Protecting Your Ebook FAIL

274 replies
I just got my copy of Traffic Hurricane Pro v2!

It has protected ebooks in EXE format!

"Traffic Hurricane Pro Personal Use Edition.exe" shows you how to install the install the software on a single server and to use the Professional edition of Traffic Hurricane version 2.0.
These are so much better than PDF files!

They protect you from pirates without upsetting your users at all!

Look how awesome and professional it is!













#ebook #fail #protecting
  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    Perfect! A guru will sell it for $197 tomorrow.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    lol ... pictures are worth a thousand words.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
    Looks similar to the program I use, Ebook Pro.

    Yes, protected ebooks in EXE format!! Who would have thought?

    Now, maybe some around here will realize that it's actually possible to protect your ebooks from being stolen.
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

      Now, maybe some around here will realize that it's actually possible to protect your ebooks from being stolen.
      And maybe others will understand that when your CUSTOMERS can't read the INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS, you are a DOUCHEBAG.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
      Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

      Looks similar to the program I use, Ebook Pro.

      Yes, protected ebooks in EXE format!! Who would have thought?

      Now, maybe some around here will realize that it's actually possible to protect your ebooks from being stolen.
      Send me a copy of your dating ebook and we'l see how long it takes to crack.

      Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author abednego
    Wouldn't running an executable discourage people from purchasing or viewing your e-book?
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    • Profile picture of the author jonbeebe
      Originally Posted by abednego View Post

      Wouldn't running an executable discourage people from purchasing or viewing your e-book?
      Especially us mac users. Sure, I could probably run it using Wine or Parallels.... but I'd rather use my PDF reader.

      If someone wants to steal your eBook... you're probably making enough sales not to care so much. Hell, take it as a compliment!
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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        Originally Posted by jonbeebe View Post

        Especially us mac users. Sure, I could probably run it using Wine or Parallels.... but I'd rather use my PDF reader.

        If someone wants to steal your eBook... you're probably making enough sales not to care so much. Hell, take it as a compliment!
        You can take it as a compliment if you wish and pat yourself on the back that a bunch of low life criminals want to profit from your work for free, but I am not flattered by it.
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  • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
    Executable ebooks are about as convenient as tits on a bull.

    Just sayin'...
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    • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
      Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

      Executable ebooks are about as convenient as tits on a bull.

      Just sayin'...
      On a cow they're pretty important though; you're after the wrong animal :-p
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      • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
        Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

        On a cow they're pretty important though; you're after the wrong animal :-p
        Since when do cows come with exe ebooks?

        Oh wait.. nevermind.
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        • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
          Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

          Since when do cows come with exe ebooks?

          Oh wait.. nevermind.
          Come to Ohio, everything comes with a cow :-p
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    • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
      Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

      Executable ebooks are about as convenient as tits on a bull.

      Just sayin'...
      This is one of the most awkward metaphors I have ever heard
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    I don't get why everyone is so scared of executable, just scan it first. I mean, they're programs, you have to run them... you can hide a virus in a pdf too, so I just don't get it. Oh well :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

      I don't get why everyone is so scared of executable, just scan it first. I mean, they're programs, you have to run them... you can hide a virus in a pdf too, so I just don't get it. Oh well :-)
      A PDF is a document. An executable is a program.

      With a PDF, I need a reader. Most modern operating systems already come pre-installed with Acrobat Reader or something similar.

      An executable works on a narrower range of systems. Will it work under all versions of Windows? Will it work on a Mac? Linux? Even if the author offers different versions, what if I switch platforms? Do I have to buy the product again, or will I be able to download the alternative executable? How will that affect support costs for the vendor? What if the software doesn't work? Do I need to be connected to the Internet? So, if my Internet connection is down, I can't read the eBook I paid for?

      With the PDF, if I upgrade my computer, I likely still have a way to read the PDF. If I switch from Windows to Mac or vice versa, I can still read the same PDF I paid for.

      As a buyer, I want what I paid for. An executable provides me, the buyer, with no benefit and increased inconveniences.

      Plus, if I'm someone intent on stealing a product and distributing it myself, an executable is only going to slow me down. It's not going to stop me. And, if I'm one of those people in the "information should be FREE" crowd, your executable might, in fact, make me more determined to set your content free.

      An executable makes content application-centric. A document makes content document-centric. In an age where people want their content portable, why would you still want to remain stuck in a proprietary world?
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    • Profile picture of the author Jamian
      Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

      I don't get why everyone is so scared of executable, just scan it first. I mean, they're programs, you have to run them... you can hide a virus in a pdf too, so I just don't get it. Oh well :-)
      Not all executable files will be detected by an antivirus, that's why it's hard to use an .exe files.
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    • Profile picture of the author wisywig
      Executable books are a pain in the neck for linux users!
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      • Profile picture of the author davewebsmith
        stop "wine"ing lol

        Originally Posted by wisywig View Post

        Executable books are a pain in the neck for linux users!
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        • Profile picture of the author fthomas137
          Ya know, I know what it feels like to have my hard work 'shared'. I did a count of the number of thanks on forums where people posted links to stuff that was 'shared' and there were more thefts on my product then sales. Sure it sold well, but think of it this way....

          You go to work at the company you work for. You work hard all week to earn a paycheck. You get your paycheck and it's less then 1/2 of what you were expecting. You enquire with the payroll office and ask them where the heck is the other 1/2? They tell you, 'sorry but we all 'shared' it with each other.'

          Would you be pissed?

          Do I like fooling with the process of actually locking my stuff to make sure it isn't 'shared'? To me, it's akin to babysitting. Pisses me off too.

          But I guess I just don't have a choice. Either ebook it or give it away.

          Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author BriannaZachary
    Excellent,it helps to protect ebooks from unused
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    • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
      Originally Posted by BriannaZachary View Post

      Excellent,it helps to protect ebooks from unused
      Now, THIS is something we can all get behind...

      Protection from unused....

      DOWN WITH UNUSED!
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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        • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          What is this prejudice I see against unused? :confused:
          They're behind the duplicate content penalty :-p
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        • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          What is this prejudice I see against unused? :confused:
          Oh sweet, innocent Alexa.

          Your naivete is so endearing...

          An ebook unused is but a suitor unchoosed.

          A magic trick unrused...

          A copywriter unmused.

          Terrible similes unfused.

          A one-liner in a thread "me too'sed"...

          OK.. I'm done..
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          • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
            Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

            Oh sweet, innocent Alexa.

            Your naivete is so endearing...

            An ebook unused is but a suitor unchoosed.

            A magic trick unrused...

            A copywriter unmused.

            Terrible similes unfused.

            A one-liner in a thread "me too'sed"...

            OK.. I'm done..
            You should sell your poetry as an executable ebook.
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            • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
              Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

              You should sell your poetry as an executable ebook.
              I've got to get my new "Lose The Moobs" exebook for bulls out first.
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              • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
                Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

                Executable ebooks are about as convenient as tits on a bull.

                Just sayin'...
                Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

                Now, THIS is something we can all get behind...

                Protection from unused....

                DOWN WITH UNUSED!
                Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

                Oh sweet, innocent Alexa.

                Your naivete is so endearing...

                An ebook unused is but a suitor unchoosed.

                A magic trick unrused...

                A copywriter unmused.

                Terrible similes unfused.

                A one-liner in a thread "me too'sed"...

                OK.. I'm done..

                You have wisdom & humour beyond your years. Just a pity everybody doesn't get it!

                Peeps
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                • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
                  Originally Posted by Peeps66 View Post

                  You have wisdom & humour beyond your years. Just a pity everybody doesn't get it!

                  Peeps
                  Peeps, you are definitely one of my peeps.

                  : )
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                  • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
                    Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

                    Peeps, you are definitely one of my peeps.

                    : )
                    Just come in from work and there you are. You must be psychic as well!

                    Cheers

                    Peter
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            • Profile picture of the author George Wright
              Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

              You should sell your poetry as an executable ebook.
              Yes I agree. Your poetry should be executed.
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          • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
            Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod View Post

            An ebook unused is but a suitor unchoosed.

            A magic trick unrused...

            A copywriter unmused.

            Terrible similes unfused.

            A one-liner in a thread "me too'sed"...

            OK.. I'm done..
            A repetition abused...
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Sounds like someone really messed up setting up the protection scheme.

    Have you called the sellers about this? What have they told you in reply?
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  • Profile picture of the author lacraiger
    wont open in a mac
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    • Profile picture of the author Bicycle Cat
      Hahahaha, thanks for a good laugh, CDarklock.

      Ebooks as .exe files...
      ...why?
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      • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
        Originally Posted by Bicycle Cat View Post

        Hahahaha, thanks for a good laugh, CDarklock.

        Ebooks as .exe files...
        ...why?
        Prevents theft if used correctly.
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        • Profile picture of the author Bicycle Cat
          Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

          Prevents theft if used correctly.
          Sounds good in theory, but what if I can't open an .exe if I'm a Mac user or I'm on a shared account/computer?
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        • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
          Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

          Prevents theft if used correctly.
          No it doesn't.
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          • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
            Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

            No it doesn't.
            Since you are (I believe) the 2nd or third person to tell me this, let me change my wording. It deters theft. NOTHING PREVENTS THEFT. I can steal your ebook, get into your house, steal your car, whatever. Anyone can. The idea of antitheft devices is to make it as difficult as possible.

            Again: I don't not think using this protection on an ebook is worth it. I was trying to explain why people do it. Thanks!

            Sean
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            • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
              Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

              Since you are (I believe) the 2nd or third person to tell me this, let me change my wording. It deters theft.
              I think most would agree that the purpose of DRM is to deter theft, but the hypothesis being argued here seems to be whether the money made from that deterrent exceeds the money made by capturing sales from customers who avoid DRM'd eBooks. Taking into account the costs, time, and stress involved.

