4 ms·

By making the owned copy ugly and harder to read yet still trivially copyable? Something does not compute here.

Angostura 8y ago
> Something does not compute here. That's right. They are trivially copyable, but the copies are easily traceable. Compute now?
- feanaro 8y ago
  Unless you quite easily remove the watermark.
0815test 8y ago
These aren't visual watermarks like what you'd get on physical paper. They just alter the digital copy so that it can be traced back to the buyer, and people are deterred from sharing it on the web. It's a very elegant solution if the 'watermark' can be made hard enough to remove, and I can see quite a few workable approaches.
- feanaro 8y ago
  > These aren't visual watermarks like what you'd get on physical paper. Except they often are visual. "Owned by X" and such.
donatzsky 8y ago
It's not that kind of watermark. Rather, usually at the beginning, there'll be some text saying who bought the book, along with some kind of identifier. The id can also be hidden inside the file.
- miki123211 8y ago
  The books I've investigated had a text saying "This copy belongs to: %s" where %s was an email address at the beginning, and an invisible hex string at the end of every chapter. The string had a width and height of 1px, so most conventional readers didn't show it at all.
alpaca128 8y ago
These watermarks only appear a few times in places like beside the page number. You'll have to provide a darn good explanation to convince me it makes the book harder to read. And yes, it's still trivially copyable, but that makes it better in any way than DRM: it can be traced back to the original owner but doesn't make it unnecessarily hard to read it on multiple devices.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Traced back for what purpose? What's the punishment? Any answer, other than "none", would be insane.
  - johannes1234321 8y ago
    If your watermarked version appears online it is an indication that you might have uploaded (or not properly protected) it. This might not be enough to prove this in a court, but enough for the publisher's lawyers to annoy you. But hardly any uploader would keep watermarks in, which makes them more of a way for faithful users to not give the book I.e. to friends since there is a visible reminder about being your personal copy.
    - jammygit 8y ago
      Its still a legal environment where it is illegal to share or transfer ownership of books
    - feanaro 8y ago
      An uploader can easily edit the watermark out of the book, if he is so inclined, and he probably is. It only annoys those who were not bent on uploading it in the first place. Also, I specifically would not abide to any kind of law saying I cannot give a book I bought to a friend.
      - johannes1234321 8y ago
        Many readers can't (they could learn it though) enough however indeed can. That's why, from publisher's view, the second point is so important: Remind readers all the time that "it" (without going into details) is illegal so they continue buying.

> Something does not compute here. That's right. They are trivially copyable, but the copies are easily traceable. Compute now?

feanaro 8y ago
Unless you quite easily remove the watermark.

0815test 8y ago

These aren't visual watermarks like what you'd get on physical paper. They just alter the digital copy so that it can be traced back to the buyer, and people are deterred from sharing it on the web. It's a very elegant solution if the 'watermark' can be made hard enough to remove, and I can see quite a few workable approaches.

feanaro 8y ago
> These aren't visual watermarks like what you'd get on physical paper. Except they often are visual. "Owned by X" and such.

donatzsky 8y ago

It's not that kind of watermark. Rather, usually at the beginning, there'll be some text saying who bought the book, along with some kind of identifier. The id can also be hidden inside the file.

miki123211 8y ago
The books I've investigated had a text saying "This copy belongs to: %s" where %s was an email address at the beginning, and an invisible hex string at the end of every chapter. The string had a width and height of 1px, so most conventional readers didn't show it at all.

alpaca128 8y ago

These watermarks only appear a few times in places like beside the page number. You'll have to provide a darn good explanation to convince me it makes the book harder to read. And yes, it's still trivially copyable, but that makes it better in any way than DRM: it can be traced back to the original owner but doesn't make it unnecessarily hard to read it on multiple devices.

kgwxd 8y ago
Traced back for what purpose? What's the punishment? Any answer, other than "none", would be insane.
- johannes1234321 8y ago
  If your watermarked version appears online it is an indication that you might have uploaded (or not properly protected) it. This might not be enough to prove this in a court, but enough for the publisher's lawyers to annoy you. But hardly any uploader would keep watermarks in, which makes them more of a way for faithful users to not give the book I.e. to friends since there is a visible reminder about being your personal copy.
  - jammygit 8y ago
    Its still a legal environment where it is illegal to share or transfer ownership of books
  - feanaro 8y ago
    An uploader can easily edit the watermark out of the book, if he is so inclined, and he probably is. It only annoys those who were not bent on uploading it in the first place. Also, I specifically would not abide to any kind of law saying I cannot give a book I bought to a friend.
    - johannes1234321 8y ago
      Many readers can't (they could learn it though) enough however indeed can. That's why, from publisher's view, the second point is so important: Remind readers all the time that "it" (without going into details) is illegal so they continue buying.