Is It Legal To Convert Acsm To Pdf For Purchased Ebooks?

Question

Fans sharing free PDF versions of purchased books they personally converted feel uneasy about piracy—seeking legal precedent or proper conversion tools.

Jack Jones · Answer

When it comes to digital books, whether it is legal to convert a DRM-protected eBook you own to a different format varies depending on your location and the DRM restrictions of the eBook. However, under US copyright law, it is technically illegal to circumvent the DRM to read a DRM protected eBook you own under the DCMA. This doesn't necessarily mean that converting a DRM-free eBook is against the law, though. If you're looking for some steamy romance to read without the hassle of different file formats, I personally read ‘CARNAL TEMPTATIONS-A collection of 50 steamy stories’ directly in my browser as it is a bundle of very short (less than 10 pages) standalone stories that can be read one after another without the need for any download or conversion.

Ryder · Answer

ACSMS are cross-platform Ebook links (often encrypted by Adobe DRM) to download Ebooks. While converting such books to PDF for personal use generally is not illegal, removing DRM to enable conversion in the first place is restricted by law. It even is prohibited by the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and corresponding legislation in other countries and can be prohibited by the E-book provider as well.

Most publishers are perfectly fine with format shifting for personal use and won’t care that you converted their ebook to a PDF, especially if you are not distributing the new PDF to others. I have books that I purchased from Kobo, for example, that I have converted to .pdb files to read on my Kindle. These days, many platforms are now selling ebook versions of printed books, so it can be a real hassle. Always check the terms of your ebook purchase as some platforms will specifically state that you are not allowed to make any modifications to the ebook.

Weston · Answer

ACSMT Polar follows others in having occasion to wrestle with the issues of DRM and file formats. First note that an ACSM file is a license. Hence, it is in a category all its own and it is not an ebook. So, conversely, an ebook is not an ACSM file. So, converting an ACSM file to a PDF is in a legal grey area. It is legal only to the extent permitted by the retailer's terms of service for the license. Typically that means it is legal for personal use. But that licensed eBook can not be distributed or shared, for example, as a violation of copyright.

I manage my ACSM files with Adobe Digital Editions but there are also tools like Calibre with appropriate plugins to convert as well. As long as you are not sharing the material after you have cracked the DRM then converting to a PDF for personal use is probably fine. Many books these days are distributed as DRM-free and thus can be converted to a PDF for reading as you see fit. However, some publishers explicitly prohibit format shifting while others apparently do not have a problem with it so long as you are not distributing the book to others and you are only using the converted book for your own reading.

Finn · Answer

Note that as ACSM files are locked by DRM, the conversion to PDF of such locked ebook files is in violation of the law (e.g. DMCA). While some people argue that in such cases of no commercial value copying and creation of personal conversion (e.g. of locked ACSM to unlocked PDF) as such would be covered by fair use, there is no court decision yet that would confirm this. I recommend to buy your e-books from stores that don’t use DRM, like e.g. Humble Bundle. If you nevertheless need to convert locked ACSM files to PDF, then you must use authorized software, and you must not distribute the converted files. Adobe Digital Editions is an example of authorized software for that conversion.

Finn · Answer

I’m a book enthusiast and prefer to read on my eReader in PDF format in order to annotate the books that I read. PDFs of books are typically released as ACSM files, which are simply licenses to read the book. In order to convert an ebook released in ACSM format to PDF format for reading on my eReader, I would need to remove the Adobe DRM from the ebook. The Adobe DRM is in place to prevent piracy, therefore I wouldn’t be allowed to break the DRM even if I wanted to. However, many publishers offer their books in DRM-free format, and then it would be perfectly legal to convert those ebook formats to PDF for reading on your eReader. I use Calibre to manage my ebook library of DRM-free books, but I don’t use it to try to remove the DRM from eBooks that are protected by Adobe. Always respect the author’s / publisher’s wishes regarding their eBooks, and if they offer a PDF version of a book for sale, then by all means purchase that PDF version instead.

Olivia · Answer

Some people like to convert their ACSM files to PDFs. However, ACSM files are licenses to read a book online and converting them to PDFs typically involves bypassing the DRM protection which is illegal in many countries. People have varying opinions on whether it is okay to use the converted PDF for personal use or not to distribute the converted PDF to others. I have seen many people use Calibre to convert their ACSM files to PDFs. Be careful to read the terms of service for the ebook, and check with the publisher. Some retailers now sell ebook versions in PDF format. It is generally safe to purchase these versions instead.

