Adobe's ADEPT DRM Broken 273
An anonymous reader writes "I love cabbages has reverse-engineered Adobe's ADEPT DRM (e-book protection). On February 18, I love cabbages released code that decrypts EPUB e-books protected with ADEPT and followed that up on February 25, with code that decrypts PDF e-books protected with ADEPT. On March 4, I love cabbages was given a DMCA take down notice. And there's plenty of evidence he got it right. DS:TNG (Dmitry Sklyarov: The Next Generation)?"
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:5, Interesting)
While some DRM-crackers are indeed, more or less unrelated(you don't see GPL proponents celebrating the availability of cracked copies of proprietary software), the DRM-crackers who stand up for our freedom to own and control our computers, rather than the other way around, have pretty much exactly the same objective as core GPL proponents.
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:5, Interesting)
The GPL is an additive license. You don't loose the right to do anything under it, you gain the right to do things you weren't otherwise allowed if you follow it.
The DRM license an eBook is published under is subtractive, you don't gain anything from the license that your money hasn't already purchased. The sole point of the license is to force you to give up rights 'in favor' of the rights holder position.
Apples and Oranges my friend.
When you come up with a DRM backed license that at leasst actually gives, in exchange for what it's taking, something of value, then you might have an arguement. Till then, when I purchase a book, I expect to be able to use it. And since the law explicitly allows circumvention of DRM for the purposes of interoptability, I'd say so does the law.
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, to use your argument, if I wanted to argue that I should have the RIGHT to use the Linux kernel however I see fit (including, potentially, in a closed-source application), you'd be in favor of that. Because that should be my right as a consumer of the code, to determine how I want to use it... right.... right?
That is correct. You are able to personally use GPL software in a closed-source application. You are, however, unable to distribute said close source software with the GPL software.
Sorry, but that's not how it works. If the GPL rights-holder gets to use copyright law to dictates "terms of use" for GPL'ed content, then the DRM'ed rights-holder gets to use copyright law to dictate THEIR terms of use as well. If you don't like those terms, feel free to use something else, just as lots of people who don't like GPL license terms use BSD or even (gasp!) closed-source code.
Actually, I am pretty sure that is exactly how it works. Under the fair use doctrine I am allowed to personally use a valid copy of a copyrighted work as I see fit, but I am unable to (in most cases) to distribute the work.
BTW, I am a rights-holder and I have used both open and closed source licensing. As a rights-holder, why would I care if they choose to use my applications in a manner other than prescribed so long as they do not distribute the software without my permission?
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:3, Interesting)
The rights-holder is the sole arbiter of the "conditions of the distribution of their content".
No, the courts are.
If they want to distribute content to you which you are forbidden to use in months which end in "Y" that is their right.
No, it is not. Once the product has been sold to you the rights holder has nothing to say about how you use it so long as you stick to what copyright law allows you to do with it.
But at the end of the day, the copy of the content was given to you, after an exchange of moneys, based on an agreement (the license agreement).
No, it was not. It was sold to you as a product, and it is a product that you can use according to what is permitted by copyright law. You only need a /license/ if you intend to put it to uses that copyright law does not permit.
As for what copyright law allows you to do, it allows you to use the product in the expected manner (that is, listen to music or watch a film) and some jurisdictions even allow you to make backup copies of it. There will tend to be a myriad other things you can also do with it without having to get permission from the rights holder.
Re:and... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right.
The problem is that the Entertainment/Industrial Complex believes there's a lot more money in the safe than there really is.
The "Sita Sings the Blues" case proves that. Somebody thought that the intellectual "property" of a handful of songs from the 1930's was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were wrong.
So they take their anger out on "I love cabbages" and The Pirate Bay. It's futile, but try telling that to someone who's enraged that the "Rolex" they bought was really a fugazi.
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, all the trolls have come out of the woodwork.
What makes you think people are going to stop creating works of art just because somebody else is going to copy them? What makes you think that people are going to stop singing, painting, writing, telling stories, just because somebody else can sing the same song, paint the same picture, write the same words and tell the same stories?
Without copyright, people might not make money out of it. But nobody says people are supposed to make money for everything they do. Making money is not a right.
Incorrect DMCA notice? (Score:2, Interesting)
You could argue this violates the DMCA with respect to technological protection measures.
But DMCA notices use a different part of the DMCA, which allows takedowns for actual copyright violations. IANAL, but I don't think that you can combine the two and use a DMCA notice to take down something that doesn't violate copyright but does violate the other part of the DMCA.
Re:and... (Score:5, Interesting)
Far worse for them, unlike the safe, anyone can take a 'crack' at it with no risk whatsoever. Nobody ever got carted off to jail because they were discovered cracking the DRM on Monday morning. You have as long as you care to spend to crack it.
For some, the entertainment value of cracking the DRM (think of it as a puzzle) far exceeds the value (to them) of the content. Then, of course, there's the value of being recognized as an 'uber hacker' if you're the first to crack it. The harder the DRM is, the greater that value is.
Because of that, weaker DRM might actually keep the content locked up longer (I believe that's what you're getting at by releasing DRM with an exploit). That certainly would reduce the entertainment value of finding a second way in.
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hey, why not just steal GPL code? (Score:3, Interesting)
Publishes once added value. They really don't anymore.