              EDIT: JayXtreme beat me to the punch
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              • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
                Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

                I think most would agree that the purpose of DRM is to deter theft, but the hypothesis being argued here seems to be whether the money made from that deterrent exceeds the money made by capturing sales from customers who avoid DRM'd eBooks. Taking into account the costs, time, and stress involved.

                EDIT: JayXtreme beat me to the punch
                Heh - Yes, I was beaten to the punch too - the big point here is this. The number of people who buy an unproteced format MINUS the people who steal it is ALWAYS GREATER than the number of people who buy and have no trouble with a protected format.

                That's because option B is lame for the legit buyer, and it's lame for the content producer, in service of being lame to the moocher too. The problem is, being lame to the producer and the customer BOTH DISCOURAGE further efforts.

                Being lame to the thief ONLY ENCOURAGES HIM. If you just let them have it easy they will care even less.

                Distributed information will EVENTUALLY BE FREE. Period. If you know where to look, you can find anything you want. If you are making a conscious decision to profit as a source of information in such a world, what is a better choice?

                Trying to make your information protected, or make the SOURCE of the info more important than the content?

                The way I see it, we are BLESSED to be able to get PAID for distribution of our content SOMETIMES. Because EVEN when it gets spread around for free, if it's branded right, you win anyway. Getting paid at that stage is a bonus.

                I personally THANK pirates for spreading my crap around because I have people RIGHT NOW opting into a page that has a form that says "DO NOT SIGN UP TO THIS LIST". Why? Because some ebook I sold for $50 in 2006 for a week and NEVER PROMOTED AGAIN...

                Is still being spread around behind my back and sending optins - 5 a month max. But STILL. I never sold it again. It's profiting me without me doing anything. I care negative zero percent.

                Who profits more? The person whose information is perfectly protected, or the person whose information is more widespread and all encompassing and ubiquitous and spread all to heaven and high water?

                Consider the ORIGINS of the very words. In Pirate times, the merchant's ships would be looted and stolen, the MERCHANT loses... The Pirate gains, but who gains even MORE? How about the guy who PRODUCES the GOODS?

                (Okay, that's not the best analogy, but still.)
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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      • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
        Originally Posted by davewebsmith View Post

        i believe their pricing is monthly - making it rather expensive
        That's why I don't do math at 2 AM; you're right. Not worth it unless you charge $50+

        Originally Posted by Bicycle Cat View Post

        Sounds good in theory, but what if I can't open an .exe if I'm a Mac user or I'm on a shared account/computer?
        Then you're an angry customer... I was just saying that's why people do it, personally I think it's too much work for a pdf. I've written an ebook; I know how much work it takes... but I wouldn't code it into a program that creates a server to talk to the ISS and beam the customer a copy from space. Unfortunately, people steal things. Easier to move on :-) (short version: I agree with you)

        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Some do; some don't. E-book Pro has a Mac-version download for its e-books now. Maybe others will (have to) follow?
        But everyone uses and loves Windows, it has no problems at all!
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  • Profile picture of the author kingofthecrate
    Its impossible to protect your ebook. I've seen countless ebooks and WSO's online. Whether they lock each copy with a unique password or have web based authentication. hackers and crackers will break that code in a short while.

    Even your email lists are especially unsafe. Maybe somebody should sell a security solution
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  • Profile picture of the author davewebsmith
    thanks for the laugh - great start to the morning ... as always CDarklock

    Disclaimer - The results i have pasted are from a google search - i am in no way/shape or form rewarded for this information financially (referal) affiliate or any other means

    I have looked into this issue before and in case you dont know there are software packages that lock PDF's to help prevent illegal distribution

    pdf secure - Google Search=

    The password security in the acrobat product is not as secure as it seems - however that are products that are very very expensive

    eg) Protectedpdf.com | ES Features & Benefits

    with features such as

    Track Documents :
    Track whenever a PDF document is opened (not just logged into), what PDF viewer and version was used, and the IP address and machine ID

    Pricing (Disclaimer) please make sure you are sitting on a secure chair and have no hot drinks / fizzy drinks nearby

    Protectedpdf.com | Pricing


    The price of security ....
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    • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
      Originally Posted by davewebsmith View Post


      The price of security ....
      It only seems expensive. If you break it down, it's only $.20 per reader. Even if you only sell your ebook for $7, that's nothing. You just need to make sure that you're going to sell at least 500 :-)
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      • Profile picture of the author davewebsmith
        i believe their pricing is monthly - making it rather expensive

        Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

        It only seems expensive. If you break it down, it's only $.20 per reader. Even if you only sell your ebook for $7, that's nothing. You just need to make sure that you're going to sell at least 500 :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author ShaneRQR
    Wow, this thread derailed in record time! In a very amusing way, too.

    Seems to me like there are waaay simpler ways to "secure" access to your stuff.

    I say "secure" becuase I doubt any solution is really safe from piracy.
    Forget about cracking and hacking, most products can be stolen via buy-and-request-refund.

    So what if you have a super-secure system. That just makes it: buy-open-take-screenshots-request-refund.

    If someone really wants to steal your stuff, they're going to...
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      This is one of the funniest threads I've seen here in a very long time.

      Derailed?

      For crying out loud, not one person even commented on the fact that the
      damn thing doesn't work. LMAO.

      Oh God...I can't stop laughing. It hurts.

      Please...SOMEBODY call an EMT. LMFAO.

      I need to go get some work done.
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  • Profile picture of the author PhilJL
    Protecting the ebook in an .EXE sure limits it's usability.
    You need:
    - an Internet connection (Forget reading it on your laptop at the waterfront)
    - an OS that can run the .exe (Forget reading the ebook on your new IPAD)
    It makes me wonder if you are penalising your customers more than the 'low life criminals'.
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  • Profile picture of the author Preben Frenning
    The best way to protect your ebooks/courses is to make them available ONLY to Linux. A very smart move indeed

    I also like to make my high-end courses available online with search engines allowed. That way I can get free traffic as well as visitors from the search engines can browse my entire course, then buy access to it afterwards

    Oh, and I hate unused too.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Preben Frenning View Post

      The best way to protect your ebooks/courses is to make them available ONLY to Linux. A very smart move indeed .
      Yes but then you have to sell your ebooks for $4000 a pop so that you can make money on the two or three people who buy it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        An executable makes content application-centric. A document makes content document-centric. In an age where people want their content portable, why would you still want to remain stuck in a proprietary world?
        Well stated, and I couldn't agree more.

        Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

        It really isn't a burden to my customers and I feel it's necessary to take steps to protect my product. But, that's just my opinion.
        Question: Do your customer know the product they're buying is in .exe format before they buy?
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  • Profile picture of the author James Danh
    haha this thread make me laugh. Yeh .exe ebooks suck,they don't work with mac too.
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    • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
      Besides the fact that he couldn't even read his .EXE ebook on a Windows machine, I'm also laughing at the idea that you can "protect" something that's visible on the screen.

      By using the knowledge available right here on this forum even the mightiest of ebooks will fall in a matter of minutes worst case.

      1. If the eBook allows you to print, print to PDF. Stop.
      2. If it doesn't allow you to print: take a screenshot of each page, add each page to a PDF document, save. Stop. Most people already have the software on their computer to do this. Extra bonus points for having one of your outsourced workers do this. Even more bonus points to write a script to do this.

      STOP trying to "protect" your ebooks. You're just wasting time and money, and chances are you're losing more customers due to your infuriating "DRM" than you're recovering in lost sales.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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        • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


          With a PDF they can; with a .exe, they can't.

          My case rests.

          Your fighting a losing battle, Alexa.

          Most of the people are regurgitating what they saw others regurgitate on forums. It is a lot easier to just say the same thing instead of testing it for themselves.


          As you know, it must be true if it is on the internet.
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          • Profile picture of the author Preben Frenning
            Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

            As you know, it must be true if it is on the internet.
            True :p

            e-book of cauliflower soup recipes
            I doubt that ANYONE who buys those kinds of product have ever heard about torrent sites, or even rapidshare for that matter. I would even think they would be scared if you have a harsh disclaimer at the beginning of the book, stating that it's for personal use only.

            Anyways, I think Steven Wagenheim summed up the conclusion less words than anyone else.
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        • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Your information's out of date, James. (See above.)



          Really? I'm not.



          How many customers for an e-book of cauliflower soup recipes are going to know how to do that or take the trouble to do it?! Sorry, but this is just silly. Assuming that people will do that is as eccentric as assuming (as some do) that if someone's going to steal it they definitely wouldn't have become a paying customer anyway, if you'd protected it. Both are just bizarre conjecture that doesn't actually stand up to examination at all. :rolleyes:

          Why on Earth do people assume that if you can't have 100% protection, having 95% protection is a waste of time? :confused:

          The key issue here relates simply to whether most people who have bought the book can quickly and easily forward it by email attachment to others.

          With a PDF they can; with a .exe, they can't.

          My case rests.
          What about uploading it to rapid share or some other upload site and sharing the download url via email?

          My case rests as well :p

          Chris
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          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
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            Originally Posted by skyfox7 View Post

            What about uploading it to rapid share or some other upload site and sharing the download url via email?

            My case rests as well :p

            Chris

            How are they going to activate the product without the serial? You do know most of these programs contact servers to see if the person is still a legitimate customer.

            If not they lock them out.

            So back to the drawing board for you.
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        • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          How many customers for an e-book of cauliflower soup recipes are going to know how to do that or take the trouble to do it?! Sorry, but this is just silly.
          Not many.

          But the same amount of those people are going to be s*** scared to even open an .exe...

          Which leads into your next point..

          Assuming that people will do that is as eccentric as assuming (as some do) that if someone's going to steal it they definitely wouldn't have become a paying customer anyway, if you'd protected it. Both are just bizarre conjecture that doesn't actually stand up to examination at all. :rolleyes:
          It only takes 1 person to do it, very easily... and then the original customers can get a hold of the free version before they come to you and pay for it.

