Is Hachette Being Hoisted by Its Own DRM Petard?

booksRebecca Tushnet points to this column by Cory Doctorow arguing that Hachette is being held hostage in its fight with Amazon over e-book versions of its books because of its “single-minded insistence on DRM”: “It’s likely that every Hachette ebook ever sold has been locked with some company’s proprietary DRM, and therein lies the rub.” Doctorow argues that because of the DMCA Hachette can no longer get access, or authorize others to get access to, its own books:

Under US law (the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and its global counterparts (such as the EUCD), only the company that put the DRM on a copyrighted work can remove it. Although you can learn how to remove Amazon’s DRM with literally a single, three-word search, it is nevertheless illegal to do so, unless you’re Amazon. So while it’s technical child’s play to release a Hachette app that converts your Kindle library to work with Apple’s Ibooks or Google’s Play Store, such a move is illegal.

It is an own-goal masterstroke.

Everyone loves irony, but I can’t figure out how to make Doctorow’s argument work. First, I can’t figure out what the anticircumvention problem would be. Second, I can’t figure out why Hachette wouldn’t be able to provide other distributors with e-book versions of its books.

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R.I.P., Gabriel Kolko (1932-2014)

gabriel-kolko-tnI was saddened to read of the recent death of prominent historian Gabriel Kolko. He suffered from an incurable neurological disease and relocated to the Netherlands. He then took advantage of that nation’s legal euthanasia option and died in Amsterdam on May 19.

When I was an undergraduate, I read and found immensely provocative Kolko’s “The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916” (1963). Kolko argued in the book that big businesses of the early twentieth century actually wanted the federal government to regulate them in order to avoid more restrictive legislation from state legislatures. Self-styled “Progressive” reformers, in Kolko’s interpretation, were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They worked in sneaky ways to preserve corporate power and to short-circuit efforts to rein in exploitative corporate profit-seeking.

In the later stages of his career, Kolko turned increasingly to American war-making and foreign policy, and his works included:

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Diederich College Appointment of John Pauly as Colnik Chair

John PaulyJohn Pauly came to Marquette University in 2006 to lead the Diederich College of Communication, and we were deans for two years together — or at least next door to one another, as he was in Johnston Hall and I immediately east in the “old building,” as we in the Law School now call Sensenbrenner Hall. Then Dean Pauly became Provost Pauly in 2008, and so for five years I reported to him, although that phrasing does not convey all the support that Provost Pauly gave to the Law School and to me as dean. Throughout these years and his administrative positions, I admired the way John remained engaged in his discipline — journalism — in a way also integrated with the larger work of the Marquette University faculty. I remain particularly drawn to his substantial essay, “Is Journalism Interested in Resolution, or Only in Conflict?,” published in the Marquette Law Review in 2009 as part of a dispute resolution symposium at the Law School (introduced here by conference organizer, Prof. Andrea K. Schneider). There are other examples of his contributions, including a post last month on our blog concerning the study of political polarization conducted by Craig Gilbert, Washington Bureau Chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Law School’s Lubar Fellow for Public Policy Research last year.

In any event, for all these reasons (and for any additional engagement with the Law School that it might occasion), I am delighted that my colleague Lori Bergen, dean of the Diederich College of Communication, has appointed John Pauly as the college’s Gretchen and Cyril Colnik Chair in Communication. In making the announcement, Dean Bergen noted that Prof. Pauly’s research and teaching “in the history and sociology of the mass media, cultural approaches to communication, media ethics and criticism, communication theory and the theory and practice of literary journalism have brought him international distinction as a scholar.” This appointment as Colnik Chair is a signal and well-deserved honor for a much-respected colleague and reflects not just terrific judgment concerning John Pauly’s past contributions to Marquette University and the community of scholars but also a prediction of more such. Kudos and congratulations to all involved.

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