I find it extremely annoying - if I'd known about it beforehand, I wouldn't have bought the book. It's intrusive, doesn't add anything to the reading experience, and communicates that you don't trust me enough to not watermark something I purchased from you legitimately.
Thanks for the feedback. I think people (myself included) can get so caught up trying to limit piracy that we don't think about how it makes the user feel.
I think that having it on every page is definitely over the top. Would you still be annoyed if it was just on a single page? Say with a thank you for purchasing message?
On one page at the beginning or end would be fine, or better yet, non-visible metadata/stenography, but stamping my name on every page is like putting the FBI warning on movies. The only people who see the FBI warning are the legitimate purchasers. Stripping my name off each page of the PDF is a trivial technical challenge, something a dozen lines of Python could probably fix, but it's highly annoying that it's even necessary if I legitimately bought it.
It's also about how you apply it. PragProg is pretty subtle, Packt Publishing is (or was, it's been a while) was in your face about it.
I've been on the fence about buying this book for the last hour, and this is a factor that has me leaning towards not purchasing (besides there being few unbiased comments on the contents).
Seems like watermarking with something like a QR would be better, maybe less aesthetically weird as well. Although, no watermark I guess would be better, just an idea. :)