          Sure they were going to buy it, but they don't have to once it's been jacked and copied.

          Any e-book, software or content that is popular enough... WILL be stolen, and passed around.

          Why on Earth do people assume that if you can't have 100% protection, having 95% protection is a waste of time? :confused:
          If 95% protection is going to frustrate, annoy, trouble or confuse my customers.. even in the slightest, then I don't care for it.

          The key issue here relates simply to whether most people who have bought the book can quickly and easily forward it by email attachment to others.

          With a PDF they can; with a .exe, they can't.
          Not if they have bought your e-book, but if they find your content in it's free second life, before they find your "super secure" original.. then you have no control at all and it is going to be forwarded it, whether you like it or not.

          I'm not asking anybody to take my word for it.

          Ask your customers. Survey them after 3 months... Are they going to buy the next product in .exe format?..........

          Product security is a myth.

          A very interesting thread popped up a while ago:

          http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...r-forum-2.html

          I've started it at page 2... you can see what I did there
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          • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
            Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

            I'm not asking anybody to take my word for it.

            Ask your customers. Survey them after 3 months... Are they going to buy the next product in .exe format?..........
            I bought an eBook once that was in .exe format. Didn't know it was in .exe until after I bought it. I wanted the info, so I didn't ask for a refund or anything.

            However, I never purchased another product from that vendor.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
              Another thing to think about is accessibility.

              What if your buyer is blind?

              Some screen readers can read PDFs. Tagged PDFs can be created which makes it even easier. Newer versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader have a "Read Aloud" feature built-in.

              Will an executable file result in an eBook that is accessible by the blind?
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              • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                Will an executable file result in an eBook that is accessible by the blind?
                This particular ebook uses a hosted web browser control and is loading basic HTML files, which the screen reader would be able to access and read just fine. Most professional ebook protection systems do consider this question, and take it very seriously.
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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              • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                This, I think, is a different matter altogether. Not telling someone it's a .exe-file e-book is clearly not right. Neither is not telling them it's a PDF, for that matter.
                As I recall, there was a similar thread along those lines a while back. The issue was mentioning what the system requirements were for a software product being sold. Some people didn't think that was important. But, it helps to know whether what you're about to buy is compatible with Mac, Linux or your version of Windows.

                Overall, this matter troubles me no less now than it did over a year ago when I first started discussing it here. I really do want a way of preventing customers from sending e-books bought expressly for personal use only to others by email.
                Make it so it doesn't matter as much if they pass it around. Use affiliate links within so that if they buy something, you may still reap some benefit. Make sure your contact information is in the book; if they got a free copy, maybe they'll be more inclined to buy your next eBook. If not, they may not have been potential customers to begin with.

                Content theft is a big problem and I wish there was a way to combat it that wouldn't put a burden on my customers that are not thieves, which would be the vast majority of them.
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              • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
                Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                I really do want a way of preventing customers from sending e-books bought expressly for personal use only to others by email.

                Just out of curiosity, do you have any data that suggests that your products are being spread via email and that it is a viable problem for your business? Or are you just worried about a potentially insignificant problem?


                I mean, how do you know people are emailing your stuff?
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                • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                  • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
                    Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                    There have been at least 30 occasions here, over the last year and a bit, when Warriors have offered to send me an e-book they've bought, many as WSO's. Do you have any data that suggests that my products aren't being spread via email?
                    Well, we can continue to debate rhetorically if you'd like, but I prefer to focus on things that have an actual measurable result.

                    Do you have any data that suggests that your products aren't being printed out and sold at seminars without your knowledge? Possibly for hundreds of dollars?!?

                    Does that mean you should focus on making your products not printable? No, because it's a figment of your imagination.

                    You don't know the measurable amount of damage it's doing to your business (if any)... and in all reality it's not doing ANY damage to your business since your business is the people that buy from YOU.

                    My point is that your products might get shared via email. Someone might email your $17 report out to 100 people. The problem is, that $1700 in "damage" isn't DAMAGE. It's hypothetical, because you can't guarantee that ANY of those people would have bought from you anyway. What you CAN guarantee, though, is now they've seen your name. Before they got that email, they may have never even heard of you. If your product was good, you may have inadvertently gained CUSTOMERS through that email.


                    Just because someone will take a look at your stuff for free, DOES NOT mean that they would be a customer otherwise. It DOES NOT mean that they would have taken out their wallet for your product. You didn't "LOSE" any customers, or revenue, or profit, or anything. It didn't "cost" you anything. It's not like at WalMart when someone steals something. When that happens Wally World comes out of pocket for the cost that they purchased that item at wholesale. We don't have that cost because we can sell the same item over and over to infinity.



                    What do you think? Do you seriously imagine that mine would somehow magically be exempt from what goes on?

                    (For the record, by the way, I have no products of my own - yet. So far I'm an affiliate, not a vendor. But I have plans. We're theorising here, but I think you'll agree that this doesn't detract from the point I'm making and that I've answered your question as irrefutably as I possibly can, in the circumstances?)
                    No. I'd imagine your stuff will probably get shared. That isn't the point though.

                    A misconception that I see around here, especially with the members trying desperately to protect their stuff, is the understanding of market reach.

                    If you want more customers, improve your reach. THAT adds to your bottom line. Stopping people from seeing your material DOES NOT ADD to your bottom line. People stealing from you DOES NOT SUBTRACT from your bottom line.

                    As information marketers, we have virtually no product overhead and thus there is no ACTUAL LOSS to us.

                    Focus more on adding customers and you'll see an increase in profits.

                    Focus more on decreasing theft, and you'll see the same amount of profits and work yourself to death in the process.


                    (And for the record, I do have products out there, and mine do get stolen and shared. And I have had people buy from me because of shared products. I know this because I have an offer that is only available from my ebook, and 2 of the purchasers of that offer have no previous buying history with me... so, they most likely got the ebook free from somewhere.)
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                    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                      • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
                        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                        I answered your question and gave you my reason, and it's a perfectly valid and reasonable and sensible one. If you don't have the decency to acknowledge that, that's your lookout. I have every reason, on the basis of being offered such things myself more than 30 times, to imagine that it would also happen with my products. I imagine that if 100 innocent bystanders were asked whether they took that point, not just 99 but all 100 of them would agree. But not you, apparently. Well, if that's too "rhetorical" for you, then discuss it with others, please, not with me.

                        Actually, you didn't answer my question. Because the answer to my question would have been: "No, I don't have any data that suggests that MY products are being shared via email." Since, in my original question, I did, in fact, bold "your".

                        But, you did give me reasoning why you suspect that someone might share products via email. And that I'll give you credit for....

                        However, I still feel you're missing the entire point of my question. You have no measurable result for which to spend your time correcting (and not just because you have no products, but because the data is a moot point).

                        So, I guess you can continue to spin your wheels chasing imaginary rabbits down imaginary holes, planning for things that don't make a difference to your bottom line, trying to leverage generalities and possibilities.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                      Originally Posted by mr2monster View Post

                      People stealing from you DOES NOT SUBTRACT from your bottom line.
                      You can't prove that any more than someone can prove it does. Opinion does not constitute fact. I have, in fact, had at least two people buy from me because they couldn't find a way to steal the product.
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                      • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
                        Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

                        You can't prove that any more than someone can prove it does. Opinion does not constitute fact. I have, in fact, had at least two people buy from me because they couldn't find a way to steal the product.

                        Note the word subtract.


                        Someone steals from Wally World - Wal-Mart pays for it at the wholesale price and it comes out of their revenue from actual customers. It SUBTRACTS from their current pot o gold.


                        Someone passes around an ebook - There is no overhead cost. It doesn't cost the author a dime. It does not SUBTRACT from their pot o gold.
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        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

          No one stated otherwise.

          It can prevent some sharing compared to just a pdf file.

          We were talking about how people make the same comments that these products won't sell because it is wrapped in a exe file when they don't know what they are talking about.
          Sorry, my fault. I thought you were referencing this quote, which you clearly weren't on further review:

          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

          Besides the fact that he couldn't even read his .EXE ebook on a Windows machine, I'm also laughing at the idea that you can "protect" something that's visible on the screen.
          Really? I'm not.
          And I will concede that although it infuriates *me* and that *I* won't buy (for the reasons I listed above), that doesn't mean it applies to everyone in all markets. I jumped the gun on that one. It might work for your market, as with Simon's experience above.

          But if you look at the more successful internet marketers (Jay Abraham, Frank Kern, Eben Pagan) you'll see that people are going to steal their work no matter what. They could sweat it, but they give so much value outside of their eBooks that it just isn't worth their time and there is nothing they can do to stop it in the long run anyway.

          An interesting solution that one publisher uses is that all ebook purchases get branded with the purchaser's name on every page. This does act as a tiny deterrent to general distribution by average, honest people but at the same time doesn't prevent people from letting immediate family members read the book too. Win-win.

          Of course, the more popular books still get posted on sharing sites after the pirates have removed the registration name from each page.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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            • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              I suspect that this is mostly an issue for the people who don't know that there are now Mac-compatible .exe-file e-books, including those sold by Christophe and others here. I can't speak for Linux. Not in public, anyway.
              It'd be an issue for anyone, I would think.

              If what is being purchased is an application, the buyer needs to know what it will run on.

              If it's available for Windows, does it run on all versions of Windows? Will it run on XP? Vista? 7?

              If it's available for the Mac, will it run on Mac OS 9? Will it run on a non-intel Mac OS X machine?

              "Windows-compatible" or "Mac-compatible" is almost meaningless without additional details.

              Adding to the confusion are some vendors who will call their product "Mac-compatible" because you can run Windows on an Intel Mac, so they consider their Windows-only software "Mac-compatible".
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            • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              (a) when people assume that just because you can't have 100% protection it follows that you should make do with none;
              Hey Alexa. Great comment. However, I think that you might be thinking of that the wrong way. Having partial protection doesn't equal the same thing as thwarting that same percentage of theft. The truth is, an exe is just as sharable as a PDF, and while it may not be cracked now, if someone wants it bad enough, it will be compromised and then shared.

