File protection from copying?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Lev Abramov wondered: <<A friend has just completed writing a book  
which he wants to market online as an e-book. He's looking for a file  
format which would ensure that the e-book can only be used on one  
computer and not be circulated freely in violation of copyright. MP3  
files downloaded to an iPod cannot be transferred to another iPod. Is  
there any tool that would protect a text-based document in a similar  
manner?>>

In the extreme sense, no, there's no possible way to protect anything  
that can be seen by the human eye against copying. In the worst  
possible case, people will manually retype what you've written.  
Popular books such as the Harry Potter series are up on the Web for  
free downloading within hours of their release in bookstores;  
apparently, teams of hundreds of readers each type a couple pages,  
reducing the task to an hour or two of frenzied typing. On the other  
hand, if you make copyright protection sufficiently effective to be  
inconvenient, someone will crack your protection within a few days  
just to make a point; this has happened with most forms of DVD  
protection, for instance.

The iTunes experience, not to mention the millions of Potter books  
that have been sold, proves a larger point: if you set a fair price  
for something, you remove most of the temptation to steal it even  
when stolen copies are freely available. In addition, the experiences  
of John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow (plus some other authors over at  
Baen Publishing) offer strong (if anecdotal) evidence that making  
your writing available for free doesn't dissuade readers from buying  
the printed version as soon as it becomes available.

Yes, some people will still steal your writing, but the vast majority  
will prove surprisingly honest. I've chosen this "as few strings as  
possible" policy for my own eBook (see below), and while I have no  
way of telling how many bootleg copies are circulating, I'm  
reasonably confident that any working professional who needs a copy  
(who else would read it?) can easily afford it, and will be willing  
to pay for a copy. The book is selling well enough that I'm confident  
this is the case, and I'm not going to obsess over whether I'm right.  
In a couple weeks, when the book goes up on Lulu.com, we'll see what  
the print sales are like.

Possibly it also helps that I've explicitly told me readers to treat  
the book as if it were a paper book: you can move it between  
computers (like moving a paperback to a new shelf), loan it to a  
friend, or sell it to someone else if you choose. So long as you only  
use one copy at a time, I haven't the slightest objection to what you  
do with the book. I'd rather sell more copies than fewer, but I'm not  
unhappy with the number I'm selling now.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
***Now available***  _Effective onscreen editing_
(http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm)


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