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Okular, Debian, and copy restrictionsOkular, Debian, and copy restrictionsPosted Jun 2, 2009 1:01 UTC (Tue) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638)Parent article: Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions
This is a big, big social issue without an easy answer. Where does free software play between the interests of the copyright owners and the users who want to use the copyrighted material with all the restrictions set by the owners?
While there are people who rightly do not want any DRM framework on their GNU-Linux distributions, there is a growing number of users who legitimately demand access to these file types.
Pino brings up another valid point that a perfect implementation of a restrictive technology necessarily means putting those restrictions in for all users, even those who choose not to partake in the copy-restricted media files.
One might say that a distribution could just strip out any DRM framework, but then would it be acceptable to use a distribution without PDF and Flash Video support? Unless you are willing to (illegally?) circumvent the digital restrictions in the specification, seems like you have to accept the DRM with the file support.
Worse, people with any stake in the debate want the restrictions in place for everyone: the copyright publishers who fanatically guard their copyright monopoly, the computer users hungry for all they can eat media content, and the developers who want to write their code to the exact specification. And while users, like Goerzen, can completely reject digitally restricted files, they can still be effected by the unrelated use of those popular file formats.
This is an issue that is going to rise up very soon specifically in GNU-Linux distributions, as both more media content is distributed with digital restrictions and more users demanding access to that media content. I perceive DRM frameworks (in both proprietary and free software) rolling out for text, audio, and video, as well as the multinational legislation and hardware solutions needed to enforce those restrictions. Scary stuff.
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Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 1:37 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
This is a trivial social issue with a very, very easy answer. Some people who are not users don't like the answer.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 1:49 UTC (Tue) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638) [Link]
What is the very easy answer? Circumvent the DRM? Well, now you are a criminal. "Yeah, that was easy!" Seriously, not only are there laws like DMCA that criminalize this specifically, but also multinational trade treaties protecting copyrights generally. Even if those laws are not rigorously enforced within your private home, a commercially supported distribution cannot take that kind of legal risk.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 2:57 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
This is not DRM. For actual DRM cases, we already have evolved the answer, as demonstrated by the present handling of DVD players.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:20 UTC (Tue) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638) [Link]
Having trouble following your replies. You say this is not DRM?
The Okular application says specifically, "copy forbidden by DRM".
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 6:34 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Yes, it's not DRM. I can't help what okular says.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 16, 2009 13:43 UTC (Tue) by zenaan (subscriber, #3778) [Link]
ncm: YOU ROCK!
My god it's good to be involved with the gang at LWN!
Made my day. Nothin like a regular dose of rationality. With class.
And Jon - excellent article! Clearly a timely raising of these issues.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:39 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] It seems pretty much like DRM to me.DRM generally uses encryption, with the distinguishing feature of having the decryption key widely known to all viewer software/hardware in the world. By thus controlling access to the encrypted data by requiring use of the special software with the decryption key, the content creators prevent users from accessing the content in objectionable ways. (or so they'd like to think). This is exactly what the copy-prohibit flag in PDF is doing, except that the default decryption key is actually documented in the PDF format documentation! That part is a little unusual for DRM, and I suppose might make ignoring this flag not trigger the anti-DRM-bypass laws.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:58 UTC (Tue) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638) [Link]
DRM need not be as complicated as you elaborately explained. A quick read of the DCMA definitions of "copy protection systems" shows how broadly it can be defined. Just takes a copy right holder using some technology used to prevent some type of access.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c105:6:./temp/~c105...
Circumvention Posted Jun 2, 2009 14:56 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] The very easy answer is: users do not want DRM restrictions and providers must cater to those users. DRM has failed in mp3 downloads, in DVD players, in protected documents, and in the few areas where it is still tolerated (iPhone apps, DVD CSS, console games) enforcement is quite lax.Circumvention is a valid possibility. AFAIK it is not illegal in the EU or elsewhere, so it can only be a problem in the US.
Circumvention Posted Jun 2, 2009 16:33 UTC (Tue) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638) [Link]
IMHO, the EU reverse-engineering protections for home-use do not defend against creating widespread public software for patent and copyright infringement, and I think we will see this play out in the courts there one day. Regardless, there are current and upcoming multinational trade agreements that do cover circumventing copyright technical restrictions, in the EU, so this issue is not as easily dismissed as to say it is a USA-only problem.
Plus, a quick read of the Directive 2001/29/EC seems to specifically prohibit circumvention of technical copyright restrictions. In Article 6, Section 1: "Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective."