              In the cracking and hacking game, less than 100% protection means you are compromised. It's just a matter of whether someone cares enough to crack it and to share it. If they DON'T, then all the security does is hassle people who were just going to pay anyways.

              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              (b) when people assume that non-internet marketers feel the same way about this issue as Warriors do (and I repeat that in earlier discussions of this subject, there have been posts from Warriors who have sold tens of thousands of .exe-file e-books without having problems over it ... not to mention Simon's excellent and irrefutable point on the previous page);
              Well sure, all kinds of people sell software as .exe files all day long. I don't think anyone's saying you can't sell software. I think we're saying that for info-marketing purposes, a PDF is a superior format for both free and paid documents.

              The number successfully sold isn't necessarily a check in the "pro" column, because arguably, just as many PDFs have been sold, arguably with less overhead and support needed.

              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              (c) the confident assertion that freebie-seekers "wouldn't have bought it instead anyway" if that were the only option (for which, of course, nobody ever has any evidence as there is none!).
              You need proof that there's a subset of the population that will take a free candy but not ever buy the same candy? I mean, how many people do you know that feel like they are "beating" the free sample line by getting a free taste without ever intending to buy?

              Now, how many people do you know that actually WANT the product will instead stand in the free sample line until they get their fill instead of just buying what it is they wanted?

              It's a reasonable assumption, evidence or not, right? Now, I'm not so naive as to think common sense always = measurable fact. But I feel like I'm honestly judging my own behavior. How about you?

              EDIT: I don't mean the above to be snarky - just friendly debate. Please don't read any dickish tone into it.
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              • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
                  Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                  I hear you, Colin, but I suspect just maybe you still have your IM hat on a little bit, here? Can you honestly tell me that this is going to be a concern with my cauliflower soup recipes e-book (for example - ok, it's a silly example, but you see what I'm saying, I'm sure?). I'm not Frank Kern sharing valuable IM information with people trying to earn a living online.
                  The regular customers of your cauliflower soup recipes aren't your problem. And the sending of your product via e-mail isn't the big issue, either.

                  Hackers will find popular products and distribute them with ease. They do it for fun, purely for the sport.

                  Products appear in Google searches with the "free" hacked version, right below them in the listings... or even worse, above them.

                  None of us are Frank Kern sharing valuable IM information..

                  But most of our cauliflower soup recipe customers, aren't looking for Frank Kern.

                  The solution to our customers problem is just as important to them as the solutions that Frank is selling to IM n00bs.

                  They might not go looking for the product for free, but they will find it on offer once your product becomes popular(ish).
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            • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

              But if you look at the more successful internet marketers (Jay Abraham, Frank Kern, Eben Pagan) you'll see that people are going to steal their work no matter what. They could sweat it, but they give so much value outside of their eBooks that it just isn't worth their time and there is nothing they can do to stop it in the long run anyway.
              This doesn't apply to all of us, hello.
              Yes, you snipped out the previous paragraph that addressed the people who don't mind dealing with DRM. I was merely trying to point out the people who have been doing it awhile have found that it's not worth it to worry about DRM. If memory serves, I believe Eben Pagan has addressed this point specifically.

              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              Some of us are going to have our work stolen only if it's a PDF, but have (potential) customers who are not going to manage to circulate a PDF. This is just factual, I think ... (as Simon has clearly found).
              Actually Simon said that the DRM wasn't worth it and has said he doesn't concern himself with piracy. I agree with him on this point. If you accept it, you can start to take advantage of the fact that your product is going to "enjoy" wider distribution as you say.


              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


              How do you do this as an immediate, automated download as soon as they've paid?
              I believe they were generating the PDF on the fly as each customer purchased. Probably too sophisticated for most people here, but it can be done. The nice thing about these guys is that errata could be fixed mid-stream and all new downloads would be up-to-date.

              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


              (a) when people assume that just because you can't have 100% protection it follows that you should make do with none;
              Point taken. I have revised my statement to say that it may not be for everyone. But I know where I stand on the issue from my own experiences and have not seen a compelling reason yet to change my mind on this.


              Great discussion!
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              • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post


                Actually Simon said that the DRM wasn't worth it and has said he doesn't concern himself with piracy. I agree with him on this point. If you accept it, you can start to take advantage of the fact that your product is going to "enjoy" wider distribution as you say.


                Great discussion!
                Actually "Simon" said, it depends entirely on numerous factors and
                that for me personally at that time with the technology as it was
                it wasn't worth it on a $39 product, there are some important caveats
                in what I said, which can't be overlooked, just want to make that clear.

                I also don't agree with the wider distribution argument as that entirely
                depends on many factors , including your business model, enjoying
                wider distribution is a viable business model but not always.
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      • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
        [QUOTE=AllAboutAction;2274940
        2. If it doesn't allow you to print: take a screenshot of each page, add each page to a PDF document, save. Stop. .[/QUOTE]

        Scammers are lazy.

        The biggest issue for people in non tech niches is that some turnip
        takes your PDF and uploads it to a file sharing sites.

        Now, not actually the biggest pain you would think but it's becoming
        amazing how many Joe Bloggs now know how to use and do use
        file sharing sites, they use them for music, and film etc and PDF's
        end up on the same sites.

        A couple of things to note:

        1) These sites dam rank well. You can type in your own product name
        and find these sites ranking on page 1 with an alarming message in the
        TITLE tag of "Download (product name) Here.

        2) They distribute to each other, so you can actually see your product
        on multiple file sharing site in 24 hours after it goes up on the first one.

        Let me put it this way

        We have a 655 Page PDF.

        It would be vastly less likely for somebody to fart around generating
        a shareable version of that if it was locked into .exe or PDF protection
        wrapper of some kind.

        Way harder work than simply uploading a PDF.

        We simply choose not to require online verification of the books because
        it really was a pain back in the day, I appreciate that may have changed.
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        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
          Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

          .

          Let me put it this way


          We have a 655 Page PDF.

          It would be vastly less likely for somebody to fart around generating
          a shareable version of that if it was locked into .exe or PDF protection
          wrapper of some kind.

          Way harder work than simply uploading a PDF.
          I took too long with my previous reply that I didn't see your response, but I wanted to say that my simple example "crack" was merely to show that it could be done with a simple process. Many people here would probably be surprised at the lengths that people will go to obtain media that they are interested in. When I was going to University in Germany it was common for students to photocopy entire textbooks, and I have seen PDFs that were made from scanning each individual page of a book. If you look hard enough you can find ebooks available online that have had their protection broken by crackers with disassemblers.

          My example was only given to show that it doesn't take any great technical competence to remove the DRM from such products, it only takes motivation.
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  • Profile picture of the author poker princess
    It seems to be somewhat similar to Ebook Pro, but I love the way you have presented here, alongwith the picture, lol !!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
    I would fill the ebook with affiliate links so that if it does get shared, hey, if they click the links and buy anything, you make money anyway that you would not have done in the first place.

    Chris
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    • Profile picture of the author TonyDavis
      Originally Posted by skyfox7 View Post

      I would fill the ebook with affiliate links so that if it does get shared, hey, if they click the links and buy anything, you make money anyway that you would not have done in the first place.

      Chris
      You give me an ebook with affiliate links in it and I'll make myself some money instead....

      Tony
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    I understand the convenience difference. I was talking about the 'fear factor'. Everyone I know avoids .exe's like the plague because they might have a trojan (windows even pops up and goes 'Are you sure you want to open this? You might die of scurvy'), but a pdf can just as easily have a trojan.

    Personally, I think going to those lengths to protect an ebook is going to cause refunds and bad word of mouth. I have a cooking site, and I know my cookbooks are going to get passed around.

    We have some of the highest profit margins of any legitimate industry in IMing... Don't screw over all of your customers because 1% might steal your stuff. Just my 2 rupies.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by ArticlePrince View Post

      I understand the convenience difference. I was talking about the 'fear factor'. Everyone I know avoids .exe's like the plague because they might have a trojan (windows even pops up and goes 'Are you sure you want to open this? You might die of scurvy'), but a pdf can just as easily have a trojan.
      But, it's always smart to only download and install applications from trusted sources. Gone are the days when most people would install things willy-nilly. Scammers and hackers abused the system, and now .exe's pay because of it.

      While PDFs can carry malicious files, that's a relatively recent development. The history of dodgy .exe's goes back way farther. It was part of the reason people began switching to PDFs because, for a while at least, they were safe.

      Personally, I think going to those lengths to protect an ebook is going to cause refunds and bad word of mouth. I have a cooking site, and I know my cookbooks are going to get passed around.
      And a cookbook is definitely something you want to be able to print out. (But, if you can print, you can copy...)

      It's convenient too. I've got recipes I save on my computer. If the hard-copy gets food-stained, damaged, etc., I just print out a new one.

      We have some of the highest profit margins of any legitimate industry in IMing... Don't screw over all of your customers because 1% might steal your stuff. Just my 2 rupies.
      Agreed.
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  • Profile picture of the author thatgirlJ
    People like to have their content available on their different devices these days. I LOVE buying Kindle books. I can read them on my computer, iPhone, Kindle, and (when I get one!) my iPad.

    I love Netflix instant queue. I can watch shows on my computer, playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Roku box, and (when I get one!) my iPad. Saves my place too!

    I love PDF files. I can read them on my computer, iPhone, Kindle, and iPad.

    My point here is that the world is increasingly mobile. It seems like a very big inconvenience (in addition to the fact that Caliban's didn't even work!) to put a product (that would do just as well as a PDF) in a .exe.

    I get wanting to protect work, but there is such a thing as going too far. I wish there was a middle-ground that was easy for business owners to put in place...sort of like Kindle books and stuff from the iTunes store, that is limited but still flexible and pleases the customer.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Lenaghan
      Originally Posted by Jenn Dize View Post

      I love PDF files. I can read them on my computer, iPhone, Kindle, and iPad.

