I am all for people paying for digital products and I do not condone piracy, however, let's be real here. Paizo's whole line is out there on the web. If piracy was a serious problem, Paizo would be going bankrupt. People know a good product and will buy it if it is worth buying. I KNOW I can download Paizo's PDF files on the web, but I buy them so Paizo will keep making the fine products they do. I own all of the hardcovers so it makes it difficult to pay up again when I want a PDF for a book I physically have, but I do.
I don't care how secure you try to keep a digital product, if it can be copied it will be. It is of my opinion that companies need to focus on quality and forget about protecting digital products. It never works... Ever.
I don't think Paizo would miss a dollar if their PDFs weren't personalized. The only thing it might do is make someone spend time scrubbing the PDF clean before they post it. Then again if someone doesn't care, it may still find its way out there watermarked. It is out there and nobody can do anything about it at that point. Sure you can stop selling to the person, but someone else is going to do it. The new guy will just be more careful.
The bottom line is... If it is digital and people want it for free, they will get it for free. If they can't do it themselves, they will find someone they know to get it for them.
