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german library obtains "license to copy"   01.19.2005, 1:53 PM

posted by ben vershbow

Germany's national library, Deutsche Bibliothek, has been made exempt from key provisions of the European Union Copright Directive, giving it the exclusive right "to crack and duplicate DRM-protected e-books and other digital media such as CD-Audio and CD-Roms" (check out post on mobileread).

Further in mobileread: "The Deutsche Bibliothek achieved an agreement with the German Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the German Booksellers and Publishers Association after it became obvious that copy protections would not only annoy teenage school boys, but also prohibit the library from fulfilling its legal mandate to collect, process and bibliographic index important German and German-language based works."

Heartening to see a top-down hack like this.

see also threads on BoingBoing (German libraries can circumvent DRM) and Slashdot

Posted by ben vershbow on January 19, 2005 01:53 PM
tags: Copyright and Copyleft

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