PDF file security
reaction:
Quote from: lumpley on June 28, 2011, 09:27:10 AM
I've never considered PDF security worth the trouble.
-Vincent
As a point of data, I've pirated every book Vincent has ever published. I've also bought at least one copy of each. Dogs was the first indie game I ever bought, which probably never would have happened if I hadn't been puzzling over the pdf,trying to figure it out.
Thunder_God:
Not worth it.
A quick jaunt to 7chan shows you people de-watermarking most games coming out with watermarks.
As for DRM... I've never purchased a pdf of a game with DRM. DriveThruRPG originally had a weekly PDF for free with DRM. Now that they don't support them, I can't open them.
I guess if I had purchased them I could re-download the new watermarked versions, but what if I tried to open them again and DTRPG weren't there anymore?
PDF security is a joke, honestly. It means not anyone can crack it, but someone will, and they'll spread it.
Richard:
Quote from: pawsplay on July 05, 2011, 03:22:47 PM
The best security is to price your PDF at the level where none of your (realistic) customers are going to pirate it.
Very much this.
It should also be noted that people who pirate stuff tend to buy afterwards too. Although this article relates to the music industry, I would be inclined to believe it holds true for all fields: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music
Ron Edwards:
I can add a one-company data point to Richard's post, in that a number of customers admit to me, out of the blue, that they used a pirated download as a kind of stepping-stone or shopping-window on the way to buying my books. I have no way to know how many people pirate them and then don't buy them, or how to separate people in that category from those who wouldn't have bought them anyway, but at least I know that someone downloading a pirated copy isn't automatically a lost sale for me.
Best, Ron
Aisha Bennett:
PDF copy protection is not obtained by preventing people from copying physical files. You should make sure that the files being copied should be of no use. The secret here is to make sure that the cryptographic key used to decrypt the files cannot be passed on to others. This can be achieved by making the decryption key is not visible to people.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page