I recently downloaded a free artist’s ebook about the climate from the web. Before downloading, the site asked me for my name and where I was based, and when I opened the book I discovered my name inside the cover, and a little drawing based on the local weather at the time I downloaded it. It was a neat and charming piece of personalisation for the often impersonal ebook.
Likewise, when I purchased an ebook from Verso’s recently updated online bookstore, I was promised a “personalised copy”. In this case, it turned out that my name and email address were splashed on the cover page, and repeated throughout the book. In return for plastering your personal details on every other page of a book you’ve paid for, they get to say that their ebooks “can be read on any device”.
These examples of digital watermarks are positively restrained when compared with Dutch anti-piracy organisation BREIN, which requires booksellers to keep all information about purchasers for up to five years, including names, addresses and contact and credit card details, and hand them over if an ebook is found being shared online. Digimarc’s less intrusive version, used by HarperCollins and distributor LibreDigital, contains “anonymous” ID numbers (which can of course be tracked back to you – otherwise there wouldn’t be any point). Digimarc then stalks the web for watermarked content as a service to its backers.
As publishers seek more audience-friendly forms of digital rights management, they may risk alienating their readers even further. There may be a need to protect against piracy, even if it means we’ll never get back to the days of being able to give a worn and much-loved copy of a favourite book to a friend, but treating everyone as a potential criminal doesn’t exactly inspire loyalty either.
