[Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question

Sun May 16 17:27:07 UTC 2010

I think the reason Bookshare claims they are in the right is that 1.
they only allow content to be downloaded by members with a verified
disability, 2. the content is delivered in an encrypted file to begin
with, and 3. after decryption the content is still in w hat could
possibly be declared a special format. (BRF is definitely a special
format, DAISY is a bit of a stretch but it might suffice by law.)

Sure, you can easily convert Bookshare content to plain text. And many
people I know do so for their own personal use - for example, to read
on a device that they own which is not specifically designed for the
blind. (There are legally blind people using the E-Reader style
devices because they can do large print and even inverted text
colors.) Distributing that content would, of course, be illegal. But
remember, you could just as easily connect a patch cable up to your
NLS player and record an entire book into an unencrypted WAV file.
Would that be illegal? That whole issue is being hotly debated and I
won't get into it here, but suffice it to say that it is no harder to
convert NLS content to an unencrypted format than it is to convert
Bookshare content. (It simply takes longer to convert the NLS
content.)

What we must remember is that the entire NLS security scheme is
dependent on the security of a handful of master keys. If these keys
were ever leaked, the entire system would collapse in its current
state. I applaud the efforts of the team to implement NLS playback,
but I truly don't see it happening. A jailbroken iPod is just as
"insecure" at storing secret keys as a desktop or laptop computer. A
Victor Reader or some other closed device can be designed from the
ground up with a method to securely store the keys, and NLS will only
authorize devices which meet that requirement. NLS has specifically
forbidden playback on PCs for that very reason - there's no way for
them to securely store the keys. The ability to playback the content
on a computer is precisely why DVD and Blu-ray's encryption has been
cracked. NLS doesn't want to suffer the same fate, because the (often
ignorant) publishers will blame the NLS and, in the worst case, we as
blind people in the US would lose access to content in this manner.

It's interesting that you guys do point out that most other worldwide
blind libraries do not encrypt their content. I do know that Canada's
CNIB offers unencrypted DAISY content on CD. I wonder if it means the
copyright standards are just that much more stringent in the US?
Perhaps the US has a stronger fear of piracy?

