eBooks - is there a secure system?
I have a client who runs a specialised publishing company. They have been online for 10 years and built up a useful ecommerce site.
The owner has now decided that eBooks are the way to go; converting his 30+ titles of some 300 - 400 pages to PDF format.
So these would be exactly the same as his conventional range, except in PDF format - including color images. And sell along side them.
He now has a panic over his books being copied and redistributed illegally. He feels there must be a way round this and has researched a number of ways of securing his ebooks. Some of these are expensive and require hosting the PDF files on the secure PDF service provider's server. This would mean that the present shopping cart system would not work.
I have told him that it is essentially impossible to stop his ebooks being copied. If they can be opened they can be copied (by screen-shots and OCR, for example) and passwording only means the password is passed on. Preventing printing will annoy buyers as I would be having bought a 300 page ebook and have to read it on my screen only.
Am I right? Or is there a secure way to sell ebooks?
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