Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words 323
theodp writes "To exist or not to exist: that is the query. That's what the famous Hamlet soliloquy might look like if subjected to Amazon's newly-patented System and Method for Marking Content, which calls for 'programmatically substituting synonyms into distributed text content,' including 'books, short stories, product reviews, book or movie reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. In its description of the 'invention,' Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.' After all, anti-piracy measures should trump kids' ability to spell correctly, shouldn't they?"
Patentable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything is a damn patent these days. Yo dawg, I put a clock in your clock so I can sue you while you check the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything is a damn patent these days. Yo dawg, I put a clock in your clock so I can sue you while you check the time.
Don't worry, I've found prior art [wikipedia.org] on placing a ____ in a ____. We'll have that patent invalidated in no time!
Re: (Score:2)
On 9/11/2001 the Twin Towers were attacked By terrorists. In November 2001 President Gore declared war on Afghanistan.
Hmmm. There appears to be something wrong with my history book.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
9th November? Surely you mean 11/09/2001?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's not about the patent, it's about the lying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With the Internet, it is everyone's right to destroy the revenue model of any business they choose to target. You and I should equally be able to force any business into bankruptcy just by posting their creations online for everyone to download for free. With suitable bulletproof hosting, the original owner isn't going to be able to do anything about it.
It is all about making things free that didn't used to be. Devalues everything over time - creators get the message that they might as well make it free
Re:It's not about the patent, it's about the lying (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, all else being equal, more creative works are better than fewer. But the public benefits not only from having as many creative works made and published, but from having those works be in the public domain as soon as possible (if not immediately), and if we have copyrights at all then the copyrights should be as minimal as possible in terms of scope and duration.
For example, there's nothing special about the current amount of copyright. It's not the most we could have, or the least, it's just a point on the spectrum. I'm an artist, and I for one am not incentivized by the current amount of copyright to create my Moon art (where I perform massive amounts of construction on the Moon to make it more aesthetically appealing). I demand far more strong copyrights -- in fact, my incentive to create it ought to be that I get to be King of the World for the rest of my natural life.
Apparently, I don't get the massive expansion of copyright I want, since while encouraging me to create and publish my art is favored by public policy, I want too great a reward for it, and the public is ultimately better off without my art, than having it and the cost that it takes to get it.
The same principle is true now. There were plenty of books and records and tv shows and movies prior to 1978, which means that the old copyright law, which provided less protection than the current one, must've been sufficient. We have not had a huge increase in the number of works created and published since then which is attributable to copyright law (as opposed to improvements in technology, the state of the economy, etc.).
So it seems that for the last several decades, we have been paying too much in copyright in exchange for creative works. We should pay less. If some artists are unwilling to create, but not too many are unwilling, then fine. We'll be sorry to lose them, but we are better off without acceding to their demands.
Re:It's not about the patent, it's about the lying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Clever, but that's not what pirates are going to do.
Pirates are going to purchase books anonymously, by using prepaid credit cards, stolen credit cards, or hacked amazon accounts. It's the easiest way and it guarantees the pirate isn't associated personally with the distributed work.
Re:Patentable? (Score:5, Funny)
Aww come on. This is the smuckin fartest invention ever!
Re: (Score:2)
That fingers other mapmakers but not people who purchase your maps.
Encyclopedia makers did this too.
Amazon seems to hope to individually change each book sold--- I think their goal is unrealistic.
Re:Patentable? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't blame people for not reading the claims section, because it's necessarily an obtuse fusion of legalese and jargon.
But no, they did not patent *doing* this, they patented the *way* that they do this. Patents cover implementations, and not ideas. Some have argued that the line has been blurred with certain classes of patents, but it hasn't blurred so far that the concept in the slashdot summary is actually locked up as IP.
Frankly, I can't be bothered to look at the claims either. But the idea itself certainly lends itself to ideas that are patentable (whether they should be patentable or will be rendered retroactively invalid is another question). For instance, I'm curious how they identify which words should be replaced, and the system by which they choose a synonym that hopefully doesn't destroy rhyming patterns, metrical rhythm, puns, shades of meaning, and ambiguity in words with multiple meanings that don't completely intersect the candidate synonym's meaning.
