When do you need to copy protect PDF? Anyone distributing intellectual property such as educational course lessons, trade recipes or corporate data for the eyes only of those within the company needs to protect their livelihood by copy protecting those documents. Most authors use Word to create their document but not everyone has the Word software on their computer because it is not open source and it needs a license. However, PDF is a universal document file type that is supported on most computers and it can be easily created from the word. Once you have a PDF you can then use a protect PDF software to encrypt it and convert it for use in a protected reader that prevents copy and printing of the information while the document is open, and with additional options for preventing unauthorized distribution and sharing such as DRM.
However one needs to realize that the PDF will no longer be readable in Adobe Reader and that it should not be expected. Because without a proprietary reader specially designed for copy protection and DRM, the document would not be secure and it would be easily exploited to extract your information. For example, there are many apps available that convert files to any file type that you desire and the most powerful of those are printer drivers because they can print your decrypted document from memory. But a good copy protect reader will be the only document reader that can decrypt your PDF while preventing print to printer drivers.
DRM will further protect your PDF by identifying the user's computer and calling home to check if that user has permission to view. By employing DRM only those with permission to read can open the PDF. Sure, the file itself can be sent to 1,000 users but only those with your DRM rights will be able to view it.Some authors distribute for desktop reading with DRM while others prefer to display the protected PDF on their web pages and restrict access with password controls. Today building web sites is made easy through the use of content management systems (CMS) like Drupal, Joomla, Moodle and WordPress, while plugins are available to add protected PDF to one's web pages and posts from their CMS editor.One of the industries that do protect PDF is online courses to ensure that lessons are not plagiarized and used by other educators, and also to ensure that students maintain focus through the designated levels of their course.For those educators, some course material can be in the form of videos and there is also software available to protect video while offering the same copy protection and DRM features as described above.
However one needs to realize that the PDF will no longer be readable in Adobe Reader and that it should not be expected. Because without a proprietary reader specially designed for copy protection and DRM, the document would not be secure and it would be easily exploited to extract your information. For example, there are many apps available that convert files to any file type that you desire and the most powerful of those are printer drivers because they can print your decrypted document from memory. But a good copy protect reader will be the only document reader that can decrypt your PDF while preventing print to printer drivers.
DRM will further protect your PDF by identifying the user's computer and calling home to check if that user has permission to view. By employing DRM only those with permission to read can open the PDF. Sure, the file itself can be sent to 1,000 users but only those with your DRM rights will be able to view it.Some authors distribute for desktop reading with DRM while others prefer to display the protected PDF on their web pages and restrict access with password controls. Today building web sites is made easy through the use of content management systems (CMS) like Drupal, Joomla, Moodle and WordPress, while plugins are available to add protected PDF to one's web pages and posts from their CMS editor.One of the industries that do protect PDF is online courses to ensure that lessons are not plagiarized and used by other educators, and also to ensure that students maintain focus through the designated levels of their course.For those educators, some course material can be in the form of videos and there is also software available to protect video while offering the same copy protection and DRM features as described above.
Again, a proprietary video player will be required but that is not an issue because any video protect software that is worthwhile will provide a desktop player for video distributed by email, download or on disk, and also provide a browser plugin for viewing protected video from one's web page.Who would not want to protect their livelihood?
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