      My point here is that the world is increasingly mobile. It seems like a very big inconvenience (in addition to the fact that Caliban's didn't even work!) to put a product (that would do just as well as a PDF) in a .exe.
      This is my beef with exectuable ebooks as well. I read PDF's on my iPhone & iPad, so while the .exe might work on my Mac, it's not going to work on these other devices.

      This seems like the same issue that the record & movie industries have to me. They do whatever they can to protect their content, and the end result is that the people who are most inconvenienced are their legitimate customers.

      People still manage to get around all the protections they come up with, and post music and movies where you can download them for nothing. And once there's an "unlocked" copy out there, or a commonly known way to get around the protection, that protection becomes pointless for the thieves, and an inconvenience for paying customers.

      John
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    • Profile picture of the author cclou
      Originally Posted by Jenn Dize View Post

      I get wanting to protect work, but there is such a thing as going too far. I wish there was a middle-ground that was easy for business owners to put in place...sort of like Kindle books and stuff from the iTunes store, that is limited but still flexible and pleases the customer.
      Personally I avoid the iTunes store because I feel that their DRM is too restrictive.

      Here's a recent article by writer, actor, and well-known geek Wil Wheaton, Why I Hate DRM. He's a content creator and has made the PDF version of his books free of DRM.
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  • Profile picture of the author tecHead
    IMHO, I think going as far as feeling the need to protect a eBook is like, (forgive my crudeness), shooting your whole load all at once.

    What happened to using eBooks as lures and bait to get people to give you more attention? Shoot; one of the best selling eBooks of all time was free and went viral for just that purpose and it was chock-full of information; Gorilla Marketing. Joyner is still famous from what that eBook did for him and his business.

    <shrug>

    PLP,
    tecHead
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  • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
    Oh Geez! Yes Alexa, it is a losing battle and I realized a while back a waste of time to try and change the uninformed consensus.

    The main thing here is that you don't want the AVERAGE user to be able to EASILY steal your work. Sure, there are hackers who can break into anything but I'm not concerned about them. They are not my average customer.

    As far as EXE files, I've never been afraid of them and the average user probably is not either. And as I mentioned before, I've never had a complaint from my customers about my ebook protection software. If I did, then I would probably reconsider using said software.

    As far as screenshots and printing, both are disabled but I can choose to enable printing. It also works on mac computers as a zip file is delivered after purchase instead of an EXE file. There are also many other benefits to using this software which I won't go into right now.

    It really isn't a burden to my customers and I feel it's necessary to take steps to protect my product. But, that's just my opinion.
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    • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
      Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

      Oh Geez! Yes Alexa, it is a losing battle and I realized a while back a waste of time to try and change the uninformed consensus.

      The main thing here is that you don't want the AVERAGE user to be able to EASILY steal your work. Sure, there are hackers who can break into anything but I'm not concerned about them. They are not my average customer.

      As far as EXE files, I've never been afraid of them and the average user probably is not either. And as I mentioned before, I've never had a complaint from my customers about my ebook protection software. If I did, then I would probably reconsider using said software.

      As far as screenshots and printing, both are disabled but I can choose to enable printing. It also works on mac computers as a zip file is delivered after purchase instead of an EXE file. There are also many other benefits to using this software which I won't go into right now.

      It really isn't a burden to my customers and I feel it's necessary to take steps to protect my product. But, that's just my opinion.
      Did you notice a change in your refund rate after you started using the software? I'm just curious, I might pick it up for my other sites ongoing.
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      • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
        Actually, I've been using Ebook Pro from the beginning.

        Of the few refund requests I've received, none were because of the ebook software.

        A lot of people around here think that a customer will be outraged and offended that he/she has to take extra steps to open their product after purchase, but that has not been my experience.

        Also, it seems that many around here just haven't used secure ebook software and thus don't realize that it's not as bad as it's perceived by other IM'ers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

      The main thing here is that you don't want the AVERAGE user to be able to EASILY steal your work. Sure, there are hackers who can break into anything but I'm not concerned about them. They are not my average customer.
      So, are you saying your average customer is a thief?
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      • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        So, are you saying your average customer is a thief?
        No, I'm saying my average customer is usually not a computer program hacker.

        And to suggest that I consider all my customers thieves just because I'm taking steps to protect my product is a bit extreme... Don't you think?
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

          No, I'm saying my average customer is usually not a computer program hacker.

          And to suggest that I consider all my customers thieves just because I'm taking steps to protect my product is a bit extreme... Don't you think?
          I wasn't trying to be extreme; just trying to get a handle on your situation.

          If your average customer is not a thief, then why do you feel the need to protect your product from them?
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          • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
            I'm going to get a lot of slack for this but what they heck.

            Product Creators who create PDF ebooks = concerned about their customers.

            Product Creators who create EXE ebooks = concerned about themselves.

            Now go ahead and start throwing hand grenades at me.
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            • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
              Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

              I'm going to get a lot of slack for this but what they heck.

              Product Creators who create PDF ebooks = concerned about their customers.

              Product Creators who create EXE ebooks = concerned about themselves.

              Now go ahead and start throwing hand grenades at me.
              That's certainly a lot less verbose than I was, but this is what I was sort of trying to say. It's not that the exe people are willfully putting the focus in the wrong place.

              It's more of a misguided attempt at prioritizing your attention. You only have so much to go around, so spend it on serving the people who would pay you EVEN IF offered your material for free.

              Part of that is making it as easy on them as possible. But it works super well if you strive to make your content - every piece of it - as a commercial for YOU as the SOURCE.

              Then the people who are trying to eliminate YOU from the equation and just get at the INFO are thwarted no matter what, because they STILL want to come back to you for more. Just that info is not enough for even the THIEF (especially if the info is actually GOOD.)

              And sure, that person might never ever buy. But he'll go on the blackhat forums and BEG people for copies of your material. BEG! He'll never use it. He'll never harm your real customers. But he WILL shout your name to the highest reaches of the web.

              I say let em.

              When you go on there and you see people slobbering and begging for the only one among them with funds to buy the hot XYZ and share - how gratifying is that? That your marketing works THAT well, that it creates desire in people that are INCAPABLE of earning the money it takes to buy your stuff?

              I dunno. It always made ME feel really good.
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              • Profile picture of the author Kevin AKA Hubcap
                Instead of people being for or against based on "principle" why not get a copy of E-Book Pro or a PDF security suite and see what your customers think.

                If it pisses them off-->stop using it
                If they don't care--> keep using it with the added benefit of having added protection from thieves (I know nothing is full-proof)

                Either way your basing your actions on information derived from your customers actions and not your preconceived notions or your experience from ten years earlier.

                Kevin
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Kevin AKA Hubcap View Post

                  Either way your basing your actions on information derived from your customers actions and not your preconceived notions or your experience from ten years earlier.
                  Why risk losing customers over something which, in my opinion, offers very little benefit?

                  Why can't I choose to not inconvenience my customers? Just because something can be done or just because I might be able to get away with something, doesn't mean I should actually do it.

                  Why can't I offer my customers the convenience of being able to read the info product they purchased on their Windows PC, Mac, or Linux machine, or on their cell phone or another device that can read PDF files, which are effectively an industry standard, instead of limiting their options?

                  There's nothing wrong with operating on a principle of putting the customer first.
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              • Profile picture of the author George Wright
                Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

                That's certainly a lot less verbose than I was,
                .
                HOW DARE YOU CALL Steven Less Verbose? STEVEN are you going to let him get away with this?

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                • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                  Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

                  HOW DARE YOU CALL Steven Less Verbose? STEVEN are you going to let him get away with this?

                  George Wright
                  Ha ha, good one, George. That may be the first time anyone has said that about Steven.
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                  • Profile picture of the author NicheMayhem
                    Round and round she goes...

                    As a customer, security does not influence my decision to buy if I actually want the product and it seems to be unique at the time I am deciding to buy. (Adobe is the front-runner and an established brand, people want the Adobe name, try as they might though they still get hacked and spread for free) If I was looking into two different ebooks which both seemed to cover the same subject and the only difference between the two was that the one required me to input a password every time I opened it, I would choose my convenience over the product creators. As a buyer I think I have the right to cater to my own selfishness and I am sure most of us would agree.

                    As a marketer, I see both sides of the coin but in the end with no extra cost to me or actual way to prove I was losing out, I want to consider my paying customers first and foremost in hopes they will consider me a trusted provider the next time they open their wallets. In reality that really is the only thing which directly reflects an impact on my bottom line, acquiring valued customers and patrons.

                    Nonetheless it is difficult to encompass digital products in this respect, but a solid consideration (at least for me) is the simple fact that once produced, it costs me absolutely nothing to sell my product over and over again, nor do I lose money already spent if it is stolen.

                    I say counter the spread by saturating a solid link back to your name and brand instead of impeding the experience of your valued customer.


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              • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
                Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

                That's certainly a lot less verbose than I was, but this is what I was sort of trying to say. It's not that the exe people are willfully putting the focus in the wrong place.
                Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

                HOW DARE YOU CALL Steven Less Verbose? STEVEN are you going to let him get away with this?
                Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

                Ha ha, good one, George. That may be the first time anyone has said that about Steven.
                Gentlemen, please do your research. Steven has already conceded to my maximum verbosity.

                Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

                If you weren't doing it on purpose, can I get an official Warrior Forum Merit Badge for getting called out on being verbose by freakin' Steven Wagenheim? That's got to be some kind of special event.
                Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                Um...I guess...okay.
                That is all. Let the trainwreck continue.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

                  That is all. Let the trainwreck continue.
                  It's not a train wreck; it's a drive-by colonoscopy.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
                    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                    It's not a train wreck; it's a drive-by colonoscopy.
                    Can't it be both?
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                    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                      I have, hard as you may all find this to believe, read through this thread
                      again.

