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Canadian Ebook Store Offers 'Free' Public Domain Ebooks -- Claims Copyright Says You Can Only Make 1 Copy

I have in the past argued about how commercial distributors take free and open content and 'enclose' it in proprietary formats and closed markets. Here we have a case in point. The ebook store launched by Chapters-Indigo provides "free" ebooks - but all claimed to be copyright to the store, all displayed in closed Flash format, and all limited to one download per person. "This isn't the first time we've seen bookstores DRM up and claim copyright over public domain works. The DRM stuff is dumb, but understandable, since they just want to have one system and often seem to choose an anti-consumer one." Mike Masnick, TechDirt, November 20, 2009. [Link] [Tags: Digital Rights Management (DRM), Books, Open Content, Canada, Copyrights, Patents] [Previous][Next]

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