumers more ways to use those rights fairly.

The very act of reading is itself a format conversion, from computer program or book to brain. Clearly no law or license is meant to allow one to download your book onto your Kindle and then forbid one to actually read the book, or to learn the words of the book by heart. So it’s pretty darned silly to allow the ultimate format conversion and yet think you can forbid minor ones. That which makes no sense is not a moral law.

So if you’re not using such a thing to try to sell an ebook to somebody else or share a zillion copies with your friends, there’s no harm in using a format conversion program to make life easier. You own that particular ebook copy in common law and in moral law, and you can do stuff to the format.

So basically, you can go with the DRM and be courteous to the poor scaredy corporations using DRM for no good reason. (It certainly doesn’t stop pirates from pirating, and the pirates never planned to pay for their ebooks. So DRM is only onerous to honest readers who have already paid.) Choosing to sacrifice convenience for other people’s feelings is a moral act.

Or you can go with a little Irish democracy and civil disobedience, and make use of your property rights to that particular copy. Civil disobedience against unjust laws is an act of defense of the rights of all other citizens, so it is also a moral act.

So since you have already paid your money, you can take your choice.

If you find DRM onerous, you should avoid buying books with DRM. Many authors advertise that their books do not feature DRM, and Amazon encourages people to be clear about what they are providing - DRM or no DRM. A book that is marked “No DRM” is your cue to use format conversion programs without worry.

 

[Sandraaustin]

If I were an author, I’d want to sell books and make money on my work. Legally, (whether the powers that be decide to prosecute or not) it is akin to stealing. A lot of things are legal, yet immoral and mortal sins, as we all know. A user should purchase the book in each format needed, as they are separate products and since removing the DRM results in less profits for ALL involved: publisher, author, booksellers, readers (audio) etc.

As for being a mortal sin, I don’t know-- is it ‘grave matter’?

It may be best to examine your conscience and ask a priest or spiritual director for help discerning. For me, I’d pay the extra money and avoid the dilemma starting now that you are questioning it. God bless!

 

[Mintaka]

If somebody’s already bought my book in Kindle format, I want them to be able to turn it into an epub or a PDF, whatever is easier for them to read. It’s all the same file, really.

In fact, right before Christmas I was emailing somebody about how, if he bought my ebook, it was perfectly okay for him to turn the book into a file format more useful to him. (Albeit my book is nonfiction and sometimes I think the footnotes need a conversion into a database file.) But I don’t feel threatened about someone converting a bought copy of my fiction, either. I already have their money! They are my beloved customers! Why would I even want to try to choke more money out of them for the same thing?

I would say that audiobooks are a bit different case, even as video adaptations would be. That’s not a conversion, but an addition and transformation. The voice actor or narrator adds his own interpretation to the work. (Using a text-to-voice conversion program would count as a file-conversion, I think. At this stage, computer voices are a case of “you get what you pay for,” although they’re getting much better at the pricey end of the spectrum.)

I still remember how it used to be a big thing for people to resent the ability for someone to change font size on an HTML file. Because the right of the author to control the font size was absolutely sacred, and God forbid somebody’s Granny should be able to crank up the font big enough for her to read it.

This is the same thing. No matter how much people want to stomp their feet and complain about it, it’s still not immoral for Granny to change the font size.

It probably is immoral to try to force her to read the small print, and to try to forbid her to crank it up.

Also, the sad truth is that format conversion is one of the best ways to back up your files. Most DRM schemes eventually run up against the fact that you’ve bought your 4th laptop, your 3rd tablet, and your 8th phone since you bought the file. If the band’s gone out of business and broken up so thoroughly that the song’s not for sale any more, it’s ridiculous to lose your own property to DRM. Bookbuyers are in the same boat, with regard to authors pulling their books or ebook companies disappearing like snow in summer.

So far Amazon is the only company that hasn’t lost any of my ebooks; and there are hundreds of Amazon Music songs that I bought, and which were supposed to be backed up forever, but which I can’t get back a hold of, even from Amazon, unless I call their support line and bug the poor guys. The non-DRM copies of these same songs are on my old hard drive, and thus I can easily transfer them to my new computers and devices. I have some backup. That’s why I bought non-DRM music in the first place.

 

[Tomdstone]

If I were an author, I’d want to sell books and make money on my work. Legally, (whether the powers that be decide to prosecute or not) it is akin to stealing. A lot of things are legal, yet immoral and mortal sins, as we all know. A user should purchase the book in each format needed,…

Is it a sin to read a book without buying it? You get to read the whole book, and the author gets nothing and all your friends can read it too? It is legal, because we have public libraries where you can read what you want without paying for anything?

 

[Sam43232]

Digital Rights Management is there for a reason. I work in publishing and know why it’s there.

With all due respect, I think the reason it’s there is to make more $$.

Publishing companies have been incredibly greedy when it comes to digital versions of these things. Here’s an example: I can buy a $10 paperback which probably cost various companies about $7 to print, bind, ship, store, shelve and sell. I can then take this book, read it, lend it to an unlimited number of friends, and when I’m done I can sell it for $1 the next time I have a garage sale.

