U.S publishers branching into malware?

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It's possible, but there will always be readers that *don't* do that, at least outside of Canada. All readers enforcing a policy such as the one you state will not be popular for very long. I can't believe that Canada would actually forbid to import foreign readers.

It's already been done for movies. Strip the DRM from a bluray/(certain)dvd and attempt to play it back on your PS3 and after a short amount of time the PS3 will block playback and tell you the film has being pirated (or words to that effect).

They use the presence of a digital watermark in the audio but lack of DRM to trigger it.

For books however, it's harder. Watermarks would be removable after a file comparison. Audio watermarks are much harder to deal with.

However, as you mention, not all readers would implement the tests, just as not all BR players do. Those that want official BR logo must, but all the PC based players don't need to. All that would happen is IF and it's a rather big IF for ebooks, a watermark couldn't be removed without ruining the content then hacks will be released to remove the enforcement of the checks in the players themselves. However, I doubt a book based water mark would be anywhere near as resilient as an audio watermark.

edit: and just to add. Note they only block playback of that particular movie. They don't brick/lock your PS3/BR player, because if they ever got that wrong, the repercussions probably wouldn't be pretty court wise.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by forcheville

Yes, watermarking is the way to go. Since there are very many possible watermarking schemes that can be used in an ebook, many should be used simultaneously.

This will not affect readability or in any way harm the systems of indirectly involved parties, but will make piracy much more risky by tearing away some of the anonymity that pirates hide behind.

For ePub (and it is probably similar for mobi) removal of cover page and images (both binary and svg), custom fonts, "flattening" of the UTF8 to ASCII + normal typographical characters (m-dashes, hyphens, etc.), simplistic and minimal ePub (x)HTML tags and single spaces between words is something that can be automated and would be rather difficult to defeat with watermark schemes. End result would be a rather "bland" ebook, but the principal content, the text, would be unaffected. Not much can be done to hide a watermark in ASCII text file, when everything is said and done.

IMHO, watermarking effectively protects the work of the typesetter, but can not do much about the rights of the author. And a particular watermarking scheme can rarely be used more than a couple of times (pirates become aware of the protection with the first court case).

[Fluribus]

Slice off a little piece of slack for the poor publishers. They are fighting an amorphous and implacable enemy. They're under a lot of stress. Sometimes it helps to go kick a puppy. Pretend you've accomplished something. "Showed that damned piratin' puppy a thing or three."

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

IMO the article was written with the intention of exploiting existing paranoia among the ebook reading community, expecially those who acquire their books legally.

Mine too. Everyone who actually reads the National Bureau of Asian Studies report, linked previously in this thread, will know that the controversial page 81 quote is about large scale attempts to hack into government and corporate networks, not eBooks.

For those who don't want to take the time to read the report, the New York Times has a reasonable non-paranoid summary:

As Chinese Leader’s Visit Nears, U.S. Is Urged to Allow Counterattacks on Hackers

With President Obama preparing for a first meeting with China’s new president, a commission led by two former senior officials in his administration will recommend a series of steps that could significantly raise the cost to China of the theft of American industrial secrets. If milder measures failed, the commission said, the United States should consider giving companies the right to retaliate against cyberattackers with counterstrikes of their own.

[BillSmithBooks]

Selectively excerpted:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

And HOW would one want to achieve this?

You select something to buy, you pay, you're done. Download the game, install, play.

Publishers should be the first ones to take a page out of GOG.com's book.

Diesel E-Books has a sale running now, and a 30% promo code. I've checked some Forgotten Realms fantasy books I wanted to read. As this is just low-brow quick-read fantasy (but still fun, of course), I don't want to spend a lot of money on it. I've calculated that, between the sale and the 30% promo code, I can have a bunch of Forgotten Realms books for $2.35 a piece. That's LESS than the cost of a beer in my local pub. I don't even think about pirating the books, because most of the FR books I want are old (80's, early 90's), so the pirated versions are probably bad OCR-ed crappy versions.

It's cheap ($2.35 is only €1.85: If I buy the paperback in the Netherlands, it'd cost me €7.95), quick and easy, and the stuff is (probably) of good quality. If they'd refrain from using DRM, I'd be perfect.

If you are looking for DRM-free ebooks that are similar in tone to the Forgotten Realms/D&D material, you might want to check out the Pathfinder novels and short stories by Paizo Publishing. All DRM free and reasonably priced.

I love the TSR stuff (I'm old enough to remember TSR, so D&D and all of its subworlds will always be "TSR" to me even though they are now just a subdivision of Hasbro).

And I agree, I want to just log in, buy my books, download them and be on my way...

There are still lots of great chocies: some Kobo stuff, Smashwords, Solaris, Robot Trading Company, WildSide, BookViewCafe, Weightlessbooks, Black Library, Jack Vance's official site...I've even seen a few authors like Tobias Buckell starting to offer direct and easy downloads through Gumroad. There are lots of great alternatives worth supporting out there.

[Katsunami]

Heh. I'm just old enough to remember TSR before they were bought by Wizards of the Coast, who were bought by Hasbro. I was introduced to AD&D through Baldur's Gate which still is one of my favorite games ever; actually, I'm in the middle of another playthrough. Maybe I'll check out the old Ravenloft and Greyhawk novels some day, if they're available in eBook format.

Oh, and while 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms is my favorite, I can also handle 3rd an 3.5 Edition fine. (It's only a restructure of the rules). The changes in 4th Edition were so vast that the Forgotten Realms essentially got rebooted. I detest 4th Edition.

But to be honrst, that's for a different thread.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The changes in 4th Edition were so vast that the Forgotten Realms essentially got rebooted. I detest 4th Edition.

Dunno, I like how they reset everything with Dark Sun. Maybe they learned their lesson?

Either way, the idea of "retaliatory strikes" against "cyber-attackers" sounds really dicey, especially when you're giving business the right to declare war. What happens if business declares war on the US?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Heh. I'm just old enough to remember TSR before they were bought by Wizards of the Coast, who were bought by Hasbro. I was introduced to AD&D through Baldur's Gate which still is one of my favorite games ever; actually, I'm in the middle of another playthrough. Maybe I'll check out the old Ravenloft and Greyhawk novels some day, if they're available in eBook format.

Oh, and while 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms is my favorite, I can also handle 3rd an 3.5 Edition fine. (It's only a restructure of the rules). The changes in 4th Edition were so vast that the Forgotten Realms essentially got rebooted. I detest 4th Edition.

But to be honest, that's for a different thread.

*Waves cane at these kids on the lawn*

Blue-book D&D. Before the word "Advanced" was attached to it. Followed by pink-box D&D. I gave up on it entirely before 2nd edition AD&D was published. Read the Dragonlance novels as they first came out.

I wasn't into wargaming, so I always thought of it as TSR, but I had friends who knew it as Tactical Studies Research.