4 ms·

This DRM actually changes the content by rewriting the text, not unlike Microsoft Word's grammer checker/corrector tool. I would be very surprised if publishers

by steve19 13y ago

This DRM actually changes the content by rewriting the text, not unlike Microsoft Word's grammer checker/corrector tool. I would be very surprised if publishers and authors would go for this. Clumsily changed sentences could ruin a good book. I have always assumed that publishers embed an ID somewhere in the Mobi or EPub files (they are just HTML, you could insert all sorts of things that would never be displayed) since it is trivial to remove the DRM from them.

mikeash 13y ago
The willingness of content creators to deliberately distribute an inferior product just to catch pirates never ceases to amaze me.
- pyre 13y ago
  'Inferior' up until now didn't describe the content, but the rest of the experience. This would change the content itself, which I would expect most authors to be very protective of.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Not entirely true. It's been done in movies for a few years now, to track down leaks from theaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy Of course, movies and books are probably opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to artistic integrity.
    - tekromancr 13y ago
      They claimed that they were imperceptible, bullshit. I see about 3 or 4 every time I see a movie in theaters. I see it, I notice it, and the fact that they were willing to disrupt their own content bugs me enough that I am unable to enjoy the rest. As far as artistic integrity goes, it makes sense that the immense cost of a film being covered by the studio gives them quite a bit of say in the filmmaking process, for good or ill.
kabdib 13y ago
In the 90s there were notch filter systems for music CDs designed to help plug the "analog hole". Yes, they were savaging the audio in order to help prevent copying. "The average consumer will never notice," said the music industry. I resolved never to buy music with this feature. ---- Unseriously: If they did this to Finnegans Wake, would anyone notice? Seriously: Screw this.
arg01 13y ago
If they picked 32 words in a book and gave them an alternative word to swap with they can uniquely identify about 4 billion books. That's not much work/not very difficult to uniquely identify and control for quality. Of course the only payoff is that pirates now need 2+ copies of the book so that they can't be identified. You can push it harder and identify more words to get the pirate to buy more books but the return (in books bought) becomes much much worse and identifying them becomes more infeasible.
_pmf_ 13y ago
> Clumsily changed sentences could ruin a good book. Having bought a lot of e-books, I've yet to come across something that would qualify as "good". Sloppy, careless conversions are the rule rather than the exception, sometimes to the point where I ask myself whether a human being has actually read the converted mess.

by steve19 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

The willingness of content creators to deliberately distribute an inferior product just to catch pirates never ceases to amaze me.

pyre 13y ago
'Inferior' up until now didn't describe the content, but the rest of the experience. This would change the content itself, which I would expect most authors to be very protective of.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeash 13y ago
  Not entirely true. It's been done in movies for a few years now, to track down leaks from theaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy Of course, movies and books are probably opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to artistic integrity.
  - tekromancr 13y ago
    They claimed that they were imperceptible, bullshit. I see about 3 or 4 every time I see a movie in theaters. I see it, I notice it, and the fact that they were willing to disrupt their own content bugs me enough that I am unable to enjoy the rest. As far as artistic integrity goes, it makes sense that the immense cost of a film being covered by the studio gives them quite a bit of say in the filmmaking process, for good or ill.

kabdib 13y ago

In the 90s there were notch filter systems for music CDs designed to help plug the "analog hole". Yes, they were savaging the audio in order to help prevent copying. "The average consumer will never notice," said the music industry. I resolved never to buy music with this feature. ---- Unseriously: If they did this to Finnegans Wake, would anyone notice? Seriously: Screw this.

arg01 13y ago

If they picked 32 words in a book and gave them an alternative word to swap with they can uniquely identify about 4 billion books. That's not much work/not very difficult to uniquely identify and control for quality. Of course the only payoff is that pirates now need 2+ copies of the book so that they can't be identified. You can push it harder and identify more words to get the pirate to buy more books but the return (in books bought) becomes much much worse and identifying them becomes more infeasible.

_pmf_ 13y ago

> Clumsily changed sentences could ruin a good book. Having bought a lot of e-books, I've yet to come across something that would qualify as "good". Sloppy, careless conversions are the rule rather than the exception, sometimes to the point where I ask myself whether a human being has actually read the converted mess.