If you want to stay in business selling electronic media, you need software protection programs. Selling this media is a two-edged sword. The ease, rapidity and volume of its reproduction make it a lucrative product. The problem is that these same qualities make them a prime target for Internet pirates.
Protecting Your EBooks is a Survival Skill
While it would be important as a shop owner to protect your store from shoplifting, it’s even more important for you as an online businessperson to protect your EBooks. With physical merchandise, a one-time theft of a piece of gum or a candy bar isn’t going to dramatically affect your finances.
However, if one person steals your EBook, they can share it on a torrent website. It would be free of charge to download. Then, no one would be buying your EBook. Using the storefront analogy, it would be about like someone stealing everything in the store, but leaving you the appearance that everything is there.
If you don’t keep your eye on the Internet to see if your EBook is on a torrent site, you will probably never know that it’s been stolen, or why no one is buying your EBook.
EBook Protection—Stopping the Pirates in Their Tracks
Before you put your EBooks on the market, you need to have a strategy to protect them from piracy. You have to have clear-cut legal ownership, vigilance, and a strong defense against illegal copying. The strong defense can stand mostly on its own, but the vigilance and legal ownership mean little without it.
The reason for this is that your eBook can be stolen thousands of times over before you spot the theft. In the time it takes for it to be removed from the torrent sites in accordance to your copyrights, it can be stolen thousands of times more. This could mean the end of your career selling EBooks.
How PDF Protection Works
How your PDF Protection software works is important. There’s a delicate balance of giving maximum value to your PDF while protecting it from theft. Especially considering that some methods of protection could be considered hacking your customers’ computers or using spyware.
The best way to protect your EBook is to license one computer to open each purchased EBook. They can download it, they can keep it and they can print it. They can even share it on their network, upload it to the Internet and email it. Of course, no one else can open the file from another computer, so you’re still protected.