OR, I can buy a $9 digital book from X digital retailer which probably cost various companies less than $0.01 to list on a website. I I can’t lend it or even resell it when I’m done.

Digital publishers (of music, games, books and films) are trying to do these things with the digital market:

1. Eliminate the used sales market - some publishers even look at sales of used copies as “stolen sales” even though it’s legal practice and common sense. (Hence the move to subscription services & DRM etc)
2. Sell a far cheaper digital object for the same price as a physical object with a MUCH higher profit margin.
3. Limit the versatility of a digital object to protect sales (sometimes this is legit (see # 4 other times this is stupid and greedy, like when they had Amazon take out the ability for the kindle to read the book to you, because they want you to buy audiobooks instead.)
4. Fight a “sharing is not stealing” culture. IMHO, this is the ONLY legitimate reason publishers have for thinking about DRM. Unencumbered digital goods allow you to make unlimited copies at close to 0 cost and distribute them all over the world. Obviously, this deprives an author/musician/artist & publisher of legitimate revenue as they like anyone else are entitled to be paid for their work. Also obviously, if you are not removing DRM in order to share, this doesn’t apply to you.

Anyways, back to the OP’s question…

No, it is not sinful to remove DRM from your Kindle eBooks for personal convenience provided you are in a jurisdiction that makes format shifting legal for personal use. It’s like if I bought a hammer that came with T&C that only permitted me to use it on nails purchased from the same company. I would feel not a shred of guilt for using it with other nails. I still legally paid for a book; and I’m legally entitled to read it the way I’d like.

I’m not an expert on UK law, where you mentioned that this sort of thing is broadly illegal. I’m also not an expert on whatever Catholic documents might pertain to this (I’m currently discerning a call to the Catholic church.)

Based solely on what I’ve elaborated on above, the question you’d need to ask is whether or not God requires you to obey the government when they’ve created a frivolous law to support the greed of certain institutions. IF removing DRM is sinful, it’s ONLY because Christians have a duty to uphold the law and that’s the current law. It’s certainly not because it’s inherently wrong, especially in the scenario you described, and I sincerely hope the laws of your country change.

 

[z_0101]

Is it a sin to read a book without buying it? You get to read the whole book, and the author gets nothing and all your friends can read it too? It is legal, because we have public libraries where you can read what you want without paying for anything?

Agreed, No it is not a necessarily a sin to read a book you do not personally own - hence public libraries and the fair use to loan a copy of a book I’ve purchased to a friend to read.

Not agreed, public libraries, therefor the people supporting those libraries, pay substantial fees to be able to lend the circulating materials. Hence, when someone steals a book or fails to return a book in usable condition the fee to replace the material is considerably higher than if one were to simply purchase the same text from a local bookstore. I had a book stolen from me and it was going to cost me around $60US to replace the book; however, I could go online and find the same book for $20US and offered to do this for the library. The director was very kind and showed me the difference. The library version caries an approval from the copyright holder to provide that particular item for circulation in consideration for a royalty fee. The director showed me where even with books in the public domain they had to be careful how they purchased the materials.

Copyright laws are just a murky swamp.
The problem as I see it is that a small but vocal minority wants to copyright every word and idea and then charge… count the word “the” now let someone copyright that… charge me for each one typed, charge CA for each one shown and charge the readers for each one read - and then we get the other end where they think nothing should be copyrighted.

Personally, I’m in the middle, with the law as actually written… properly used, fair use.

 

[Sandraaustin]

Is it a sin to read a book without buying it? You get to read the whole book, and the author gets nothing and all your friends can read it too? It is legal, because we have public libraries where you can read what you want without paying for anything?

If you buy a hardcover book, you can do whatever you want with it, burn it, share it, even sell it on eBay for 30x what you paid for it-- you own it fair and square cause you PAID for it. But then do you think you also have right to the softcover version, the video, the DVD and the Blu-Ray disc? If not, why not, it’s the same reasoning. Libraries are not free, our taxes pay for libraries; borrowing library books is just irrelevant to the topic.

Placing the DRM of course is only to make more money. (And not a sin.) Likewise, removing DRM is of course to get OUT OF paying money and still getting the benefit as if you paid for the product, aka stealing. I have no idea if it’s a mortal sin, IMO it doesn’t sound like grave matter, but the author may have a different viewpoint.

If the product comes in both forms, then consumer should pay for each form consumer desires. The DRM is placed for a reason and if you feel to circumvent the system to save $10 is FAIR to all the people losing that $10, by all means, go for it. It’s probably not prosecuted because the courts are busy enough, but it is still illegal if DRM is placed.

BTW – I never said removing DRM was a sin, I don’t know. I don’t even particularly care and didn’t know what a DRM was till I read the post. The question was asked and I answered. I think CAF would be a lot more pleasant if people just answered the OP instead of critiquing everyone else’s responses. Copyrighted 2015 LOL

 

[Sandraaustin]

To Tomdstone, sorry, I quoted your post but I was not responding only to you. I was going from memory which is always a bad idea in my case… I went back to edit and it was too late. That wasn’t all at you (obviously.)
Happy new year and God Bless!