Is it ever legal-or ethical-to be removed by DRM?

Whatever you think about Digital rights management Software, it is difficult to argue with the fact that this is uncomfortable. Such technology exists, in theory, to protect the intellectual property of companies that create music, movies and games, but can also be enjoyed enjoying books, music and videos the way you want.

Say, for example, to buy a bunch of books on Amazon Kindle Platform, but later decided you want to move to Kobo device (or vice versa). DRM systems on both platforms are designed to prevent you from migrating your books from one platform, which means you may need to pay just to read the book on Kobo you have already paid for Kindle.

The software exists which one can remove this DRM. It takes you to do some research and jumping through some technical hoops, but it could save you to buy the same media another time. But is it legal?

Illegal, but little is likely to be done

Let’s list the range of scope: The act of removing DRM from any kind of copyright protected is widely illegally in the US Section 1201 Title 17, United States Codewhich has passed with the digital Milennium copyright law in 1998. years.

The rule is quite clearly written: “No person will bypass a technological measure that effectively controls access to the work protected by this title.”

I asked Derek BambauerProfessor of law at the University or Florida specializing in online law, cybergenity and intellectual property, whether there are exceptions. Bambauer tells me that there is very little legal ambiguity here.

“Exceptions are inside, but they are really narrow,” he says, emphasizing that the first arguments of amendments do not work where it is intellectual property.

But will remove DRM from the file you paid for the ending with you, are you going to prison or sued? Maybe not, says Bambauer, because companies usually don’t try to spend it.

“We kindly violate the copyright all the time,” he says, saying that photocopied comics on his office doors are a technical offense. With the final resources, the owners of intellectual property are simple cannot sue everything. “Companies tend to go only for people who distribute cooperated copyright with others.”

“If The DRM Removal is Just for Personal Consumption, IT’s Hard To Detect,” Bambauer Says, “And It’s Not Worth It for Companies Go After That. One, The Music Industry Tried That, And It Was A Horrible Failure. And Two, It’s Just a Lot Easier To Go After The Lot Easier To Go After The Lot Creators and Distributors of the Tools. “

And these are what companies do: try to turn off or block software distribution that removes DRM from files. Bambauer says this is why most such software tends to make people outside the US and distributed on sites outside the United States of Jurisdictions. He also stressed that it was a file sharing with others after removing DRMs much more likely to attract company lawsuits.