Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

Look around you and tell me what you see.

Books. Yes, we are in a book store, and there are many books here.

Are we allowed to read these books? Do we have the right to read them?

Am I kidding to ask this question?

No, of course not. We all have the right to read. It is one of the foundations of a democratic society. Reading allows us to meet people, to debate philosophies, and to experience events far beyond the narrow confines of our own existence. Reading books also gives us a lot of fun, and it is particularly important during the time of pandemic when our mouths become privacy and our eyes can still open.

(ask the audience) Dear fellow members and distinguished guests, Have you ever borrowed a book from a library? Have you ever bought a book from a bookstore?

Many of you have. I have, too.

Recently, I bought the paper version of Hong Lou Meng for my son. It is a classic novel, and I enjoy reading it, too. And I can lend the book to others, too, if they also like it. I can lend it to as many people as I like, and no one can forbid this because we all have the right to read, and because we own the book.

However, do you have this device? Yes, this is a Kindle for Amazon. This is an e-reader. If I ever had an e-reader, and bought the e-version of Hong Lou Meng, most likely, I would not be able to lend it to others - this is not allowed.

Maybe you can say that why not get a copy of the book from the e-reader. If I had ever figured out how to get a copy of my Hong Lou Meng from the e-reader and sent it to my friends, my friends’ e-reader would simply refuse to open the copy - it would not work: because the software in the e-reader has malicious features called Digital Right Management, we call it Digital Restrictions Management (DRM, for short) to forbid the sharing. The e-books are on-purposely designed like this so that only that particular software with that malicious functionality can display them.

Have you ever tried this?

DRM is the computer-enforced restrictions on lending or reading books. It is a denial to the individual’s right to read.

This is very sad situation. We have to fight for protecting our right to read. In fact, we need fight bravely because the battle is going against us so far. The enemy is organized, and readers are not.

For example, in the US, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gave explicit government backing to DRM, by making the distribution of programs that can break DRM a crime. The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive, in a form not quite as strong.

I used to buy books from Amazon website. I bought many paper books there. Today, when I open the the Amazon website to buy books, there are only e-books for Amazon’s e-reader - Kindle. However, Kindle is designed to spy on everything the reader does: it reports which book is being read, and which page, and it reports when the reader highlights text, and any notes the reader enters. This is a kind of Digital surveillancev, just like your Cell phones can be remotely activated to listen to the your conversations without giving any sign of listening.

Kindle has DRM, which is intended to block readers from sharing copies as you have already known.

It has a back door with which Amazon can remotely erase any book. In 2009, it erased thousands of copies of 1984, by George Orwell. Readers experienced that the pages magically disappeared just in front of their eyes. Virtual book-burning, is that what “Kindle” means? This is a kind of censorship. Not only have we no control over our devices and books, but also the devices threats our lives.

If these policies were limited to Amazon, we’d bypass them, but the other e-book dealers’ policies are roughly similar. Digital surveillance systems are spreading. Cell phones, video cameras, even health code is a digital surveillance tool. We lose control of our data, then we lose control of our life.

Even reading or listening is illegal when the software is designed to block it. Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) robs us of control over the technology we use and the culture we live in. DRM and the DMCA can make it illegal to share an article, back-up your kids’ favorite DVD, or move your music from one player to another. Since DRM is inherently incompatible with free software, it also excludes free software users from equal participation in culture. Now, we are facing a new threat: DRM in HTML5. Millions of Internet users came together to defeat those malicious funcionalities, but now Big Media moguls are going through non-governmental channels to try to sneak digital restrictions into every interaction we have online.

Dear fellow members and distinguished guests, it doesn’t have to be this way. Reading is fun, sharing is good. Reading and sharing ought to be legal, and preventing sharing by making e-books a restriction on readers is unethical. We must demand our right to read and share.

Please work together to eliminate DRM as a threat to innovation in media, the privacy of readers, and freedom for computer users. Our actions will involve identifying and targeting defective products, pressuring media retailers and hardware manufacturers to stop supporting DRM, exposing the immense concentration of power over media created by DRM, and raising awareness of DRM to libraries, schools, and individuals around the world.

Dear fellow members and distinguished guests, the title is “right to read”.

We still have the same old freedoms in using paper books and other analog media. But if e-books replace printed books, those freedoms will not transfer.

Imagine: no more used book stores; no more lending a book to your friend; no more borrowing one from the public library; no more “leaks” that might give someone a chance to read without paying. No more purchasing a book anonymously with cash—you can only buy an e-book with a credit card, thus enabling computerized surveillance- and public libraries become retail outlets.

That is the world the publishers want for us. If you buy the Amazon Kindle (we call it the Swindle) or the Sony Reader (we call it the Shreader for what it threatens to do to books), you pay to establish that world.

How would you feel if someday you are only allowed to read the books you bought for just one time?

How would you feel if someday your children are not allowed to share books with you?

How would you feel if someday you are not allowed to read without having an e-reader to track you?

I feel very frustrated when I am thinking about these questions, because we all have the right to read, but we all face the danger to be deprived of it.

It’s time to fight for right to read.

Thank you.