Slashdot points us to the rather unfortunate news that Amazon has sent a DMCA takedown notice to MobileRead, concerning a link that site had to a small piece of software that would allow ebooks purchased elsewhere (other than Amazon) to work on the Kindle. There are a number of issues here, all of which seem troubling.

First, MobileRead never hosted the software in question, but merely had links to the tool and some instructions. Such a takedown is only supposed to be used for sites that actually have the infringing material. However, thanks to the wonderful chilling effects of the DMCA, MobileRead removed the links.

Second, it's not at all clear how this script violates the DMCA. It doesn't remove copy protection at all. It just serves to open up the device for other eBooks to be used on the device. All too often we've been seeing the DMCA used in cases like this, where companies are treating the DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses to mean that they can stop just about any script they don't like from being available. This is clearly not what the DMCA was intended to do.

Third, the script was useful for allowing legally obtained ebooks from other stores to be read on the device. In other words, it was not a tool for copyright infringement, but for reading legally obtained works. This is a massive problem with the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause: it makes circumvention itself illegal, even if the circumvention is used for non-infringing purposes.

Fourth, Amazon's decision to send a DMCA takedown, in light of all of the above, is bothersome. One would hope that a company like Amazon wouldn't be quite so aggressive in trying to block out competition, in such ways -- especially to the extent of abusing copyright law. There have been a bunch of lawsuits in the past that have pretty much all said using the DMCA solely for anti-competitive purposes is not a legitimate use of the DMCA -- hopefully, someone can send Amazon's lawyers the various cases to make it clear to them that they're on the wrong side of the law here.

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Filed under: Portable Audio

Elaborate viral hoax or next-gen viral ad, that Sony Rolly video has pretty much everyone talking but Sony. We asked Sylvia Shin from Sony Corporate Communications Europe about the Rolly, and while she confirmed she had seen it on Engadget, she of course would say nothing of its actual existence. She did say that rumors of such a device showing up at IFA or being associated with the new Walkman players were not true, so it looks like we'll have to play the waiting game on this one -- we certainly asked to be the first to know if Sony does indeed decide to announce such a product.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops

VIA's already helped Everex pump out what they claim to be the "world's most energy efficient notebook," and it now looks to be trying to do the same for Systemax, with VIA's low-power processors finding a home in the company's latest desktop PC. While they aren't going so far as to claim that they're the "world's most energy efficient," they are promising a significant cut in your power bills, thanks largely to the VIA pc2500G motherboard at the heart of the system and the low-power 1.5GHz VIA C7-D processor attached to it. Otherwise, for $300 you'll get a barely adequate 512MB of RAM, an 80GB SATA hard drive, and a plain old DVD-ROM drive, with Windows XP Home serving as the OS. If that's not quite enough for you, an extra $100 will get you a combo optical drive and Windows XP Professional.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!