At The Guardian James Bridle reports on a plan to automatically alter the text of digital books in order to foil piracy after the fact.
This involves making small changes to the code or design of each copy so that any pirated editions can be traced back to their purchaser or distributor.
This is apparently intended for non-fiction works, though Bridle points out that there are experimental precedents in fiction.
Rephrasing in experimental fiction has a fine lineage, and it's not hard to see how an author might collaborate with the German algorithms to produce a new version of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, or multiple variations on Georges Perec's A Void. Software already supports literature's production and distribution at every stage, but at some point it might become collaborator as well.
On a related note the idea of computer authoring has had quite a lot of press this year. One system developed by Phil Parker (as reported by Adam Popescu at readwrite.com) already creates thousands of non-fiction books, and can write poetry. It could also generate a blog post like this one he claims:
There's been in the last 2 weeks about 10 articles written about what I've done and none of them talked to me about it. They're all copy and pasting from each other. I think it's very a interesting observation that they're using a formulaic method to deliver content and put their name on a byline, when in fact they've done a formulaic cut-and-paste. I would call those kinds of articles low on the creativity front.
Busted.
