DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF) [LWN.net]

The Technology Liberation Front grumbles about the use of DRM on the PDF version of the U.S. 9/11 Commission's report. "If I click to enter a password it tells me that I have permission to read and print the document, but not to copy from it. Because there is no copyright, the government has no right to prevent me from copying. I could circumvent the DRM on the PDF, but then it's possible that I'd be violating the DMCA (not the way I read it, but I'd have to take the risk)." As some of the commenters point out, the developers of the free PDF readers have tended to never quite get around to implementing the "no cut-and-paste" bit.

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DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 4:18 UTC (Sat) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link]

Unless I am mistaken, all works are implictly covered by copyright unless the author(s) disclaim their copyright interest explicitly.

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 6:10 UTC (Sat) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]

As the article points out, US copyright law does not cover works created by the federal government:

"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 13:04 UTC (Sat) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link]

Errm, what?

Xpdf doesn't allow copying text if the PDF is copy protected, where does that accusation come from?

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 14:45 UTC (Sat) by climent (subscriber, #7232) [Link]

The article says that the "no cut-and-paste if password protected" has never been implemented... So yeah, you _can_ copy and paste.

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 15:13 UTC (Sat) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link]

Oops. As far as I know no PDF reader has cut support anyway.

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 4, 2007 1:11 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well you can probably do it in Scribus if you wanted to.

It seems a decent way to go about editing pdfs if you want to.

Here's a screenshot showing evince can do it

Posted Feb 4, 2007 19:12 UTC (Sun) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

The Protected PDF in question can be copied using edit->copy. I have not tried using edit->cut.

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 3, 2007 17:17 UTC (Sat) by ketilm (guest, #43123) [Link]

The nice thing about this is that it legitimized the development of tools to circumvent this so-called copy protection. At least to the extent the laws protect technologies that protect against copyright infringement, which I think is the case for the DMCA.

Since the document isn't copyrighted, the protection cannot be against copyright infringement, and thus breaking it isn't illegal. Well, it may be prohibited by other laws, of course, but suing to restrict access to uncopyrighted works concerning an important topic and paid for by the taxpayers is not likely to be a popular move.

-k

DRM on 9/11 Commission Report (TLF)

Posted Feb 4, 2007 1:13 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I don't know for sure, but they would still be illegal under the DMCA.

Developing and distributing hardware or software that can 'crack' copyright restrictions is still illegal even if you don't intend to have people use it to violate copyrights.

That's the nasty thing about it.