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Xpdf has a history of enforcing purely software DRM on PDFs for no logical reason, such as the disabling of copying text and printing from documents. The upstre

Xpdf has a history of enforcing purely software DRM on PDFs for no logical reason, such as the disabling of copying text and printing from documents. The upstream was against OS distributions patching this silly DRM out. I don't know if the upstream ever changed their policy on this, but there are better PDF readers out there now. Here's a very long, and entertaining thread about it on the OpenBSD mailing lists from 2008. https://marc.info/?t=120906296700004&r=2&w=2 https://marc.info/?t=120906296700004&r=2&w=2 No longer on their website, but original author considered this to be "cracking". https://web.archive.org/web/20161129092715/http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/cracking.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161129092715/http://www.foolab...

michaelmrose 6y ago
He seems to confuse the idea with a legal duty and a moral one as well as failing to understand where his own responsibility lies in the grand scheme of things. Even if there existed a highly questionable moral duty not to say copy and paste a quote from a document its hard to understand ethically why he imagines that he owes the author the duty to enforce this personally convincing others not to patch such a "feature" out. He sounds like a highly detestable human being.
- donw 6y ago
  > He sounds like a highly detestable human being. That is over-the-top harsh. I disagree with the choices the author of XPDF made. I would have made different ones. Neither of us fully understands his mental state, or why he made those choices. So let's focus our criticism on the choices themselves, rather than outright dehumanizing another person for making a technical decision.
maxerickson 6y ago
What's bad about respecting the requests of the publisher of the file? (which is another way to describe the flags)
- notaplumber 6y ago
  There are many legitimate reason for one to need to be able to print or copy text from a document. Enforcing an entirely optional "security mechanism" when there is no technical reason to at the expense of the users of the software makes no sense at all, especially if the only argument is to respect the authors implied arbitrary wishes.
- creata 6y ago
  This is just my opinion, but I think that the software I use should empower me, the user: I don't think my software should force me to "respect the requests of the publisher", and I especially think it shouldn't restrict basic functionality like the clipboard in pursuit of that goal.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Should it empower you to bypass the terms under which content you're accessing were shared? Have you considered that maybe that's disempowering other people using the same tool? Edit: as far as I can tell the groupthink has gone beyond “everyone should use a free license for everything” to “I have a free license to everything damn the actual license”.
    - h_anna_h 6y ago
      > Should it empower you to bypass the terms under which content you're accessing were shared? Yes > Have you considered that maybe that's disempowering other people using the same tool? I can't see why given xpdf with DRM and xpdf without DRM anyone would select the first.
    - zamadatix 6y ago
      Restricting plain text copying on compliant readers isn't really preventing anything though. It's akin to unskippable copy warnings on DVDs, the only thing it does is inconvenience those using it legitimately.
    - creata 6y ago
h_anna_h 6y ago
Sumatra did this too apparently. I do not know if they still do this as I haven't used it in a few years. Edit: So did Okular (the KDE reader) it seems https://tsdgeos.blogspot.com/2009/06/okular-pdf-and-drm.html https://tsdgeos.blogspot.com/2009/06/okular-pdf-and-drm.html Evince too https://superuser.com/questions/767617/disable-drm-in-evince https://superuser.com/questions/767617/disable-drm-in-evince but it is disabled by default now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zamadatix 6y ago
  Just tried it, still does.
- greatgoat420 6y ago
  It is a very very easy flag to change in Okular. I have some stake in saying not to, but ti is super simple to change.
greatgoat420 6y ago
Since this is the top comment currently, I will respond here. At one point in time I had a rather popular ML/AI textbook I offered in PDF format with some restrictions. I, at the time, thought most users would be reasonable and respect those restrictions. Unfortunately you as many others decided to no respect those restrictions. I cannot say it is due to that but my book was one of the more popular epubs/azw's on a few torrent trackers in the mid-to-early 2000's. I love that people are able to access these things, but it would be great if people who could, would donate money to pay for the production of these materials. Overall I got $1502.56 for my publishing a 1086 page text book which took about 2.6 years of my life. Obviously this is my throwaway account so try not to link this back to the actual book.
- greatgoat420 6y ago
  I like that this was downvoted for some reason. Anonymous cowards like free things, or hate people expressing a mild opinion?
  - Meph504 6y ago
    Or maybe people just didn't think it was relevant.
    - greatgoat420 6y ago
      I will give you the fact that word2vec basically changed NLP forever, but it was a very popular download on more than one torrent tracker.
  - rStar 6y ago
    was it available in hard copy as well? that you were paid in addition to the $1500 you got for pdf sales?
    - greatgoat420 6y ago
      I got a royalty advance, which I am not allowed to disclose(pdf sales were part of that, so not in addition to), but overall, it was way under minimum wage for the work done.

