Thursday, January 28, 2021

The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics

The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics is currently on sale for $1.99 on Amazon Kindle. However, if you don't wish to support Amazon (who could remove access to your purchased ebooks if they wish), then the ebook is also available elsewhere. Such as on Christian Boook for $1.59. The book is a collection of essays on various apologetics issues from scholars like Bill Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Guillermo Gonzalez, Gary Habermas, J.W. Montgomery, Norman Geisler, Walter Kaiser, Edwin Yamauchi, etc.

By the way:

1. I don't know if it's legal or illegal in the US to remove DRM on DRM-protected ebooks if someone has purchased the ebook for their own personal use. Maybe a lawyer can comment if there are any lawyers around.

2. At the same time, even if it's illegal, there are unjust or unethical laws. Perhaps it's arguable the DMCA or certain sections of the DMCA are unjust or unethical.

3. That said, I'm not implying it's necessarily licit for Christians to break laws even if the laws are unjust or unethical laws.

16 comments:

  1. Why would you want to remove the DRM from the ebook? It's not very expensive to just buy yourself.

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    1. Huh? I'm not talking about DRM-protected ebooks people haven't purchased or don't own. I presume that would be illegal. As I wrote, I'm referring to "if someone has purchased the ebook for their own personal use".

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  2. Oh, so like when the person buys the ebook legally and then removes the DRM

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    1. For example, suppose someone purchases The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics ebook. They paid for it. Presumably this means they own it too. If so, and if they wish to use the ebook for their own personal use, and not resell it or redistribute it or anything like that, then would they be legally allowed to remove the DRM from the ebook? I don't see why not, but I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong. That's all I'm saying.

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    2. It doesn't look like it would be legal: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

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    3. Right, but what about exemptions like these, where "a fundamentally flawed law that forbids users from breaking DRM, even if the purpose is a clearly lawful fair use"? In other words, is this law itself illegal?

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    4. I guess you might be able to request an exemption if you really wanted to.

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    5. What's the reason for removing the DRM anyways though?

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    6. Okay, I'll lay all my cards on the table, though again please keep in mind I'm not a lawyer which is why I was framing it in a series of questions rather than making direct arguments or statements about what I believe (and of course I'm still open to correction since as I've said I could be mistaken):

      My understanding is it'd technically be legal to remove DRM on DRM-protected ebooks for personal use, generally speaking.

      However, the main problem is if we're talking about ebooks from a place like Amazon (or say music from Apple), then Amazon (and Apple) will require people to sign a contract if they wish to purchase their ebooks (or music) and the contract includes agreeing not to circumvent their DRM-protected ebooks or music. Hence, even though it may be generally legal, companies like Amazon (and Apple) will make it a breach of contract and therefore illegal if someone does so with their ebooks.

      Yet presumably not all companies will necessarily make removing DRM a breach of contract. For example, suppose the Christian publisher Crossway doesn't make it a breach of contract. I don't know if they do or don't, just using them as a hypothetical example. If not, then ceteris paribus it would be better to purchase an ebook from Crossway rather than Amazon.

      So one of the main things I'm trying to do is suggest it might be better for people not to support companies like Amazon that make it a breach of contract to remove DRM off of ebooks people have already purchased from them. People don't necessarily "own" their ebooks or at least people can't necessarily fully use their ebooks for personal use even if they purchased their ebooks from Amazon or similarly minded companies, as far as I can tell. Instead, it might be better to buy ebooks from companies that don't do what Amazon does. Perhaps there are Christian companies that people could support instead in this regard.

      Of course, there are other good reasons to support Christian book companies over Amazon and there are other good reasons to not support Amazon, but I'm just attempting to float a reason based on our digital rights as it were.

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    7. Maybe this is a more concise way to put it:

      Suppose someone has purchased all their ebooks on Amazon. Suppose Amazon goes bankrupt or their ebook platform somehow dies. Suppose, as a result, the person loses all their purchased ebooks, because they were not allowed to remove the DRM in order to back up their own collection of ebooks which they had legally purchased from Amazon. Hence they will have to repurchase or otherwise reacquire all their ebooks. All things equal, wouldn't it be better to purchase ebooks from a company that doesn't have DRM on their ebooks or doesn't try to make it illegal for you to remove DRM from their ebooks?

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    8. I see, so the issue is that if you can't remove DRM, there's no way to back up the ebooks in case something happens to your ebook collection.

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    9. That's certainly a practical issue, but the more fundamental issues are over digital rights, property, privacy, free speech, etc. See the EFF on DRM for example.

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    10. And, all things equal, I'd want to argue for supporting companies (especially Christian companies) that are more in favor of people's digital rights over and against big tech companies like Amazon and Apple that often attempt to curtail people's digital rights.

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    11. I can understand that.

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  3. I remove DRM from all my ebooks purchased on Amazon or Google Play. Some books limit how many devices they can be stored on. Years ago, I bought an ebook and could only have it on 1 device. Plus, I print out my ebooks so I need DRM removed in order to print them. I don't sell them and I don't give the paper copies away either. It's the "it's-yours-but-not-really-yours" policy that confuses me. Why not allow people to print their ebooks? Put them on all their devices?

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    1. Same here. I entirely agree with you, FranQ.

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