Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
If it's just a user name and an order number (and they aren't storing the associated CC#s forever in their store database), then that is fine with me -- it's basically a personalized copy with no personal security risk.
Still, that's a far cry from the claims that it will let them track down who distributed the book -- you'd need verifiable personal data stored for that.
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What DriveThruRPG & related sites do is put your name & order # on the bottom of each page in tiny text as a watermark. It's unobtrusive enough not to interfere with reading or even printing.
Somewhere, they no doubt keep a database of purchase orders. They may or may not keep credit card numbers, but they probably keep "how did this person pay" records, and something like "last 4 digits of credit card number." (Or, in my case, name of PayPal account.)
I suspect they'll release PDFs, because one of Rowling's concerns is controlling people's reading methods. ("“We can guarantee that people everywhere are getting the same experience at the same time. That was extremely appealing to me.") Can't do that with the flexible reflow formats.
So I plan on buying the ebooks, stripping the locks, manually removing the watermarks, cropping the whitespace out, and loading them on my ereader, which is what I do with most commercial locked PDFs. It's not that I object to the watermark; it's that it gets in the way of reading the book with the page cropped to its smallest size just around the main text.
Interestingly, this is the DRM that *doesn't* prevent casual sharing, just easy widespread downloads. With your name & account number or purchase order on every page, you can share the file with anyone you trust not to turn you in for infringement. (Or get software to strip the lock, which is somewhat more obscure than most anti-DRM scripts, and remove the watermark, which is a lot more obscure.)