Circumvention Posted Jun 16, 2009 13:52 UTC (Tue) by zenaan (subscriber, #3778) [Link]
Well well well. My, what a cool nic you have ...
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 11:37 UTC (Tue) by neiljerram (subscriber, #12005) [Link] Where does free software play between the interests of the copyright owners and the users who want to use the copyrighted material with all the restrictions set by the owners?Abide by the copyright. No question about it. Free software fundamentally depends on that. We can criticize the law on what is allowed to be copyrighted, and for how long, and try to get that law revised, but that's a completely different matter.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 14:06 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Abiding by copyrights does *not* require this ridiculous complain-when-copying behavior.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 15:07 UTC (Tue) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
Free software does not depend on copyright. The *GPL* requires copyright to be enforceable--purely in order to subvert the negative effects of copyright law, of course--but there is much more to free software than just the GPL. The most obvious example would be software in the public domain, which obviously has no dependencies whatsoever on copyright law. A more common example would be BSD software, where the only requirements are attribution and retention of the original license notice, neither of which is essential to its classification as free software. Software under the MIT and similar licenses could likewise operate just fine in the absence of copyrights.
In any event, this isn't about enforcing or violating copyrights. This is about resisting the user's efforts to employ their documents in ways which they may well have every legal right to use them. An unobtrusive notice that restrictions were requested might be reasonable, but the purpose of software is to assist users in accomplishing their goals. Any software so perverted as to deliberately hinders its users is an abomination.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 2, 2009 21:29 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
"In any event, this isn't about enforcing or violating copyrights. This is about resisting the user's efforts to employ their documents in ways which they may well have every legal right to use them. An unobtrusive notice that restrictions were requested might be reasonable, but the purpose of software is to assist users in accomplishing their goals. Any software so perverted as to deliberately hinders its users is an abomination."
Well, what about the goals of the other users - the ones who wrote and distributed the documents? Their goals may well include, for instance, sending documents out for comment or distributing internal corporate documents that they don't want to see copied into rumor-site postings.
Sure, it's not a serious impediment to copying by people who want to do so, but at least you're making sure they know that they're violating the rules governing your distribution of the document. MANY documents are NOT subject to fair use, because they are distributed under other conditions, to which the user has agreed before receiving the document.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 3, 2009 18:06 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
"Well, what about the goals of the other users - the ones who wrote and distributed the documents?"
What about them? They're users of other software, not Okular. Okular should cater to the needs and wants of its own users. If others want to set these bits in documents they write, their authoring software should likewise allow them to do so.
As I said, it would be reasonable to passively inform the user that these bits are set. Describing the content of a document is, after all, Okular's primary purpose. It is the fact that Okular actively resists its users' obvious intent which I find objectionable. It goes against the entire spirit of Free Software, which is that users should have full control over the software they use.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 3, 2009 18:18 UTC (Wed) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]
"It is the fact that Okular actively resists its users' obvious intent
which I find objectionable."
What on earth are you talking about? Okular provides a toggle for the
I hit this "problem" during my first day of using KDE4, which uses Okular.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 3, 2009 19:25 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
I am aware of the toggle setting, which was cleverly hidden in a non-default page of the application settings dialog. The error message does not mention that this behavior can be disabled (short of editing the code), much less where to find the controls. It would be reasonable to assume that having gone out of their way to block such behavior the developers would make their restrictions as difficult as possible to circumvent; ergo, many wouldn't even go looking for such an option.
Furthermore, while you and I might not have any issues locating it without help, that would not be true for many of Okular's other users. A surprising number of computer users find themselves intimidated by standard configuration dialogs, and those unfamiliar with (or insecure in their knowledge regarding) software design could easily find themselves wondering whether disabling the restrictions might have unwanted, and possible irreversible, side-effects.
In short, the default assumption should be that users both know what they are doing and have all the necessary authority to do it, unless they deliberately disavow such knowledge or authority. On that basis, the default setting should have been to ignore any restriction requests present in the document, aside from possibly displaying them unobtrusively to the user.
"That's utterly trivial compared to, say, figuring out how to make Gnome honor my intent as a user to respond to single right-mouse clicks rather than double left-mouse clicks."
Perhaps so, but there is a world of difference between presenting a default interface which, while full-featured, may not match a specific user's preferences, and going out of one's way to completely disable standard functionality.
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions Posted Jun 3, 2009 22:22 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's reasonable to assume that if you're intimidated by complex
configuration dialogs, KDE is not the desktop for you :)
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