Also, whatever they are they doing to prevent the trivial case of three copies being compared to recover the original. Maybe they have a bunch of sets of synonyms that are commonly replaced so you need more to get the original, but even then, do they arrange it in some way so that the source of the leaks can be traced down despite the alteration? Or maybe they just assume that book pirates are morons.
They might do nothing for any of those cases, mind you. Once again, I can't be bothered to read these damned things. Which is part of why I don't submit articles about ones that I've decided I think are actually stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be more worried if they used this system that someone would sue them for false advertising or worse. For claiming to sell them the work of an author but actually selling them an inferior derivitive.
For fiction books and literary works the changes might not mean much, but what of a legal book, or financial book? Or any book where the shades of meaning can mean quite a lot and the exact word matters.
Purposely doing this to consumers is a bad idea as it is deliberately introducing data corruption.
hair splitting (Score:3, Interesting)
But no, they did not patent *doing* this, they patented the *way* that they do this.
You're incorrectly assuming that a common shorthand for talking about those kinds of patents implies ignorance of the patent system.
To spell it out for you: the "way" they patented this is an obvious engineering solution to the actual problem they are trying to solve. If you gave the problem of "alter the text so that each customer gets a unique copy" to a CS undergraduate, this is the kind of engineering solution they'd co
Bezos principal (Score:2)
Re:Patentable? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking exactly that. Additionally, in spy circles, I am certain that at least someone has tried to write a computer program to do this too. They may have even wrote a computer program to automatically change other computer programs, helping to prevent ultra-secret source and executable code from going rogue. Unfortunately, the spooks don't document their tools, hence Amazon can patent it.
This falls in the category of ultra-obvious inventions. The really tough problem is doing the text changes i
Simple solution! (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me that there's a pretty easy way to defeat this. Use the technology against itself.
If you ever want to distribute something, make your own minor spelling variations and substitute your own synonyms into the original, thus further altering the altered work. If someone sues you, just point out the fact that their copy "proving" you're guilty doesn't even match the copy of the work that was distributed.
You could use this idea for just about anything that is digitally watermarked. Don't want that MP3 traced? Introduce your own small, imperceptible variations into the waveform. Don't want your printer tracing you through microdots on your hardcopies? Write a driver that adds its own microdots, and lots of 'em. And so on...
Re:Patentable? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the term for it is "watermark". And watermarking, even synonym watermarking is nothing new. It's too bad they didn't use that word in their patent description. If they had known the right word to search for, they would most likely have found a number of prior art examples.
In any case, it will be interesting to compare (to diff) the different watermarked versions of the same ebooks. I predict this will increase the number of illegal copies of the watermarked PDFs, not reduce them.
Re: (Score:2)
oh they knew the right word, that's why they didn't use it.
Re:Patentable? (Score:4, Funny)
The word you wanted was edition, or are you infringing on amazon's patent?
Re: (Score:2)
Say an armored vehicle spec contains 20 instances of the word "aluminum". Some use the US spelling, the other use the "rest of the world" spelling. Changing the spelling of other words won't remove that signature from the document. You need to know where their code is to be able to corrupt it.
Re:Prior art (Score:4, Informative)
... the word "aluminum". Some use the US spelling, the other use the correct spelling.
FTFY
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Prior art (Score:4, Insightful)
With specs its a bit more difficult, but with books its not really that hard to get 2 copies from 2 seperate sources. Diff the two and you can create a unique sig than matches neither.
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
With specs its a bit more difficult, but with books its not really that hard to get 2 copies from 2 seperate sources. Diff the two and you can create a unique sig than matches neither.
Incorrect, with current methods you can identify both.
Depending on the number, and distribution of intentional errors, you can tweak such a system to indentify any number of mixed sources. For example if you insert 30 errors into each copy at unique points, and 3 copies are blended randomly, if will contain an average of 10 errors from each source, possibly enough to identify all 3 sources. With overlaping points, even if a best 2 out of 3 method is used to generate the copy, you can still find out which sources. Consider each point at which an error is inserted or not as a bit, and think of RAID, ECC, Parity, etc.