michaelmrose 6y ago

He seems to confuse the idea with a legal duty and a moral one as well as failing to understand where his own responsibility lies in the grand scheme of things. Even if there existed a highly questionable moral duty not to say copy and paste a quote from a document its hard to understand ethically why he imagines that he owes the author the duty to enforce this personally convincing others not to patch such a "feature" out. He sounds like a highly detestable human being.

donw 6y ago
> He sounds like a highly detestable human being. That is over-the-top harsh. I disagree with the choices the author of XPDF made. I would have made different ones. Neither of us fully understands his mental state, or why he made those choices. So let's focus our criticism on the choices themselves, rather than outright dehumanizing another person for making a technical decision.

maxerickson 6y ago

What's bad about respecting the requests of the publisher of the file? (which is another way to describe the flags)

notaplumber 6y ago
There are many legitimate reason for one to need to be able to print or copy text from a document. Enforcing an entirely optional "security mechanism" when there is no technical reason to at the expense of the users of the software makes no sense at all, especially if the only argument is to respect the authors implied arbitrary wishes.
creata 6y ago
This is just my opinion, but I think that the software I use should empower me, the user: I don't think my software should force me to "respect the requests of the publisher", and I especially think it shouldn't restrict basic functionality like the clipboard in pursuit of that goal.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Should it empower you to bypass the terms under which content you're accessing were shared? Have you considered that maybe that's disempowering other people using the same tool? Edit: as far as I can tell the groupthink has gone beyond “everyone should use a free license for everything” to “I have a free license to everything damn the actual license”.
  - h_anna_h 6y ago
    > Should it empower you to bypass the terms under which content you're accessing were shared? Yes > Have you considered that maybe that's disempowering other people using the same tool? I can't see why given xpdf with DRM and xpdf without DRM anyone would select the first.
  - zamadatix 6y ago
    Restricting plain text copying on compliant readers isn't really preventing anything though. It's akin to unskippable copy warnings on DVDs, the only thing it does is inconvenience those using it legitimately.
  - creata 6y ago

h_anna_h 6y ago

Sumatra did this too apparently. I do not know if they still do this as I haven't used it in a few years. Edit: So did Okular (the KDE reader) it seems https://tsdgeos.blogspot.com/2009/06/okular-pdf-and-drm.html https://tsdgeos.blogspot.com/2009/06/okular-pdf-and-drm.html Evince too https://superuser.com/questions/767617/disable-drm-in-evince https://superuser.com/questions/767617/disable-drm-in-evince but it is disabled by default now.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zamadatix 6y ago
Just tried it, still does.
greatgoat420 6y ago
It is a very very easy flag to change in Okular. I have some stake in saying not to, but ti is super simple to change.

greatgoat420 6y ago

Since this is the top comment currently, I will respond here. At one point in time I had a rather popular ML/AI textbook I offered in PDF format with some restrictions. I, at the time, thought most users would be reasonable and respect those restrictions. Unfortunately you as many others decided to no respect those restrictions. I cannot say it is due to that but my book was one of the more popular epubs/azw's on a few torrent trackers in the mid-to-early 2000's. I love that people are able to access these things, but it would be great if people who could, would donate money to pay for the production of these materials. Overall I got $1502.56 for my publishing a 1086 page text book which took about 2.6 years of my life. Obviously this is my throwaway account so try not to link this back to the actual book.

greatgoat420 6y ago
I like that this was downvoted for some reason. Anonymous cowards like free things, or hate people expressing a mild opinion?
- Meph504 6y ago
  Or maybe people just didn't think it was relevant.
  - greatgoat420 6y ago
    I will give you the fact that word2vec basically changed NLP forever, but it was a very popular download on more than one torrent tracker.
- rStar 6y ago
  was it available in hard copy as well? that you were paid in addition to the $1500 you got for pdf sales?
  - greatgoat420 6y ago
    I got a royalty advance, which I am not allowed to disclose(pdf sales were part of that, so not in addition to), but overall, it was way under minimum wage for the work done.