                      Train wreck?

                      Did anybody see the old Japanese movie "The Final War?"

                      This thread makes that movie look like Mary Poppins on a sugar high.

                      But I digress.

                      I will be the first to admit that when it comes to technology and the law (my
                      least favorite subjects) I am close to clueless. So I'm not going to enter into
                      the debates of what is legal, ethical or secure.

                      I'm going to speak as a customer now, not a marketer. Because believe it
                      or not, long before I ever sold my first ebook, I bought stuff...lots of stuff.

                      When I was learning web design, I bought Dreamweaver, Flash and a whole
                      lot of other software. I have more software in this house (most of it I
                      hate) than most of you have hair on your head...especially you Thomas.

                      I'm going to give you what I feel is a reasonable hypothetical situation
                      and why I would not do this to my customers with an ebook. I'm gong to
                      talk strictly about software...my experiences with have been nothing
                      short of a nightmare.

                      Customer buys some software online and decides to have the actual CD
                      sent to them instead of an instant download. I actually think that's smart
                      because what if your PC crashes and you lose everything...including your
                      receipt, which is online? How do you even prove you bought it, especially
                      if you didn't buy the software directly from the manufacturer (like Adobe)
                      but got it from a 3rd party like Amazon or wherever? If your memory sucks
                      and you don't remember who that 3rd party was, you're up the creek.

                      Okay, so we get our CD in the mail. We're safe. If anything happens, we
                      simply reinstall. We take our receipt and tuck it away somewhere safe in
                      case we need to refer back to it.

                      We install the software and it asks for the serial number. No problem. It's
                      on the inside of the manual. Yes, I've purchased software where the
                      serial number was NOT on the CD case. So we look in the manual and
                      type it in. We then tuck the manual away with the receipt.

                      Five years go by. Our PC crashes. No problem. We've backed up all our
                      data. All we have to do is reinstall our software. We go dig out the CD
                      from our CD case and go to install it. We've completely forgotten that
                      we needed a serial number to do this.

                      No problem. It says on the install screen that the serial number is in the
                      back of our manual.

                      Ah yes, I remember...I tucked that away in a drawer somewhere.

                      Hmmmm...which draw was that?

                      It's 5 years later. You've accumulated a ton of stuff. You can't be
                      expected to keep every damn thing you've ever bought. But you keep
                      looking.

                      You can't find the manual OR the receipt. You don't remember where you
                      bought the software from (it was 5 years ago after all) and you don't
                      even remember the date so you can call the manufacturer and give them
                      a date of purchase so they can maybe look it up...if they even keep records
                      from 3rd party dealers. And no, I didn't register my software either. I never
                      do. Why should I have to? I paid for it legally. Why do I need to give these
                      places my personal information? And yes, I know...had I registered it,
                      maybe they could find me in the system. My bad.

                      Point is, your average customer doesn't always do these things.

                      Okay, so I'm kind of up the creek now, but not really. After a few hours
                      of trying a few things, making some calls and doing whatever, I manage
                      to get the software reinstalled.

                      The whole ordeal took me 7 hours and a lot of aggravation.

                      Now, take this same scenario and apply it to a $27 ebook.

                      Think that customer will EVER buy another thing from me again?

                      If it were a PDF, it would be part of the data backups. No need to do
                      anything but restore.

                      But if it's an EXE, he has to reinstall it and reenter the serial number or
                      whatever I have him enter in.

                      All that info is gone somewhere or it takes him hours to figure out where
                      he put it.

                      It's bad enough the poor guy just spend a half a day reinstalling his
                      operating system.

                      Now I'm going to put him through 7 hours of hell just to read an ebook?

                      How daft do I look?

                      So forgetting about all the crap that you're all arguing about, for me it's
                      simple.

                      I wouldn't want to do to my customers what I wouldn't want done to me.

                      I'm not saying it's right or wrong. All I'm saying is, if I feel this way,
                      assuming that I am a fairly average everyday Joe, is it not possible that
                      more of my customer than not would also feel the same way?

                      And therefore, isn't it reasonable to suspect that it would be quite
                      possible that if I did do this to my customers that they would stop being
                      my customers?

                      I understand it with software. I'll put up with it with software, especially
                      if it's something like Adobe Photoshop that I paid $699 for.

                      But I'll be damned if I'll go through all that for a $27 ebook. I'll just say
                      the hell with it and never buy anything from this person again.

                      And that isn't even getting into what happens if I upgrade my PC and
                      then all of a sudden that EXE stops working.

                      What? So now I have to buy another copy of that book?

                      When I go to Barnes and Noble to buy a hard cover book, outside of fire
                      or theft, that book is mine for life.

                      Can you say that about an EXE ebook? No, you can't. I have to make
                      sure I run an OS that supports that EXE forever.

                      But here's the bottom line, and then I'll let this "Final War" continue.

                      Each person here has to do what is right for them. As far as I can see,
                      since I am not a lawyer and don't understand all the legal mumbo jumbo
                      that Caliban, Simon and a few others have tossed around, there is no
                      right or wrong here.

                      It's what's right for you.

                      So if creating EXE ebooks is right for you, God bless you. Go for it.

                      Me? I'm thinking of the poor guy who bought my book 5 years ago, crashed
                      his PC and can't find his receipt to get his serial number back that has
                      also vanished into the dust.

                      It's about avoiding headaches...theirs and mine.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                  Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

                  Gentlemen, please do your research. Steven has already conceded to my maximum verbosity.
                  Sorry Colin, but the maximum verbosity you refer to is more of a one-time event rather than a historical track record. While I can understand your desire to have your "title" recognized, please understand that said recognition is only for this thread. Steven far and away holds the overall forum title for maximum verbosity.

                  For a simple analogy, you have won one lap in an endless race, but Steven is many, many laps ahead of you.

                  Nice to see you back, Colin.

                  Edit: And I see while I was writing this post, Steven has posted again. It appears to me your title claim is a little premature.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                    Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

                    Sorry Colin, but the maximum verbosity you refer to is more of a one-time event rather than a historical track record. While I can understand your desire to have your "title" recognized, please understand that said recognition is only for this thread. Steven far and away holds the overall forum title for maximum verbosity.

                    For a simple analogy, you have won one lap in an endless race, but Steven is many, many laps ahead of you.

                    Nice to see you back, Colin.

                    Edit: And I see while I was writing this post, Steven has posted again. It appears to me your title claim is a little premature.
                    I'm not arguing that. I'm talking reality.

                    Your house burns down.

                    Hell, just the room where your receipts are goes up in flames.

                    Stuff happens. And if I legally paid for my product and still have the CD,
                    provided that hasn't gone up in flames too, I should be able to reinstall it
                    without having to go through hell to do it.

                    But okay, I concede that for a $699 piece of software, I'm willing to put
                    up with that inconvenience.

                    But how many people will go through all that for a $27 ebook?

                    I know I won't, and so I don't want to put my customers through that.

                    That's all I'm saying.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                      Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                      I'm not arguing that. I'm talking reality.

                      Your house burns down.

                      Hell, just the room where your receipts are goes up in flames.

                      Stuff happens. And if I legally paid for my product and still have the CD,
                      provided that hasn't gone up in flames too, I should be able to reinstall it
                      without having to go through hell to do it.

                      But okay, I concede that for a $699 piece of software, I'm willing to put
                      up with that inconvenience.

                      But how many people will go through all that for a $27 ebook?

                      I know I won't, and so I don't want to put my customers through that.

                      That's all I'm saying.
                      I think you quoted the wrong post since what you wrote had nothing to do with the post you quoted, but assuming you meant to quote my solution to your hypothetical problem, I wasn't speaking about whether securing an ebook is right or wrong or whatever . . . I merely explained what I do to protect my investment. Others may see that and decide it's a good idea and protect their investment in the same way.

                      Now you've added on more hypothetical events. Well, okay, I have a fireproof safe in my house. I could keep a copy of my records in it if I hadn't lost the damn key. I could keep a copy in my briefcase, or my car, or with a relative for safe keeping. It's still your responsibility to protect your investment. Using passwords to protect an ebook isn't part of that conversation because I'm not debating the use of passwords. You will have some that are password protected and some that are not. Protect your investment . . . or don't.

                      By the way, protecting your investment includes printing your receipts, or you may not get to download the product again anyway. It's also they buyer's responsibility to keep their proof of purchase.
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                      • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                        Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

                        I think you quoted the wrong post since what you wrote had nothing to do with the post you quoted, but assuming you meant to quote my solution to your hypothetical problem, I wasn't speaking about whether securing an ebook is right or wrong or whatever . . . I merely explained what I do to protect my investment. Others may see that and decide it's a good idea and protect their investment in the same way.

                        Now you've added on more hypothetical events. Well, okay, I have a fireproof safe in my house. I could keep a copy of my records in it if I hadn't lost the damn key. I could keep a copy in my briefcase, or my car, or with a relative for safe keeping. It's still your responsibility to protect your investment. Using passwords to protect an ebook isn't part of that conversation because I'm not debating the use of passwords. You will have some that are password protected and some that are not. Protect your investment . . . or don't.

                        By the way, protecting your investment includes printing your receipts, or you may not get to download the product again anyway. It's also they buyer's responsibility to keep their proof of purchase.

                        Agreed. Not arguing that at all. It's my responsibility to protect my
                        property, whatever it is I buy.

                        But for a $27 ebook, the only protection I want to have to do is make
                        a backup copy of it...not keep receipts and serial numbers. If I buy one
                        and have to do that, I'm refunding it...period.

                        And my point is, if I feel that way, I am sure others feel the same.

                        It's called reasonable expectation of the lengths you need to go
                        through to protect that property.


                        IMO, for a $27 ebook, it's not reasonable.
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                        • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                          Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                          Agreed. Not arguing that at all. It's my responsibility to protect my
                          property, whatever it is I buy.