Annaliese · Answer

For those who follow security news, Adobe’s DRM system on digital books has been ‘broken’ for years, and simple tools to remove the restrictions are easily found online. Thus, while the law is attempting to protect a lock (be it physical or digital), that lock is quite flimsy. Hence, the DMCA only seeks to prohibit circumvention, i.e. it doesn’t matter if the tech measure is effective or not. Thus, most publishers these days rely on the mere existence of the restrictions, and the threat of lawsuits to deter people from removing them. In other words, security through lawsuit, rather than through proper tech. And because the tech measure is so flimsy, removing it doesn’t have the same ‘moral’ implications as breaking a strong system – rather, it’s more of a ritual to cross some arbitrary symbolic barrier.

KingsKarma · Answer

Why do people want to remove DRM? First, there is the emotional response to the issue of DRM. When people pay for something, they expect to own it. Instead, acsm/DRM systems reassure users that they have only licensed content under certain terms and conditions. This creates psychological friction with users who wish to convert their licensed material to PDF in order to regain control over what they have paid for. They want to own it. They want to convert it to a file that can be placed on their hard drive, a file that is in a universal format, and that does not have expiration dates or call-home checks. The desire to remove DRM is so strong that even very law-abiding people look up ways to remove DRM from their legally purchased materials. Companies that sell DRM-protected materials are not selling products, they are selling services. Conditional services that look like products, and people want to find ways around the conditions.

L.P. Dillon · Answer

For most readers the practical difficulties of using Adobe Digital Editions to open acsm files will be more significant than any legal restrictions. Many readers would prefer to read their eBooks with their favored eBook reading app, such as Moon+ Reader, or even to read them as PDFs with an existing PDF reader. Tools that convert acsm files to eBooks that can be read with such apps (e.g. with Calibre and the required plugins) are almost certainly illegal under the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions. However, there is very little risk to individual users that the authors, publishers, and distributors of such tools will be blacklisted by Adobe, or that individual users will be sued by Adobe for using such tools to remove DRM from books that they have purchased. Instead, the greatest risk will be to the toolmakers and to the big distributors. At that point it is a matter of morality rather than legality. Does a buyer have a right to a DRM-free copy of a eBook that they have purchased? My bookshelf is full of great DRM-free eBooks from sources such as Humble Bundle – no problems at all.

Andy Hudson · Answer

It is, in the end, up to each of us to weigh the risks and benefits of adhering to digital contracts, whether they are fair or not, one-sided or not. The law may stipulate one course of action, but our own sense of fairness will dictate another. Are you going to behave in a manner deemed by law to be a ‘consumer’ in a digital age or are you entitled to be a buyer of products who has absolute ownership and can use them as he sees fit? Your own answer to this question is likely to be influenced by more than the simple reading of legislation and so there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer here. In fact, it’s a matter of our personal tolerance for risk of contravening legislation and our tolerance of ethical ambiguity. It’s how we’re going to behave in this strange new world of digital media, where buying seemingly ’ownable’ items in the comfort of our own homes does not actually amount to us owning them, and using them, as we wish, may or not be against the law as a ’minor’ offense.

Sabinus Francis · Answer

This debate has been going on for more than a decade, and my answer to it has never changed: E-books are illegal to distribute under current law. However, almost all of them are distributed, mostly for personal use and rarely under threat of penalties. More interesting is the trend that some publishers are starting to experiment with watermarks instead of traditional DRM. They don’t prevent copying and sharing, but they mark files that were purchased from certain sources. This way, if an e-book leaks, publishers know who did it. Until publishers change their minds about DRM, the acsm-to-PDF pipeline will remain a peaceful act of civil disobedience on the part of millions of lawful book readers who don’t want to be imprisoned by an unfair system.

K · Answer

This post has talked about the legalities of the issues at hand, but I would have liked a step by step guide on how to achieve the end of being able to read your own book on your old Kindle. It would be nice if this didn’t require downloading twelve different programs. My friend is not exactly the most computer literate person and I was wondering if he could just read his book.

Is It Legal To Convert Acsm To Pdf For Purchased Ebooks?

12 Answers

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