Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
It would be very hit-or-miss; it would require the authors to be downloading suspected files themselves--which could also be considered copyright infringement on their part--it would require initiating time-consuming and costly legal action. Would it really be cost effective?
Seems like the dedicated pirates would find some way to eliminate/alter the watermarking anyway.
Since it would not affect me, I don't much care if it's instituted, except that implementing it presumably would be added cost that is passed on to the consumer.
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Not that I'm a lawyer in any way, but I would imagine you're perfectly within your rights to download a file that claims to be something you own the copyright to. However, if it turns out the file isn't actually your book, movie etc you'd likely have to report it and/or delete it and not hang onto it depending on what it was.
Dedicated pirates will as you say, always find a way. Watermarks are no different, they just need a few copies of the book in order to identify what it is that is changing and then they can create strippers to remove it. Or, the other common option is to use stolen CC numbers to purchase items (that's common with software, pirates are cheap) then you don't need to care that it has a watermark.
However, watermarks and really DRM isn't aimed at dedicated pirates, it's aimed at the average joe who might make a copy for a close friend, but may think twice about lending/copying it too widely when they know their name is in the cover and the text tells them identifying information is also hidden throughout the book.
Not a perfect solution, but it can imho have the desired effect on non-dedicated pirates. As for the people who are honest and never pirate books, they get the freedom back to format shift and have perpetual access to their purchases. The only loss they take is that they have to be more trusting if they do decide to loan a copy to a friend, an issue you don't have with paper books
