Accessibility isn't just for those who are blind and using screen readers.
People with low vision, degrading vision, reading disabilities, and dyslexia also use screen readers.
Our low-vision testers want to hear this information because they can partially see it on the page, but can't quite get all the information they need to reassure themselves they're not missing something important or of interest to them.
Artifacting is intended only for unimportant visual items that aren't needed to access or comprehend the document. Also for repeated elements, like a logo or headers/footers that are repeated on many pages and would drive anyone nuts if they heard them over and over and over.
I also recommend that you keep the cover information readable.
Most screen reader users I know automatically invoke a keyboard shortcut when they open a document and then sit back and listen to all the headings be read out, <H1>My Best-Selling Novel, <H2>Contents, <H2>Chapter 1, etc. They quickly hear and navigate to the section they want to read. If they want to skip the cover, they can. They have the choice to do so.
<< To be exact, the content aforementioned is a journal's cover page and imprint; a collection of copyright and legal statements that must be there, and sighted people can quickly skim and skip them. But they are a repetitive nuisance for a person using a screen reader. Specially because they consist of several blocks of text each usually begin with a special character like copyright sign or a meaning less code (e.g. ISSN) or abbreviation. In other words, they are there to perform various legal functions, not to be read. I listened to them, tried to navigate in the page and they are really an obstacle to the content.>>
As a former employee who is blind used to remind me, nearly every day, "Bevi, I'm blind. Not stupid. I can figure it out." And another of his frequent comments, "I'll just arrow out of it" referring to the common keyboard shortcut screen readers use to skip stuff. They'll hear "copyright sign" and skip to the next paragraph or next page in a split second, unless of course they wanted to know that information.
Referring to your comments that I highlighted above in bold: They appear just once in the book/document, so the information really isn't a repetitive nuisance. What if someone was reading this book for their college thesis? They'd certainly need to know where to find the copyright information. If it's hidden (such as by being artifacted), then it's impossible for them to find it when needed.
You and I are both designers, which means we're highly vision dominant. It's difficult for any sighted person to learn how to use a screen reader; our experience is totally different from someone's who has been blind from birth or blinded later in life. My studio has a half dozen different assistive technologies and for the life of me, I can't remember the dozens of, what to me are, illogical keyboard shortcuts to skip this or do that. Yet I watch my blind screen reader testers amaze me with their adept use of them.
Bottom line: our experience isn't anything like theirs. Follow the standards and guidelines so that all users can decide what and how to access the content.
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