I believe that a particular large software company already uses this type of method on their source code distributions, to indentify leaks. I recall a presentation from someone working at that company on the local university learning channel where they described fingerprinting source code in this manner.
Re: (Score:2)
...with books its not really that hard to get 2 copies from 2 seperate sources. Diff the two and you can create a unique sig than matches neither.
Wrong.
Let's say, Amazon tries to protect one of the Harry Potter books, one as small as the one with the smallest word count: 76,944 words. Let's assume that their watermarking algorithm (or an Amazon employee) selects 277 words to make the permutations on. Let's further say that their algorithm finds an average of 5 synonyms for each word selected (so that would make 5 synonyms + the 1 original word = 6 total average variations for each selected word).
Let's further assume that once you get your two cop
Exactly (Score:2)
Ironically, something akin is even explained in literature... an old SF story, about a doctored "galactic encyclopedia" or some such (Saberhagen or Asimov?). The story line there was that it was common practice for cartographers and encyclopedia/dictionary publishers purposely add minor bits of fiction to the reference work, with the idea that it won't do any harm, and if it gets copied, we'll know.
This reference work embellishin
Never mind... (Score:2)
A Fred Saberhagen Berserker science fiction short story, "The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron," has a Berserker directed to a star system by an encyclopedia salesman. The salesman is put on trial for treason, but reveals that the encyclopedia article for the star system, with population figures, resources, etc., was a fictitious entry included in the encyclopedia to detect plagiarism; thus the Berserker actually
Re: (Score:2)
I think this part captures what makes me uneasy about the whole thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But now it's on a computer and on the internet (!!!). They should be able to get at least two patents on it, maybe three.
Quick! Someone say it's only defensive! (Score:2)
They'd NEVER file multiple lawsuits against people for infringing totally obvious patents, right? Of course not! That'd be like saying that Slashdotters actually believed half the stuff they said about freedom and rights.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They'd NEVER file multiple lawsuits against people for infringing totally obvious patents, right? Of course not! That'd be like saying that Slashdotters actually believed half the stuff they said about freedom and rights.
Quick! No one's said anything stupid yet! Let's construct a straw man so I have something to ridicule!
Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
Change "Johnny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his Coke" into "Johhny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his Pepsi".
If this doesn't happen, I will eat my hat/del/ ACME Brand Prestige Fedora TM.
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists point out problems. Engineers use them to kill people overseas.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not change "Johnny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his Coke" into "Johhny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his cock" - instant pr0nalisation, baby! ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah thats a whole other kettle of fish.
Re: (Score:2)
Apologies to the site owner...All text from his site...
http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com/viewcoke16.jpeg [vintageadsandstuff.com]
Full color 10" x 13" ad shows three ladies brown-bagging it at the office. The ad headline has the message "Office lunch...Have a Cock".
http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com/viewcoke27.jpeg [vintageadsandstuff.com]
The ad has a picture of a young Pfc. playing a piano while a younger boy plays a small guitar and sings wh
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Funny)
Coming soon...
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Crockett exclaimed.
"Looks like pure uncut Pepsi(TM)," said Tubbs.
"The Microsoft(TM) doesn't fall far from the tree, does it, pal? Well... we got here in the nick of Newsweek(TM). Get immigration on the iPhone(TM) and tell them to revoke Carlos' work American Express(TM)."
"But Sonny Delite(TM), I don't know if we'll Heinz(TM) with Carlos before he gets to the border! Besides, he's already wanted for assault and Duracell(TM), let alone Rite Aid(TM) smuggling. Plus I think he's a Kelloggs(TM) killer."
"Oh, we'll catch him alright. You can take that to the Chase(TM)."
Re:Advertising (Score:4, Funny)
Change "Johnny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his Coke" into "Johhny nervously wrinkled his brow as he reached for his Pepsi".
The potential for awesome failure is particularly high in childrens' books. For example, "Ding Penis Dell, Pussy's in the well" would just put a whole new slant on things.
canary trap (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.'
