Quote:
Originally Posted by jbjb
While I'm personally quite happy with the idea of (non-visually-intrusive) watermarking, there is clearly a "reasonable" objection to it. I'm not necessarily saying I agree with the argument, but it is (IMHO) an argument that reasonable people could make.
If the purpose of watermarking is to discourage piracy by identifying the culprits and exposing them to sanctions, then the difficulty of proving that the purchaser identified by the watermark is the one who actually committed the offence means that it could be argued that the watermarking will actually achieve nothing and will even potentially run the risk of blackening the name of innocent purchasers.
/JB
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It's not just blackening the name of the innocent purchasers. There are already examples of aggressive content owners sending out "fines" to people that they've "identified as violating copyright". The people are faced with paying a hefty fine or paying an even more hefty legal fee with the risk of losing and paying an enormous fine. There is very real potential for abuse here.
I believe that watermarks are much better than encryption based DRM but that doesn't mean there is no reasonable objection to them. If I'm given a choice between a kick to the shin and a knee to the groin, then I don't care if people consider there should be no objection to the shin. I'd select neither.