Richard Jones' Log: Digital publishing

Steve Jackson Games' e23 digital publishing project uses a publishing model that we've been planning at work for a while. My boss also believes that Digital Rights Management* shouldn't take the form of roadblocks (i.e. access controls including encryption). His approach is very similar to e23, but also includes watermarking the downloaded PDF files with information such as the purchaser's name and the date purchased. Some people understand this approach, but others just find it incomprehensible - probably mostly because they don't fully understand how DRM roadblocks are circumventable. I've given up trying to explain this to people, as the sheer panic I sometimes encounter is scary.

news via BoingBoing

*: possibly because of the focus on encryption and access controls, it is often not known that a large part of DRM is the identification of the Work, its creator(s) and consumer(s).