Sabotaging your product out of fear someone might violate your copyrights. Where have we seen that [wikipedia.org] before?
If it wasn't obvious infringement prior to the changes, what's the big deal?
Canary trap (Score:5, Informative)
Intelligence agencies have been doing this sort of thing for decades, giving slightly different versions of a sensitive document to suspected spies or places where possible spies might have access to it, with some subtle changes in the words, seeing which one gets leaked or appears elsewhere. Tom Clancy coined the term Canary trap [wikipedia.org] for the technique. Patriot Games was published in 1987, but its real-world use for exposing information leaks most likely predates the novel.
Re: (Score:2)
mapmakers have been doing this for decades, if not centuries...
Re:Canary trap (Score:5, Informative)
Intelligence agencies have been doing this sort of thing for decades, giving slightly different versions of a sensitive document to suspected spies or places where possible spies might have access to it, with some subtle changes in the words, seeing which one gets leaked or appears elsewhere. Tom Clancy coined the term Canary trap [wikipedia.org] for the technique. Patriot Games was published in 1987, but its real-world use for exposing information leaks most likely predates the novel.
But the classic Canary Trap requires someone to modify the document manually, which is hard to do on a large scale. Here it is being done automatically by an algorithm.
However, I am aware of published methods for this problem dating back to 2001 [trnmag.com] by Mikhail Atallah at Purdue. In fact Atallah received a patent for followup work [uspto.gov] in 2007, a year after the Amazon patent was filed.
Here are a few hundred papers [snipurl.com] on the subject, via Google Scholar. Some adjust whitespace, some modify images of the text, and some attempt fairly sophisticated syntactic analysis and restructuring of selected sentences.
I apologize that I haven't read the Amazon patent, or read the prior literature carefully, or gone to law school, so I can't comment on whether the patent seems valid or not.
You know the patent system is dead when... (Score:2)
Theft or Fraud? (Score:2, Interesting)
If Amazon (of the licensee of the patent) is not providing the content purchased, then they're either committing theft-by-substitution (not the same as bait-and-switch, in which the customer is actually sold an alternate product) or outright fraud by not delivering what was sold. A text product is not simply a collection of words, it's a specific selection of words in a particular order ... and spelling counts, even in the case of Lord of the Rings where Tolkien creates whole languages.
Can fraud actually
Re: (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet those that wish could easily opt-out of this. However, there's still the chance that Amazon will screw up and modify someone's works even though they had opted out, and in that case they have every right to sue Amazon for Copyright Infringement (unauthorized duplication/modification of a work.)
Plausible deniability? (Score:3, Funny)
I love watermarks that can be defeated with a spellchecker and a thesaurus!
Re: (Score:2)
Example:
Original: Johnny took a sip of his coke.
Amazon: Johnny took a sip of his pepsi.
Your Program: Johhn took a sip of his Dr. Pepper.
So much for tracking...heck it may even blame the wrong person.
Re: (Score:2)
"So much for tracking..." ?
A novel has, say, 75,000 words. The system changes, oh, let's say, 100 of them, in various ways.
So what are the chances of you being able to change enough yourself to obscure the changes they made? How high can you raise the probability without obscuring the text into unreadability?
Yeah, if they can do this on the fly when distributing digital copies of books, they've got something. Adding your own changes before distributing might help you track it, but it won't obscure theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh, so the nook won't be able to corrupt books? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon, free tip: words matter. Especially in books.
Sounds Dodgy at Best (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounds Dodgy at Best (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Not if the copyright holder gives permission.
Re: (Score:2)
* there was a case in Canada where a sculpter was able to force a mall to whom he'd sold a sculpture to remove christmas lights from his sculpture because it "defaced" it.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a difference between a right to sell the original works and a right to do whatever you want. Similar to how an author can sell right to publish to one person (even limiting it to certain regions of the world, as many books have different publishers in different areas of the world), right to make a movie to another, etc. The contract probably states if the publisher has the right to make certain modifications.
Don't shop amazon if you like artistic integrity! (Score:5, Insightful)
A synonym is not reflective of the intent of the author.
