PDFS--Of the WotC Court Case

[Brown Jenkin]

Right- you can't really determine loss in that fashion. They don't specify what they consider actual damages in this document.

Also, in addition to asking for actual damages/profit (when they're talking about 504 (b)) they're also asking for statutory damages for willful infringement (504(c), or up to $150,000 per infringement).

It doesn't matter how much the court grants in damages. Real damages that can be collected can only go as high as the defendant can actually pay. The courts can award millions in damages, but WotC will be lucky to collect tens of thousands.

 

[Imperialus]

Couldn't they change the hiding places of the watermarks?

not only that, but we just know that there is a hidden watermark, somewhere in one of the pixels of the PDF. There are a lot of pixels in a PDF... I don't know much... or really anything about cracking DRM but that strikes me as being almost impossible to find and remove.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I know at least one of the pirates is not a US citizen and doesn't live in the US. It'll be interesting to see how that effects the court. THe country they're in isn't well known for working along with US customs and copyright laws.

Also, there's something humerously bizarre about all of us gathering around to freely share the court details about the lawsuit issued against people for freely sharing something

 

[malraux]

Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.

I would assume that a PC could handle that. I mean, your computer can easily handle not only displaying all those pixels, but dynamically scaling and rendering it. And you'd only be searching for differences. Beyond which, the pdf isn't pure image as a gif or jpg is. The large file "contains" individual image files, lessening the load required for comparison. That said, advanced levels of encryption could make it more difficult, as JohnRTroy said.

 

[NMcCoy]

Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.

Given the software, detecting a single-pixel difference between PDFs could be done in a trivial amount of time. Consider the fact that your computer needs to process all those pixels anyway in order to put them on the screen, after all.

However: Even if this particular system can be circumvented easily (and that may not necessarily be the case), I'm sure there are several possible ways to have a steganographic watermarking system that's quite robust - there's a pretty major field of research dedicated to this very sort of thing, after all.

 

[lmpjr007]

It doesn't matter how much the court grants in damages. Real damages that can be collected can only go as high as the defendant can actually pay. The courts can award millions in damages, but WotC will be lucky to collect tens of thousands.

Then there is the little matter of jail time...

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Then there is the little matter of jail time...

There is no jail time possible for civil cases. For jail to be a possibility the "state" (local/state/federal) would have to file a criminal case and the likelyhood of that is as close to zero as to make it meaningless.

 

[xechnao]

However: Even if this particular system can be circumvented easily (and that may not necessarily be the case), I'm sure there are several possible ways to have a steganographic watermarking system that's quite robust - there's a pretty major field of research dedicated to this very sort of thing, after all.

Well I guess one could deconstruct the pdf file in image files and reconstruct it with another software so even if one hides to other elements of the pdf file information that would be lost in the process. I have very limited knowledge on these technical things though so I may very well saying only really stupid things here.

 

[Deset Gled]

Well I guess one could deconstruct the pdf file in image files and reconstruct it with another software so even if one hides to other elements of the pdf file information that would be lost in the process.

Or someone could just buy a hard copy of the book and scan it.

It wouldn't be perfect, but there would be zero chance of traceability. With some of the higher end vision software these days, you could probably even get a decent percentage of the text recognized to be searchable. If someone cared enough, they could manually correct errors and re-proof the whole book.

 

[Choronzon]

In one of the pdfs, under "Prayer for Relief", it says WOTC is seeking an injunction against the plaintiff to stop them from: "copying, displaying, distributing, creating derivative works or otherwise usingprotected elements of WOTC copyright.

Are they being banned from even playing D&D?