New Stephen King Novel Faces Online Piracy

Pirated copies of Stephen King's new novel Joyland have begun to circulate online, while "researchers in Germany are investigating a new piracy prevention method which could alter a story's text to deter illegal copying," according to the Guardian.

Joyland, which tells the story of a college student working at a fair where a murder has taken place, was published earlier in June exclusively in print. King's decision to hold off on e-publishing has "sparked criticism," leading to illegal online copies. However, Charles Ardai, a publisher at Hard Case Crime (which published Joyland) stated that even if an e-book were released, "it would most likely have been pirated as well."

Germany's Fraunhofer Institut has been developing a new ebooks digital rights management system which "would change certain words in the text of a pirated book" so that an individualized copy could be traced. The biggest skeptics of this new system so far are authors like Nick Harkaway, who said, "I hate with a fiery passion the idea of making the text spy on the reader."

Dr. Martin Steinebach of the Frauhofer Institut compares the reaction to this new anti-pirating system to audio watermarking, which generated skepticism amongst musicians. In his words, Dr. Steinebach claims "we simply need time and evaluation cycles to find the best solution."

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