As Al Franken points out, 'friendly' is a synonym for 'intimate', so coulter obviously stated she was having a trist with franken when asked by a reporter!
Authors choose their diction carefully, at least good ones do, and that should not be tampered with.
Lesson learned: do not shop at amazon if you respect artistic integrity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't shop amazon if you like artistic integrit (Score:2)
I can't believe they would actually try to apply this to others' works without their consent. This seems more likely to be used *by* authors. Or at least some of them in certain situations. Could definitely be useful for corporate memos, etc. to find leaks. :-)
Moral rights (Score:4, Informative)
Canada and some other countries have "moral rights" which belong to the author.
Changing words without his permission could violate these rights.
In some countries these rights are inalienable and non-assignable. This means the author can't be ordered to waive them by the publisher or other copyright-holder.
Re: (Score:2)
They can't be forced to but can someone say 'we will pay you an extra million to give up this right' is that legal?
The Authorized Amazon Version of The Bible (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Let's hope that tomorrow's theologians actually know how to read Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew, and so are not dependent on translations, authorized or otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
An enormous amount of effort, and I do mean enormous, has gone into producing a critical text that is probably very, very close to the original. When the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered back in the 50's, with a copy of Isaiah several hundred years older than any that was had previously, there were virtually no differences between it and the Masoretic Text (which is the standard, scholarly text of the Hebrew Bible.) With respect to the New Testament, they literally compare thousands of manuscripts, dating
If I was an author . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was an author who had slaved a year over a book, and anyone but my editor (with my approval on each change) altered my precious words and distributed it as my work, I'd sue the pants off of them. It'd be like if someone was selling prints of my painting and changing a brush stroke. You just don't do that. Words are the author's paint.
Re: (Score:2)
As an author, you probably get to do that when you reach the revenue generation level of Stephen King or Issac Asimov. Until you have 10+ books to your name the publisher's editing team is going to do whatever the heck they want to your book and keep the copyright to themselves. It is in the contract you grudgingly agreed to because you wanted to be a published author.
After you sign such contracts for the first ten books, you might just be able to negotiate that your words are inviolate and you get to kee
Re: (Score:2)
Eventually it is going to be much more common to self publish for these reasons. Yes it happens a ton already but you aren't going to get your book into all the chain stores by yourself. If you can self publish on a major ebook (or on demand print) store with the option to opt out of this service, keep all rights to terminate distribution, etc. then more people will start doing it.
I thought of it first (Score:2)
I was doing this with Cliff Notes 35 years ago
Cartographers already do this... (Score:2)
...that is, introduce deliberate errors into their maps to detect copyright violations. Here's an example [whiterocklake.org] of an island that was simply "dropped" in the middle of a lake.
eBooks? Thanks, but I'll stick to paper. (Score:2)
This is yet one more reason not to get a Kindle or buy any eBooks from Amazon.
Like the Dialectizer or the lolcat translator? (Score:2)
Hmm? Does this mean Amazon has re-invented and patented The Dialectizer? -- http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/ [rinkworks.com]
Or the lolcat translator? - http://speaklolcat.com/ [speaklolcat.com]
"SPEEK SOFTLY AN CARRY HOOJ STICK" -- Theodore Catavelt
"Speek sufftly und cerry a beeg steeck" -- Theobork Borkevelt
Not a Wise Practice (Score:5, Insightful)
First, there is already pre-existing examples of this practice. Indeed, Tom Clancy described this very technique in one of his novels and called it, "The Smoking Word Processor."
Second, as an author, I go through quite an effort to ensure that the spelling and grammar are correct throughout any work that I created. To have Amazon completely throw away my efforts and ruin my work would really anger me. This might encourage me to inhibit Amazon from selling any of my work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Errmm... I could have sworn that Clancy called it "Canary," not "The Smoking Word Processor." Either way, it's 20-year old prior art.
So any serious pirate group (Score:2)
Acquires two copies of the work in question. Merges the differences- compares those lists and generates a copy that fingers someone else or no one.
