IT Policy Guide/Anti-DRM

Ebooks Anti-DRM Statement

Libraries play an incredibly vital role in our society. They are tasked with preserving, cataloguing, and providing access to human knowledge. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is antithetical to the mission of libraries and even to the existence of the book. While the advent of digital media and the internet has greatly improved the accessibility of cultural works, the development of DRM has impeded the benefits information technology would naturally provide the world.

Due to legal, technological, and ethical concerns around DRM, we are making a commitment to reject such technologies. DRM is a framework meant to supersede copyright law with far more limiting technological restrictions. This is an anticompetitive tactic that exploits readers without helping authors.

DRM allows ebooks to be remotely destroyed, creating the potential for digital book burnings that can happen instantly, silently, and on a massive scale. We would never allow bookstore employees to enter our homes and take our books back or sign agreements to have our journals confiscated and destroyed after our subscription to them expired. Since encumbered ebooks stay locked forever, DRM renders Copyright irrelevant and eliminates both fair use and the public domain, both of which have always been fought for by libraries.

The notion of checking something out is based on physical scarcity; to be enforcing artificial scarcity where none actually exists is entirely contrary to the purpose of a library. If the availability of books is entirely controlled by third-party corporations, libraries will only serve as a temporary and disposable redistributor, and books that are owned by their readers will be a thing of the past.

Libraries have also fought for the privacy of our patrons and recognize the total surveillance which DRM can provide. Users are required to use only authorized software and hardware, forcing people to adopt technologies that support this vendor lock-in scheme. Not only can reading lists be tracked, but also every time a book is opened, what pages are viewed, and what notes are taken. DRM requires patrons to cede control of their computers to third-party corporations, so that those companies can restrict when and how users may access "checked out" books or audio files.

As a library, we derive great market power from our many patrons that come to us to discover new books, and we will not allow that power to encourage the use of DRM. We are committed to ensuring that readers do not lose their legal rights under fair use from technological restrictions as ebooks gain popularity. We are adopting a strong policy against such technologies:

• We will not participate in maintaining a DRM system
• We will not distribute or provide a platform for distributing DRM-encumbered media
• We will not purchase, lend, or sell devices which require DRM for viewing any media

What's wrong with DRM?

• Accessibility: DRM may prevent text-to-speech software from working on ebooks which is needed by many readers with disabilities or visual impairments.

• Exploitation: DRM does not protect against piracy as it is easy to break with widely available tools, but it inconveniences legitimate readers and places the burden on them for limited access to their books.

• Vendor lock-in: DRM leaves both publishers and readers at the mercy of whoever controls the DRM. This is an effort to lock both readers and publishers into one digital bookstore platform.

• Obsolecense: DRM impedes the preservation of human knowledge by preventing conversion of ebook files into other formats which will be needed as our technology continues to evolve.

• Privacy: DRM ties an identity to the unlocking of an ebook and readers' libraries, reading habits, and notes may all be monitored.

• Expiration: DRM encumbered media depends on the survival of the bookstore controling it, meaning that the book only lives as long as the seller does.

• Unfair terms: DRM is accompanied by user agreements restricting how readers are permitted to use their own books.

• Archival: DRM prevents archival and backups because copying the book for any reason is not allowed and impossible.

• Compatibility: DRM requires authorized software and hardware, forcing readers to use only technologies that support DRM schemes.

• Sharing: DRM sometimes allows lending ebooks for short periods, but the book may never be sold or passed on.

• Copyright: DRM renders Copyright irrelevant and eliminates fair use and the public domain because ebooks stay locked forever.

• Censorship: DRM allows ebooks to be remotely destroyed creating the potential for digital book burnings on a massive scale that can happen instantly and silently.

• Mission: DRM is incompatible with the mission of libraries to provide shared access to information.