Quote:
Originally Posted by EowynCarter
I hate the idea of watermarking almost as much as drm.
I mean, treating your customer like thief ?? What company right in their mind do that ??
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A lot of products have serial numbers for traceability. In case of digital purchases, there is (almost) no supply chain, so the item can be traced directly to the user, just like
every new car. Still, if the watermark is just there and not "calling home", as someone put it, it is a very subtle way of DRM.
When I say DRM, I mostly mean the f****** useless s*** that makes reading my Amazon books on my Android CoolReader a 4 click affair, instead of 2 click one (because, lets be honest, two clicks is all it takes to strip the "protection"). I would have been perfectly comfortable with a watermark, which would make the Piratebay distribution of the book retraceable.
As it stands, the ebook DRM used by the biggest ebook suppliers achieves 3 things:
1. Annoys tech savvy users
2. Drives ebook prices up
3. Helps to keep most users in the ecosystem (which is the only real benefit, excluding the DRM supplier)
What DRM does
not, is deter piracy. A simple proof is googling a random ebook, preferably from the last week.