Quote:
Originally Posted by hardcastle
As easy as it is to detect illegal serial number metadata, it is equally as easy to remove it
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Amazon does include a serial number in the metadata and I agree with you that that isn't very important to the pirates since it's so easily removed. But there are watermarking techniques that aren't easy to remove.
Some years ago I was in a forum sponsored by Audible.com and one of their developers talked about watermarking and I, smartalec that I am, replied that I'm sure it's very easy to get around. I knew how to convert Audible files to MP3 which automatically stripped the metadata and re-compressed the audio. My assumption that the conversion from the compression method they were then using (level 2) would get rid of the watermark.
He sent me 2 short audiobooks, one watermarked to me and one not. He asked me to do my best and send them back and he would tell me which was which. I converted them and sent in the copies, thinking I was very smart, and he identified them correctly. 50/50 chance so we did it again. After the third time I decided he was right.
On that third time I first created wave files by playing the book into a recording device and recording it to wave. I then made an MP3 from the wave file. On one of the two files, but not both, I made a WMA file from the wave and then converted that to MP3. He got it right again.
The point is that they don't need metadata to identify the purchaser.
I have no idea whether Amazon uses watermarking in their music, although it would surprise me to find out they don't. I'm not even sure if Audible.com still uses it. This was way before they were bought by Amazon.
The war between publishers and pirates is a complex one. I'm not really sure, though, that it's very important to the future of the publishing business. Publishers are in trouble because paper books and music on CD's are making way to newer technology. I doubt the pirates have much real effect on that.
The pirates do have a very positive effect, I think, as competitors to publishers. I'm retired and I spend a lot of time browsing the internet, often going to places I probably shouldn't. I've seen what's on some of the pirate sites. They have a much better selection of books than Amazon.
A couple of times I wanted to read a book that Amazon doesn't have available and I found it them on pirate sites. Some of those have since become available on Amazon. If that's because the pirates have it I'm glad.
As a reader, the point is to have books to read. Publishers are far better equipped to get them for us than pirates are. Even the pirates depend on publishers. We need to support the publishers. But let's be glad for the pirates, too. I think they do more good than harm.
Barry