EBook Sellers Strike Deal To Share Customer Details With Anti-Piracy Outfit

[Magda Hassan]

They are making it a safer thing to down load than to buy retail. This is wrong on so many levels. Like some one coming home from the shop to live with you uninvited forever. We lend and share and give away books. Always have and no crime in that.

EBook Sellers Strike Deal To Share Customer Details With Anti-Piracy Outfit

• Andy
  
• August 13, 2013
  

A new digital distribution agreement for eBook platforms will formalize a system for identifying customers whose purchases later appear on the Internet. The deal will see eBook sellers watermark digital downloads and log them against specific customer accounts. That data will be kept for a minimum of two years just in case books appear on file-sharing sites. If they do, vendors will hand over customer details to rightsholders and anti-piracy outfit BREIN.
Watermarking has traditionally been used to describe a relatively ancient method of introducing patterns or information into paper. These markings are often applied to items of value, such as banknotes or certificates, in order to make the counterfeiting process more difficult.

In recent years watermarking' has been expanded into the digital domain. All kinds of digital media can be quietly marked in order to identify the origins of the content, which has proven particularly useful with the dots' to be found in Hollywood movies. By tracking these marks within pirate copies of movies, studios are able to identify which theater they were cammed' in.
Digital watermarks can also provide much more person-specific information. Vendors of digital data, such as MP3 retailers, sometimes put watermarks into the media they sell in order to identify the original purchaser. The idea is that if people believe they can be identified as a leaker', then they are more likely to keep their content close to their chests.
Of course, despite the presence of watermarks, content still manages to leak online. However, the digital watermarks in consumer purchases rarely directly identify the original purchaser of the content, meaning that anti-piracy companies have to go through other processes to get their man. A cozy arrangement in the Netherlands tackles this problem with ease.
The new digital distribution deal for eBook merchants will see them watermark' unique codes into the digital eBooks they sell which will identify a specific transaction number. These transaction numbers will be linked directly to a specific customer account.
So far the process isn't much out of the ordinary, but the new deal will also bridge the missing link between random-looking transaction numbers in a digital file on the Internet and a real person's identity.
The agreement will see vendors connected to the eBoekhuis platform share previously-private customer data directly with copyright holders and anti-piracy group BREIN. This means that should digital books turn up on BitTorrent networks or Usenet for example, with a minimum of fuss BREIN will be able to match the embedded watermarks with the customer who bought them.
According to the document seen by EReaders.nl, eBook vendors will be required to store customer transaction data and make it available to BREIN and rightsholders for a minimum of two years.
The problematic sharing of customer information with a third-party (who could potentially sue them) will be solved by informing customers at the point of sale that their details may be shared with outsiders if their account is linked to abuse.
Whether customers will read the terms and conditions is open to debate, but if brought specifically and clearly to their attention it's likely that many would think twice before parting with cash.

https://torrentfreak.com/down-torrent-pirates-130813/

[Peter Lemkin]

Get ready for that armed guns-in-your-face, break down the door with no warrant SWAT TEAM raid on you for having an e-book you didn't buy yourself....they may also ask for receipts of everything else in your home they confiscate. mallprint:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Nah - it's just automated now.

Here's the famous scene from Se7en:

Near the open church doors, Mills speaks with great animation,
holding his ream of computer paper. Somerset looks at the altar
and the tableau, preoccupied.

MILLS
Our guy's a bookworm, right? And, I
know it's a long shot, but you have to
give a picture id and current phone bill
to get a library card. Hey...

Mills snaps his fingers in Somerset's face, gets his attention.

MILLS (CONT)
I made two separate lists of books. One
relating to the sins... Dante's
Purgatory, Canterbury Tales... The
Dictionary of Catholicism... all the
religious stuff. The second list was
books about torture methods, mass
murderers... sadomasochism. Whatever
our killer might study to do the things
he's done. Whatever his other interests
are.

Somerset takes the computer list.

SOMERSET
So, what is this?

MILLS
Alright. Everything at the library goes
into a computer. So, you can get in the
system and cross-reference...

Mills fumbles in his pocket, takes out his pad and reads.

MILLS (CONT)
Let's say you take, Dante's Purgatory,
call number eight-five-one-D, and... The
Biography of the Marquis de Sade,
ninety-two S-A-D-E. Put those books in
the system, and the computer can give
you the name of anyone who's ever taken
out both those books. And, it doesn't
just give you their name and address, it
gives you a complete history of their
library reading habits.

Mills slaps the list in Somerset's hand.

MILLS (CONT)
(psyched up)
If somebody's out there reading Paradise
Lost and studying The Life and Times of
Charlie Manson, I want to talk to them.

Somerset looks up from the list, warming to it. He starts
looking around, searching for someone.

If somebody's out there reading Paradise Lost and studying The Life and Times of Charlie Manson, I want to talk to them.

I guess most of DPF is fucked then.....