protecting epub files from copying & printing

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'll take your word for it. I looked into watermarking about...5 years ago, trying to find an alternate solution, something middle of the road, and at that time, there was no automated WM solution available.

I just looked again, just now, and at least, on the first page of Google results, NONE of the solutions are automated; most can do a single "document" at a time, and one of them requires that DRM is ALSO provided, on the file, first. The two "batch" solutions I saw batch files, yes--but it's the same watermark on every file.

I did not see ONE single piece of software that would work with eBooks, or automatedly other than batching the same WM over and over. I saw ONE product, contentraven, which has dynamic watermarks in a closed environment, on "normal" documents.

So...it may not be quite as simple as you make it sound. If you know of existing, deployable solutions, I'd really love to hear of them.

Hitch

Existing, deployable solutions, I don't know. However, I expect existing ebook DRM systems already do individualization except they use that data to actually encrypt ebooks so they're only readable on approved and activated systems. Mind, watermarking video and audio is much more difficult and resource intensive (enough to be impractical) compared to watermarking text or static images.

I can tell you that coding it wouldn't be difficult. Calibre already automates creation of uuids and "fake" ASIN when converting or sending ebooks to the Kindle as well as automatic cover creation. The creation aspect for this isn't really more difficult than that.

This link has an example for watermarking PDFs.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...load-the-files

Quite trivial to change the static text in those scripts to a variable with information such as: name, email, IP address, timestamp, order #, etc.

There's also a Google Chrome plugin that allows one to back up DRM'd comics from comiXology. The plugin automatically adds a non-visible watermark of the username to the captured images.

Why aren't there solutions available if it's so easy to do? Good as they might be for consumers (since there's effectively no DRM), watermarks aren't a significant deterrent to sharing. It can identify who purchased ebooks uploaded to torrents and other file sharing avenues (assuming you have someone actively monitoring those). Someone who just shared the ebook to friends, families and co-workers? Not really.