FM

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 7:29 AM, Greg Kearney <gkearney at gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess I should explain a bit more what we are asking and thinking about
> here.
>
> Daisy Bookworm and Olearia  were written primarily to support books from our
> library at ABWA as well as Vision Australia and RNZFB. They will read any
> non encrypted DAISY book. As it happens this means every book from every
> other library for the blind in the world. The sole exceptions are RFB&D, who
> we are working with to provide playback, and the NLS system.
>
> What we are looking into is to have the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch hardware
> authorised as playback device in the same way that the VictorReader Stream
> is authorised. That is to say that the hardware itself would be identified
> as belonging to an authorised user. In the case of the VictorReader Stream
> this is done by serial number and an authorisation key tied to that number.
> A similar thing could be done with the iPhone/iPad/iPod there by providing
> proof that the owner of such was an authorised user. In effect the
> iPhone/iPad/iPod is nothing more than a playback device like the Stream and
> could be treated the same way.
>
> I must admit that the status of all of this in U.S. Copyright law has be a
> bit confused to say the least. Let take a look at two organisations both
> producing copyrighted works under U.S. law:
>
> The NLS seems to be saying that it is a requirment under the law that books
> be in an encrypted format playable only on special authorised devices.
>
> Bookshare on the other hand says that it can provide, in many cases the text
> of the same books, in clear text requiring only that the user have a user
> name and password to download and unpack the same. Once a Bookshare title
> has been unzipped all of the text is in a human readable for and can be
> simply transformed into any number of formats in much the same way Braille
> can be back translated.
>
> So who is in the right here? it is the same book and if anything the
> Bookshare version would be even more valuable to pirates as it has the text
> of the book and not simply a recording. Both these claims can not at the
> same time be true the law either requires encryption and special devices or
> it does not.
>
> In any event there are many technical issues to solve, most notably the
> issues surrounding the playback of the audio in the NLS format and we may
> never be able to do that and preserve battery life.
>
> So to be clear here we are not asking the NLS to change the format of their
> books and we are clearly not asking or suggesting that anyone "share" the
> book with unauthorised users. Right now we are only asking what the process
> is to get a device authorised for NLS playback as other devices have been in
> the past and to what extent if any there is interest in the print disabled
> community in having such playback on the iPhone/iPad/iPod.
>
>
>
> Gregory Kearney
> Manager - Accessible Media
> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>
> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>
> On 16/05/2010, at 7:09 PM, Fr. John Sheehan wrote:
>
>> You have to remember that NLS is governed by the publishers. As long as
>> their material is in a proprietary format, they can issue the materials
>> without worrying about copyright. Braille is a proprietary format - and when
>> they went to audio, NLS devised its own unique system first for tape, now
>> digital. If they open it up for wider use, they will be required to get
>> individual copyright permission for each work, or pay. Either would cripple
>> the service. But in terms of "sharing" with more popular devices, they don't
>> really have much choice. Remember how the publishers and then authors
>> reacted when the Kindle 2 was released with its text to speech feature? Same
>> issue.
>> Fr. John R. Sheehan, SJ
>> Chairman
>>
>>
>> Xavier Society for the Blind
>> 154 East 23rd St
>> New York, NY 10010
>> (212) 473-7800
>> Help us raise money for the Xavier Society for the Blind just by searching
>> the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - www.goodsearch.com -
>> powered by Yahoo! Free for you - and money for us! Thank you.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Lynn Evans <evans-lynn at comcast.net>
>> To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 2:46:22 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>
>> Just being a smart ass here:
>>
>> With all the emails flying back and forth here, we haven't yet convinced
>> NLS
>> to release their proprietary format?
>>
>> hmmmmm
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Flint Million" <fmillion at gmail.com>
>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 1:50 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>
>>
>> I think another possible issue is that the iPod has an AAC/MP3 decoder
>> in hardware, but not an AMR-WB+ decoder. I may be completely wrong on
>> that since the iPhone is probably using some kind of AMR audio for the
>> phone component, but I have never read any specs on it. Also it'd  be
>> logical that the iPod touch would lack such a decoder even if one is
>> in the iPhone. (And it could also be that the iPhone's decoder, if
>> any, is part of the GSM hardware itself and not part of the media
>> playback chipset.) This would mean we'd be reduced to decoding the
>> book content in software, which would potentially reduce battery life.
>> One of the selling points of the iPod touch is its seriously long
>> playback time - they rate it at about 30 hours for music, which
>> matches our big tabletop NLS players - but they achieve this by doing
>> as much as they can in hardware using specialized very-low-power
>> chips. Anything done in software on the device eats the battery life
>> away, because the main processor, while efficient, can't compete with
>> a specialized low-power decoding chip for media content.
>>
>> And of course, the issue still stands with how to get the book content
>> on to the device. I may be wrong, but I think Apple disapproves of
>> methods of loading content that involve simple drag-and-drop. All of
>> the apps I've seen available on the app store for content consumption
>> require you to either use WebDAV or FTP or a traditional web server
>> style upload mechanism. This adds yet another complexity to the
>> process. Apple's App Store policies seem to include some unwritten
>> rules about things like this (I'm sure some have heard the stories of
>> apps being rejected for no apparent reason), so this is just another
>> thing to worry about.
>>
>> FM
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Besides, multi-use devices do each of their functions with equal
>>> mediocrity!
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Burke, Dan (DSS)" <burke at mso.umt.edu>
>>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:35 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>>
>>>
>>>> It's logical - everybody is searching for a single multi-use device. I
>>>> would love to be able to use my smart phone to read Daisy and NLS.
>>>>
>>>> But htis is not a world that always makes sense, is it?
>>>> (grin)
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dan Burke
>>>> Assistant Director/Assistive Technology Coordinator
>>>>
>>>> Disability Services for Studentstss
>>>> The University of Montana
>>>> Emma B. Lommasson Center 154
>>>> Missoula, MT 59812
>>>>
>>>> 406.24.4424
>>>> 406.243.5330 FAX
>>>>
>>>> www.umt.edu/disability
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>>>> On Behalf Of Eric SS
>>>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 4:21 AM
>>>> To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
>>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>>>
>>>> I would think anyone who currently uses one of the dedicated NLS-capable
>>>> devices and has an Iphone/Touch/Pad, would be very happy to be able to
>>>> use
>>>> just one device. I know a couple of folks who don't use the NLS digital
>>>> service because they do not want to deal with another device, but would
>>>> become enthusiastic users if they could listen on their Iphone, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Eric SS
>>>>
>>>>
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