Re: copyright, there are a number of different ways to register copyright. The easiest is to publish something in a widely accessible place with the words "Copyright YYYY NAME_OF_COPYRIGHT_HOLDER" or you can alternatively use the "c in a circle" symbol. You can also post a copy of something to yourself so that it gets dated, and then only open it in the event of any dispute. Formal registration for copyright does take some time, but it doesn't cost all that much.
However....
The above reflects the US copyright law, which also includes a "fair use" clause to allow you to quote or use parts (not the whole work) in critiques, parodies, and other scenarios. I almost added this to my other post, but then I discovered that UK copyright law is quite different and doesn't include the "fair use" clause. Wikipedia also says that copyright is "automatic" in the UK, but that isn't much of a legal description of how it works. You could also say that about some of the US methods too.
Re: ebook security, my guess (having not seen the book) is that the executable is really just a front-end for an embedded web browser. If SBF got the pictures off the web, and it seems that you need to be connected to use it, then it's just providing automatic authentication to the website. Given a copy of the ebook and appropriate network diagnostic tools, I'm sure it wouldn't take too much to figure out how it works.
Like any security scheme, there's always at least one way around it. That's the thing about security, as I'm sure SnS knows well from his former military background as well. The trick is to make it inconvenient enough so that you can achieve an appropriate level of risk mitigation. There will always be people who try and get around it.
In this case, hand transcriptions, digital photos of the screen and probably any of the "really good" screen capture tools would likely work quite well. Sorry, Andy, but there's always a way. The other thing which is quite amusing is that most people don't really understand information security techniques well enough to come up with something that really works. There are a few techniques which are generally accepted by the InfoSec community to work really well, but it doesn't sound like these are actually being employed in the ebook. It seems more like a "home grown" approach, and nearly always, these only provide the illusion of security rather than actually doing much good.
If I had 15 quid to throw away and a few hours, I'd buy it for the craic just to see how it worked. Information Security and Assurance is another aspect of what I do professionally, so I have some basis for these comments as well.
I think the 6 hr refund policy is crap. Are you really going to be able to make all the dishes (or even one of them) in 6 hrs from the time of purchase to determine if you don't feel like you got what you paid for? I agree with SnS. I don't think there'd be much of a legal foundation for those terms and conditions if someone pushed very hard.
At least the recent developments on this thread finally made me chuckle a bit. It seemed to be giving diminishing returns earlier.
As P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
ast
Topic: The Curry Book (Read 86792 times)