                          But for a $27 ebook, the only protection I want to have to do is make
                          a backup copy of it...not keep receipts and serial numbers. If I buy one
                          and have to do that, I'm refunding it...period.

                          And my point is, if I feel that way, I am sure others feel the same.

                          It's called reasonable expectation of the lengths you need to go
                          through to protect that property.


                          IMO, for a $27 ebook, it's not reasonable.
                          Um...okay. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything in regards to password usage, but I'm glad you got that off your chest.
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            • Profile picture of the author Tom B
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

              I'm going to get a lot of slack for this but what they heck.

              Product Creators who create PDF ebooks = concerned about their customers.

              Product Creators who create EXE ebooks = concerned about themselves.

              Now go ahead and start throwing hand grenades at me.

              I actually agree with you Steven.

              It is the same with some software products that make you jump through hoops in order to activate it.

              It is very easy to alienate your customer by doing this type of stuff.

              Personally, unless you can do it in a non obtrusive way it isn't worth it.

              If I were to use software to display a pdf product, I would make the software usable in other ways besides just pdf displaying. Allow them to keep track of their progress when working through the pdf course.

              Stuff like that will make it more valuable and less likely alienate your customer.
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          • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Really? I'm not.

            Sorry, but this is just silly. Assuming that people will do that is as eccentric as assuming (as some do) that if someone's going to steal it they definitely wouldn't have become a paying customer anyway, if you'd protected it. Both are just bizarre conjecture that doesn't actually stand up to examination at all. :rolleyes:
            Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

            Your fighting a losing battle, Alexa.

            Most of the people are regurgitating what they saw others regurgitate on forums. It is a lot easier to just say the same thing instead of testing it for themselves.
            Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post

            Oh Geez! Yes Alexa, it is a losing battle and I realized a while back a waste of time to try and change the uninformed consensus.
            Wow I took a beating for this one, but I stand by my comments. It is not possible to protect something that is visible on your screen. Full stop.

            Also with regards to who will steal your stuff, it's not grandma that's going to rip your ebook. It's someone with time on their hands or a release group that's going to de-protect it and distribute it out to the general public. Sure a recipe book might not see such wide distribution, but the make money field, health and fitness, and some of the more popular categories are spread to here and gone already. Grandma's going to get it from her grandson or have it mailed to her by a coworker. She's not going to have a clue where it came from originally. Your copy protection won't mean jack if she doesn't get the file from you. All you're doing is annoying your legitimate customers.

            If you need evidence of this, you need only search a site like filestube dot com -- some of these sites often show up on the first page of google when searching by title. Your stuff is going to be out there whether you want it to or not, if it's at all worth having. It makes more sense, as others have already said, to deliver value in such a way that people will want to come back to you for more.
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            • Profile picture of the author Tom B
              Banned
              Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

              It is not possible to protect something that is visible on your screen. Full stop.

              No one stated otherwise.

              It can prevent some sharing compared to just a pdf file.

              We were talking about how people make the same comments that these products won't sell because it is wrapped in a exe file when they don't know what they are talking about.
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
    I can't believe this is even a discussion that still happens. There's no convincing some people, but for me PDF is easier for everyone. Me, my honest customers, and yeah, easier for the people who want to steal from me anyway. I don't really care about them, I certainly don't give them a vote in how I run my business.

    Here's the thing, the INFORMATION is never what's VALUABLE. Not really, not if you're doing it right. What's valuable is YOU, the SOURCE. That way even if someone gets a pirated copy, they will be COMPELLED to come back to YOU to get more.

    Which is fine, because you should have plenty of free stuff out there.

    Wanting to protect your content in this way is the same problem the RIAA has, and it's largely to do with where people place the value. The record company is mad because it turns out NO ONE EVER CARED about the package and the plastic and the paper.

    It was ALWAYS about the music connecting people to the artist. The economy of information is changing all around us. It's not about the package with the secret inside. It's about creating channels of refined content that NEVER END.

    The only way to monetize that is to BE the channel - BE the brand. They really can get the information anywhere. So instead of making your info guarded like this, make it so that it SPREADS and create many roads pointing back to you.

    But that's just my $0.02. If you know piracy is a problem, don't fight it, judo flip it into an advantage and let the pirates be a channel for the gospel of how awesome you are.

    They can copy the content, but it's really hard to copy THAT.
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    • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
      Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post


      Here's the thing, the INFORMATION is never what's VALUABLE. Not really, not if you're doing it right. What's valuable is YOU, the SOURCE. That way even if someone gets a pirated copy, they will be COMPELLED to come back to YOU to get more.

      Which is fine, because you should have plenty of free stuff out there..
      It works in some models, it doesn't apply to all business models, nor should
      it Colin.

      You can't simply dump all content sold in electronic format into the
      same pool because it's a model you think is superior, quite often the
      product your selling is there in it's entirity in the PDF and there is
      zero benefit to having it pushed out for all and sundry.

      There is no "doing it right" , it's what model is relevent to your business.

      I know guys making 7 figures a year, where there product in the PDF
      is the entire product, they are "doing it right" and just suck up the
      piracy.
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      • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
        Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

        It works in some models, it doesn't apply to all business models, nor should
        it Colin.

        You can't simply dump all content sold in electronic format into the
        same pool because it's a model you think is superior, quite often the
        product your selling is there in it's entirity in the PDF and there is
        zero benefit to having it pushed out for all and sundry.

        There is no "doing it right" , it's what model is relevent to your business.

        I know guys making 7 figures a year, where there product in the PDF
        is the entire product, they are "doing it right" and just suck up the
        piracy.
        No, you're absolutely right in that I'm assuming that the business in question is the IM business. I shouldn't do that - it's occupational blinders.

        I'm not inclined to say anyone who has mastered the are of selling digital copies of ANYTHING at a profit is "doing it wrong". As HOWEVER many copies are pirated, if you sell ANY, you're a winner.

        At the end of the day, it's all profit right out of the air.
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  • Profile picture of the author sodette1
    A. If your selling enough of them and if it's so popular people are actually passing it around and loading it to "swipe sites" - you should be "indignantly proud." Someone loves you. - Create controversey over it, find a way to leverage the thefts to your advantage if you can. Hey -- you're a marketer! Use it.

    B. If it's good... it WILL end up on swipe sites and it will be cracked - .pdf or .exe. Period. Well, unless you want to spend thousands creating protections - which will still be hacked if folks want it bad enough - eventually.

    C. PROTECT YOUR EBOOKS AND .EXE'S THE WAY MOST NEW OR UNSUCCESSFUL MARKETERS DO... keep working on it and working on it and trying to figure out how to protect it... instead of putting it online for folks to buy.

    The perfect security device - never release it to the public.

    Business is business... get it out there, focus on becoming so good that others WANT to steal and share your materials. Lead by ethical example and hopefully you'll attract others who will treat you and your products with the same respect... for the most part.

    Forward ever forward.
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    • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
      Originally Posted by sodette1 View Post

      A. If your selling enough of them and if it's so popular people are actually passing it around and loading it to "swipe sites" - you should be "indignantly proud." Someone loves you. - Create controversey over it, find a way to leverage the thefts to your advantage if you can. Hey -- you're a marketer! Use it.

      B. If it's good... it WILL end up on swipe sites and it will be cracked - .pdf or .exe. Period. Well, unless you want to spend thousands creating protections - which will still be hacked if folks want it bad enough - eventually.

      C. PROTECT YOUR EBOOKS AND .EXE'S THE WAY MOST NEW OR UNSUCCESSFUL MARKETERS DO... keep working on it and working on it and trying to figure out how to protect it... instead of putting it online for folks to buy.

      The perfect security device - never release it to the public.

      Business is business... get it out there, focus on becoming so good that others WANT to steal and share your materials. Lead by ethical example and hopefully you'll attract others who will treat you and your products with the same respect... for the most part.

      Forward ever forward.
      Dude, NICE post. I couldn't have wrote a better one on purpose, and I TRY REALLY HARD sometimes.

      Also folks, notice how the post is an example of its own advice. It crackles just reading it.

      "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy" - Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke

      The "enemy" in this case is pirates and moochers. So as said before, if you KNOW it's going to happen, PLAN for it and put it to WORK.

      ASSUME it will happen an make it part of the process.

      For example:

      "STEP 17: Ensure adequate linkage both verbal and textual throughout content both commercial and free. Much the same as radio stations broadcast callsigns regularly, you must create branded inroads since you cannot conceive of every possible vector of informational dissemination." - Lord Wilhelm Von Poopenstien, who is not a real dude.

      I just made him up to prove a point. But still. Good point, right?
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

        Dude, NICE post. I couldn't have wrote a better one on purpose, and I TRY REALLY HARD sometimes.
        That's why he gets paid the big bucks.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    unless your pdf is downloadable for free via a link on a publicly accessible web page, then it is not really THAT convenient.

    While I don't use exe's, I'm not really against them. I don't think that running an installer is really some huge hurdle for people in terms of being inconvienant.

    Talking about exe ebooks is like talking about politics or religion - it seems to be up there with requiring an opt-in to access your download page
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    • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
      Originally Posted by jasonl70 View Post

      unless your pdf is downloadable for free via a link on a publicly accessible web page, then it is not really THAT convenient.

      While I don't use exe's, I'm not really against them. I don't think that running an installer is really some huge hurdle for people in terms of being inconvienant.

      Talking about exe ebooks is like talking about politics or religion - it seems to be up there with requiring an opt-in to access your download page
      The other arguments here notwithstanding, I do think that releasing an executable document (.exe for Windows, .app for Mac) is a big inconvenience. It's not running the installer that's the problem (although Caliban would beg to differ!); I keep all of my ebooks in my dropbox so that I can view them on any platform. If I had to have one copy for each computer type I had (and iPhone/iPad) that would stink.