Re: (Score:2)
Yay, I knew these philology classes would pay off!
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't work, at least if they do it right, and the text is long enough. This is a form of steganography, and what you are proposing is actually hard to do. Imagine Amazon makes, say, 1024 changes in a text. Each change can be regarded as a binary bit (being either present or absent), so each text copy has a unique 128 byte number hidden in it. If Amazon gives out 4 million copies, that means they only need about 24 bits to uniquely identify any individual. If I get my hands on 5 copies, and can correct ea
BRILLIANT! (Score:3, Funny)
We can set the copyright lawyers, representing the authors and publishers, against the patent lawyers representing Amazon. With any luck, they'll sue each other into the poor house and leave the rest of us alone!
Alternatively, we could establish a special court that handles these copyright vs patent cases. When all the lawyers arrive, wall the area up, cut the bridges and toss in a few spiked baseball bats to let 'em fight it out with. Maybe in New York...
How did this get through (Score:4, Insightful)
Mapmakers have been adding fictitious towns for many years (as many have commented).
People who sell lists have been doing this for many years. (Who's Who, for example, adds a few fictitious people for this purpose, and I believe so do the Yellow Pages.)
People trying to catch spies have been doing this for many years. (I first heard about this during the Thatcher years in the UK, and it wasn't new then.)
So, how, exactly is this new and non-obvious ?
Re: (Score:2)
Mapmakers have been adding fictitious towns for many years (as many have commented).
Damn, I've always wanted to become the mayor/sheriff/owner of my own town.
So they patented paraphrasing? (Score:2)
Water goats... (Score:2)
Great. I'm looking forward to a whole new crop of engineering textbooks with references to "water goats" instead of "hydraulic rams"
The mousetrap (Score:2)
This idea has been around forever - and it works.
The plagerist - the infringer - is almost by defintion a lazy son of a bitch. Reviewing text line-by-line. The movie frame-by-frame. That's hard.
Uhm copyright violation through derivative work (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless they have specific permission from the owner of the copyright work for any such modification. Any operation such as this would be an unauthorized derivative work and be in violation of the original copyright. The variations would be derivative works, not works in their own rights. Their creation would have to be authorized by the owner of the original copyright material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work [wikipedia.org]
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies...; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies...of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending....
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but this is likely happening on the Internet, a pretty much law-free, consequences free zone. Nobody on the Internet pays much attention to copyright, so it is only realistic that corporations are going to start taking advantage of this.
If Russian hackers can steal your bank account and nobody can do much about it, expect to see Sony stealing your music compositions and selling them on the Internet soon. If college kids can download movies, expect Netflix to start downloading them and offering them f
The logical progression (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You underestimate how evil a watermarking algorithm can be. Rather raising the number of words changed, amazon can simply make sure one set of an official copy's edits are unique, but another set overlaps exactly with group A of other accounts, another set overlaps with group B, another overlaps with group C... such that a naive copier will still be caught, and collaborators will never be able to be completely certain they removed every watermark.
Then amazon builds sets of potential pirates for each book th
Is it actually legal? It's definitely wrong. (Score:2)
After all, the author has probably only given them permission to distribute his work, not to distribute numerous altered versions.
For that matter, using synonyms can actually change the feel and meaning of a sentence when viewed in context of the whole.
And for documents relying on factual materials, quotes, and many sciences, swapping out words for synonyms will completely destroy the statements.
Just imagine this for your research, "Fermilabs has
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but did everybody get a slightly different version of the assignment?
Re: (Score:2)
I studied with a guy who did something similar. He was pretty smart and got good grades, so people would always ask to see his assignments so they could copy them. So he'd do every assignment twice - first he'd do it properly, then he'd do it wrong. He'd let other students see the wrong version, and then hand both versions in, making a note of which one was right and which one was wrong. The lecturer could then identify any copies of the wrong version by the kind of mistakes they contained.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Makes me wonder if the good grades were solely due to his work, and not the apparently close relationship with the lecturers.
Re: (Score:2)
So.... what have you written?
Re: (Score:2)
And would the resulting document be considered a derivative work?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)