Extracting content from an LCP “protected” ePub

> You can, for sure, publish information relative to your discoveries to the extent UK laws allow. After study, we'll do our best to make the technology more robust. If your discourse represents a circumvention of this technical protection measure, we'll command a take-down as a standard procedure.

Disgusting behaviour, as expected from the publishing industry I suppose. This "EDRLab" outfit appears to be little more than a non-profit front for Hachette.

Granted, Readium LCP[0] may be one of the less odious DRM solutions out there for eBook contents, however it's still DRM. Handcuffs are still handcuffs regardless of how comfortably they fit.

DRM is in my view is too often used as a cudgel to mandate hardware and software level restrictions that take away the control of our own computing devices and environments. I personally hold that intellectual property isn't property, and is increasingly becoming a net negative to humanity as a whole. In the case of this article, there is an ominous threat of legal action against the disclosure of the author's work, potentially stifling the speech of a fellow hacker.

While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of creatives, and their need to eat, I feel like the pendulum has swung so far to the interests of the copyright holders and away from the needs of the public that the bargain is no longer one I support.

Because of this stance, I find myself uncomfortably on the side of AI bros like Sam Altman who argue for the expansion of the fair use doctrine. I see AI as an accelerant in the erosion of IP's relevance and enforceability. With AI being able to crank out derivative works at scale, it blurs the lines between infringement and transformation. My hope is that the flood of such content makes enforcement impractical, and that it will further demonstrate that the IP emperor is naked.

[0]: https://www.edrlab.org/projects/readium-lcp/

His ability to speak out of both sides of his mouth is why no one trusts him, and why I find it so uncomfortable to agree with anything he says.

Very curious (and nervous, as I can imagine more bad outcomes than good ones) as somebody that frequently lends ebooks from libraries supporting LCP. (The only thing worse than "controlled" digital lending would be no digital lending at all.)

LCP is as close to the platonic ideal of DRM as it gets: Essentially no obfuscation; cryptography largely something to point at when filing DMCA takedown requests. For better or worse, I suspect we're about to get some new case law for what constitutes an effective technical measure.