The idea was that this helped to protect the interests of both the publisher and the customer.

Those are great questions, well worth asking, but keep in mind that, yes, the credit card information could be scrambled as a series of numbers meaningful only to the publisher, etc.

At the same time, less sensitive information such as names and e-mail addresses could be in the open. What’s more, I love the order number idea or customer ID number (retrievable via e-mail or other means such as passwords). There is even the possibility of scrambling order numbers (maybe even breaking them up and placing the components in different parts of the book, varying from copy to copy). Talk about multilayer protection! Same for library card numbers, if publishers and librarians can work out the “permanent checkout” concept I’ve also been writing about.

As for the term Social DRM, which comes from Adobe’s Bill McCoy, who picked up the basic concept from The Pragmantic Programmer, maybe it can change in time, but right now the idea is to win over publishers. I think users will follow, given the extreme and rather deserved hostility to the usual DRM. I’m less interested in terminology than in weaning the publishing industry off its dependence on e-shackles. Could be a great sales booster and delight many a reader, especially me. Right now I rarely buy DRMed e-books, because I want to be able to own books for real.

Big thanks,
David

P.S. eReader scrambles cc cards, although, alas, this happens within a proprietary system. Even its system is far from perfect (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2360.html). But so be it. The only way to prevent piracy entirely is not to sell books—including the paper kind, which can be scanned!

http://www.teleread.org/blog

I’ve adopted the term Social DRM as a result of some writing Ive seen over on the David Rothman site as well as a few others. I’m not sure I am sold on it either.

However, I completely agree with the non-restrictive nature of what we are talking about here. I’m not talking about locking it down in any way, just watermarking.

I would advise against a credit card number because, in a genuine case of theft (where a third party steals the ebook files) the customer’s credit card details would be stolen along with the ebook.

I would also avoid the term “Social DRM” like the plague. DRM is about restriction by software, and anything connected with “DRM” is understandably despised by many people.

This is digital watermarking – it’s nothing to do with using software to restrict usage. It’s a good idea and I wouldn’t want to doom it to rejection & failure by wrongly marketing it as “DRM”, albeit with a buzzword prefix like “Social” (when there’s nothing “social” about it – it’s just a digital watermark).

Robert Bjarnason