Comments on: ‘DRM is dead, but watermarks rise from the ashes’ http://www.teleread.org/2008/01/12/drm-is-dead-but-watermarks-rise-from-the-ashes/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:38:33 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jason Etheridge http://www.teleread.org/2008/01/12/drm-is-dead-but-watermarks-rise-from-the-ashes/comment-page-1/#comment-688376 Jason Etheridge Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:53:52 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/01/12/drm-is-dead-but-watermarks-rise-from-the-ashes/#comment-688376 What is the problem with watermarking? It <i>seems</i> ideal: it gives a way of identifying a copyrighted property, while not restricting legitimate replication. Whether it would be effective for e-books is another question, given the nature of text; it would be too easy to identify and discard the watermark. For music or video, the watermark can be woven into the "noise" (with techniques possible to make it difficult to remove, even given multiple copies of the same item with different watermarks). If watermarking could be done for e-books, as a substitute for DRM, then it's probably the best compromise possible to keep the copyright owners/licensees happy. What is the problem with watermarking? It seems ideal: it gives a way of identifying a copyrighted property, while not restricting legitimate replication.

Whether it would be effective for e-books is another question, given the nature of text; it would be too easy to identify and discard the watermark. For music or video, the watermark can be woven into the “noise” (with techniques possible to make it difficult to remove, even given multiple copies of the same item with different watermarks).

If watermarking could be done for e-books, as a substitute for DRM, then it’s probably the best compromise possible to keep the copyright owners/licensees happy.

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