jim said:
Seems to me that a human-generated HTML *is* a non-trivial derivative work since the choice of HTML coding *is* a human artistic effort chosen to make the software run well on one or more ebook readers and/or HTML browsers, and as such *is* creative derivative work worthy of copyright. IE I am arguing that writing HTML is writing "software" and is not just "printer's art."
it might seem that way to you... but precedent sides against you. legally, a ruling has been issued; markup is sweat, not authorship... as for d.r.m., amazon lets publishers decide on that matter for themselves. but isn't that point moot if the e-books are constantly freely available from p.g.? i understand the importance of fighting the symbolic battle, but there's no use in wasting ammunition senselessly, is there? -bowerbird
Hi All, Markup as such is sweat. Yet, how you mark up can create and artistically unique work. The area is as many have stated grey. There may be legal precedence stating that mere markup is sweat, yet it does, in the end, depend on the individual case. Even a system that automatically does the mark-up for could qualify, as their is intellectual and artist work done in designing the system and how its output is created. Please, do not forgett that their are enough buzz words in the laws so that an objective decision is in the end is left to an individual judge or judges. Whether, in the end, it is worth it, is another matter. regards Keith. Am 09.12.2010 um 05:10 schrieb Bowerbird@aol.com:
jim said:
Seems to me that a human-generated HTML *is* a non-trivial derivative work since the choice of HTML coding *is* a human artistic effort chosen to make the software run well on one or more ebook readers and/or HTML browsers, and as such *is* creative derivative work worthy of copyright. IE I am arguing that writing HTML is writing "software" and is not just "printer's art."
it might seem that way to you... but precedent sides against you. legally, a ruling has been issued; markup is sweat, not authorship...
it might seem that way to you... but precedent sides against you. legally, a ruling has been issued; markup is sweat, not authorship...
OK, but can you provide a reference to that case for the rest of us who are curious?
as for d.r.m., amazon lets publishers decide on that matter for themselves.
but isn't that point moot if the e-books are constantly freely available from p.g.?
Most publishers, including presumably PG, are not around "forever." Part of the point of PG, in my understanding, is to make sure good books stay alive "forever", and to do so by making them widely distributed. DRM prevents them from being widely distributed, and also it effectively asserts a copyright on something for which no copyright exists. Copyright law says that one cannot break DRM on works under copyright. It doesn't say anything about what happens if someone breaks DRM on something which is not under copyright -- not that I want to be the one to test that case! PG hasn't always been "lily white" about this issue either IMHO, trying to "pick and choose" winners and losers among vendors and distribution formats. DRM also prevents readers from making the machine choices best for them, and it prevents them from moving their personal existing "risen-to-the-public-domain" library from one machine to another. For example, perhaps a reader switches from one cellphone provider to another, and now finds that the DRM placed on his personal existing "risen-to-the-public-domain" library prevents moving it to the cellphone provided by the new carrier. So, IMHO, DRM is being used for a lot more than preventing unwarranted copying. It is also being used to try to force consumers to stay with one vendor. Which seems like the whole theme of Apple, for one example. [Not to say that I know what stuff from Apple is or is not being distributed under DRM. To find out I'd have to buy an iPad and a third-party file manager, move a "risen" eBook off of the iPad, unzip it, and take a look-see to see if the unzipped contents is DRM encrypted or not. I assume one can look inside the zip -- its just trying to decrypt any internal encrypted content that would constitute cracking.] I think the fear that Michael has, which I would concur with, is that as long as "for pay" companies can make money off of risen-to-the-public-domain, and/or "orphaned works" intermediate in term between being actively published and "risen", such as Google has now "stolen away" [by exclusive agreement with the publishers] then the "for pay" companies will more and more push to extend "limited duration" copyright to mean "forever" -- which ultimately I believe bodes very ill for "free speech" and and free society and the long-term safety of our country -- which more and more will be ruled by a small number of extremely wealthy dynasty families who buy and sell our politicians secretly at will.
On Sat, 11 Dec 2010, Jim Adcock wrote: snip
Most publishers, including presumably PG, are not around "forever." Part of the point of PG, in my understanding, is to make sure good books stay alive "forever", and to do so by making them widely distributed.
I think the PG eBooks are out there as much "forever" as anything. . . . Our distribution is so wide that I don't think anyone, including "spook" black ops agents of the CIA, FBI, new KGB, etc., could delete them all.
DRM prevents them from being widely distributed, and also it effectively asserts a copyright on something for which no copyright exists. Copyright law says that one cannot break DRM on works under copyright. It doesn't say anything about what happens if someone breaks DRM on something which is not under copyright -- not that I want to be the one to test that case!
Once the DRM is broken, the result can be put in the public domain, no matter what happens to the original cracker.
PG hasn't always been "lily white" about this issue either IMHO, trying to "pick and choose" winners and losers among vendors and distribution formats.
I don't think we have done any "pick and choose" "among vendors" or "formats." Hundreds of vendors of our eBooks are out there, and anyone who sends us a format to try out is welcome. snip
I don't think we have done any "pick and choose" "among vendors" or "formats."
I would certainly disagree with this "history." When I first approached PG several years ago about how I could support the Kindle using the MOBI file format I was told to go stuff it because PG have chosen to support this cool format called "Plucker." And then more recently PG supported "ePub" completely including table of contents -- where ePub commonly *does not* follow the standards of ODF correctly (following instead an incorrect defacto standard set up by Adobe Digital Editions) but PG did not implement table of contents correctly for Kindle even though the Kindle MOBI standard *does* correctly follow the ODF standards. So the incorrect Adobe implementation was supported but the correct Kindle implementation was not. And when I pointed this out again I was told to go stuff it. Most recently PG seems to be getting this stuff correct on Kindle, but only after a couple years delay.
On Tue, 14 Dec 2010, Jim Adcock wrote:
I don't think we have done any "pick and choose" "among vendors" or "formats."
I would certainly disagree with this "history." When I first approached PG several years ago about how I could support the Kindle using the MOBI file format I was told to go stuff it because PG have chosen to support this cool format called "Plucker."
There are certainly a lot of "nay sayers" on this list, who will say nay to just about any new format proposal, but they don't really run everything, and if you send a new format to Greg Newby or myself, we'll give it a try at least 99% of the time.
And then more recently PG supported "ePub" completely including table of contents -- where ePub commonly *does not* follow the standards of ODF correctly (following instead an incorrect defacto standard set up by Adobe Digital Editions) but PG did not implement table of contents correctly for Kindle even though the Kindle MOBI standard *does* correctly follow the ODF standards. So the incorrect Adobe implementation was supported but the correct Kindle implementation was not. And when I pointed this out again I was told to go stuff it.
We would be more than happy to try your particular flavor of ePub, etc., just send them in.
Most recently PG seems to be getting this stuff correct on Kindle, but only after a couple years delay.
When the naysayers lose, they still often manage to delay things. . . . Greg and I are all for running anything new up the flagpole to see it work, or not, but have to send it to us, sometimes we'll even find you help. However, as with many such proposals, if nothing is sent in, nothing out. mh
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participants (4)
-
Bowerbird＠aol.com -
Jim Adcock -
Keith J. Schultz -
Michael S. Hart