      Also, you can't use the system search and preview functions of Windows 7 and OS X to find information in documents conveniently if they are runnable applications.

      And I get cranky if I can't use my document viewer of choice to read 2-up pages, highlight passages, etc.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

        It's not running the installer that's the problem (although Caliban would beg to differ!)
        Actually, I don't. I find running an installer pretty basic and simple, but when I have to go through four screens of installation and browse into my start menu to open the ebook, I expect it to work.

        If it were a PDF file, I would just double-click it, and it would open. It would work every time. I would have the instructions to install and use this product.

        But instead, I had to install a protected ebook that doesn't work.

        It is, in fact, admirably protected. NOBODY can read it.
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        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
          Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

          Actually, I don't. I find running an installer pretty basic and simple, but when I have to go through four screens of installation and browse into my start menu to open the ebook, I expect it to work.
          Yes, I should have been clearer. It's not the running of the installer that's the problem. It's the result!
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        • Profile picture of the author ShaneRQR
          Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

          It is, in fact, admirably protected. NOBODY can read it.
          Aha! There's the true genius in this method!
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  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
    There's an awful lot of guesswork going on from people here.

    In two years of running our e-books via E-Book pro we never once
    had an issue with it being cracked etc etc and uploaded to a file
    sharing site, never, not one single incident.

    Within a month of moving to PDF it was everywhere.

    My gut instinct here is a lot of people are guessing a lot of their
    chit chat without having tested it both ways themselves.

    Generally speaking for a $40 ebook most folks don't go to
    trouble to hack it apart, etc unless there's some kind of major gripe.

    With a PDF for some folks, uploading to file sharing sites
    is almost part of their order process.
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    • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
      Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

      There's an awful lot of guesswork going on from people here.

      In two years of running our e-books via E-Book pro we never once
      had an issue with it being cracked etc etc and uploaded to a file
      sharing site, never, not one single incident.

      Within a month of moving to PDF it was everywhere.

      My gut instinct here is a lot of people are guessing a lot of their
      chit chat without having tested it both ways themselves.

      Generally speaking for a $40 ebook most folks don't go to
      trouble to hack it apart, etc unless there's some kind of major gripe.

      With a PDF for some folks, uploading to file sharing sites
      is almost part of their order process.
      Yeah, but did sales go down at all when sharing began? And why did you decide to switch in the first place? Just curious.
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      • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
        Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

        Yeah, but did sales go down at all when sharing began? And why did you decide to switch in the first place? Just curious.
        I got fed up with Ebook Pro, we used to have issues with people behind
        firewalls, and people on MAC's and e-mails not reaching them with the
        username and password, and folks typing in their passwords in wrong
        and folks swopping to different PC's without the reader, I could go on,
        with other issues I found a pain in the ass.

        Ultimately my feeling was it was simply to much customer service and
        added a level of frustration to clients that just didn't add up on a $39
        type product.

        Sales dropping, yes and no, sales tend to drop if suddenly page 1
        of Google is deluged with listings for your product from file sharing sites,
        I remember one day our sales dropped to about 40% of a typical day,
        I immediately typed in the product name and there were about 5 listings
        on page 1 for the product from file sharing sites, apart from the obvious
        loss of revenue, it just looked horribly unprofessional.

        How much you lose, is very hard to gauge, but it's absolutely dire
        when a search for your product brought up a ton of file sharing sites
        all giving your product away.

        That said, I don't think you lose huge sales, because most of the time the file
        sharing site listings don't stick, it's not so much the loss to people
        who actively use file sharing sites to obtain products, they are freebie
        seekers generally, so they just wouldn't have paid anyway, it's the loss
        from people who just typed your product in and find a half dozen
        sites offering it for free download. Your product almost introduces them
        to file sharing sites.

        I would estimate probably 95% of the loss of sales is purely down to that,
        once those listings evaporate and they tend to, your losses are quite
        minimal , you're just left with those downloading who would probably never
        buy but always want something for free.

        We actually found believe it or not it was easier to stop getting the
        content taken down.. yep. What happened when we got the stuff
        removed was that they would remove it, and then somebody else
        would add it again a week later, it would be on the front page and
        get a ton of downloads (sometimes we would see one site alone with
        2000+ download count in a day) and this would attract Google and
        give them another first page 1 listing for the product name.

        If we just let them fold way into obscurity the listings just died,
        I don't know if Google entirely fell out of love with file sharing sites
        or whether they just got more careful with what they allowed to be
        uploaded but we rarely see issues with this any more and that's in
        quite a few different niches.

        I just did a search for 3 of our products and I cant' find a single
        site trying to share it in the top 3 pages, so I'm guess a lot of
        these sites fell seriously out of favor with google.

        Interestingly I can see however search volume for our product name
        with various file sharing site suffixes and prefixes and "free download"
        etc after the product name.

        One thing we did which helped us is from within the PDF's ,we made
        numerous links to sections in the members areas, we made tools in
        the members areas etc, a protected members area.

        This meant people who downloaded illegally only got "half" a product,
        we also put messages in the PDF basically saying if you were sold
        this and it didn't come from xxx.com, then you were ripped off and
        if you gave us the person it came from we would happily give you
        life time free access to the full product.

        We used various methods to eliminate the "ebay" sellers who were
        another big problem after we left Ebook Pro.

        All in all, there is NO doubt that if you just use a PDF it is going to
        get dumped all over the joint, using something like E-book pro
        does hugely protect you because despite what some people say
        in this thread , the vast majority of users in most niches, simply
        do not have the time , inclination or knowledge to scrabble around
        transcribing 400 page e-books. It just never happened in the real
        world in our niches.

        The question normally is, can you be assed with the customer service,
        can you still make the order / access process hassle free, and
        what are you really losing.

        In our case the answers led us to say no more protection, but make
        no mistake, until we moved from e-book pro to PDF, we had zero
        intellectual property issues to fight in over 2 years.

        Within a month of using a PDF format it was rife.

        People just have to decide on their own situation and decide what
        works for them as a business.
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        • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
          Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

          I got fed up with Ebook Pro, we used to have issues with people behind
          firewalls, and people on MAC's and e-mails not reaching them with the
          username and password, and folks typing in their passwords in wrong
          and folks swopping to different PC's without the reader, I could go on,
          with other issues I found a pain in the ass.

          Ultimately my feeling was it was simply to much customer service and
          added a level of frustration to clients that just didn't add up on a $39
          type product.

          Sales dropping, yes and no, sales tend to drop if suddenly page 1
          of Google is deluged with listings for your product from file sharing sites,
          I remember one day our sales dropped to about 40% of a typical day,
          I immediately typed in the product name and there were about 5 listings
          on page 1 for the product from file sharing sites, apart from the obvious
          loss of revenue, it just looked horribly unprofessional.

          How much you lose, is very hard to gauge, but it's absolutely dire
          when a search for your product brought up a ton of file sharing sites
          all giving your product away.

          That said, I don't think you lose huge sales, because most of the time the file
          sharing site listings don't stick, it's not so much the loss to people
          who actively use file sharing sites to obtain products, they are freebie
          seekers generally, so they just wouldn't have paid anyway, it's the loss
          from people who just typed your product in and find a half dozen
          sites offering it for free download. Your product almost introduces them
          to file sharing sites.

          I would estimate probably 95% of the loss of sales is purely down to that,
          once those listings evaporate and they tend to, your losses are quite
          minimal , you're just left with those downloading who would probably never
          buy but always want something for free.

          We actually found believe it or not it was easier to stop getting the
          content taken down.. yep. What happened when we got the stuff
          removed was that they would remove it, and then somebody else
          would add it again a week later, it would be on the front page and
          get a ton of downloads (sometimes we would see one site alone with
          2000+ download count in a day) and this would attract Google and
          give them another first page 1 listing for the product name.

          If we just let them fold way into obscurity the listings just died,
          I don't know if Google entirely fell out of love with file sharing sites
          or whether they just got more careful with what they allowed to be
          uploaded but we rarely see issues with this any more and that's in
          quite a few different niches.

          I just did a search for 3 of our products and I cant' find a single
          site trying to share it in the top 3 pages, so I'm guess a lot of
          these sites fell seriously out of favor with google.

          Interestingly I can see however search volume for our product name
          with various file sharing site suffixes and prefixes and "free download"
          etc after the product name.

          One thing we did which helped us is from within the PDF's ,we made
          numerous links to sections in the members areas, we made tools in
          the members areas etc, a protected members area.

          This meant people who downloaded illegally only got "half" a product,
          we also put messages in the PDF basically saying if you were sold
          this and it didn't come from xxx.com, then you were ripped off and
          if you gave us the person it came from we would happily give you
          life time free access to the full product.

          We used various methods to eliminate the "ebay" sellers who were
          another big problem after we left Ebook Pro.

          All in all, there is NO doubt that if you just use a PDF it is going to
          get dumped all over the joint, using something like E-book pro
          does hugely protect you because despite what some people say
          in this thread , the vast majority of users in most niches, simply
          do not have the time , inclination or knowledge to scrabble around
          transcribing 400 page e-books. It just never happened in the real
          world in our niches.

          The question normally is, can you be assed with the customer service,
          can you still make the order / access process hassle free, and
          what are you really losing.

          In our case the answers led us to say no more protection, but make
          no mistake, until we moved from e-book pro to PDF, we had zero
          intellectual property issues to fight in over 2 years.

          Within a month of using a PDF format it was rife.

          People just have to decide on their own situation and decide what
          works for them as a business.
          Thank you SO MUCH for the long and very detailed answer. Seriously, sometimes this forum rocks. This time it's cuzza you! This is what I'd presupposed, but it's nice to get confirmation. A couple of questions to clarify, if you don't mind:

          1. So at least as it stands, for you, the loss of total IP control is worth it for the ease of operation, correct? The overhead of securing it is what caused the bottleneck?

          2. Did the problems with your customers access disappear when you switched over to PDF? Meaning, though you got more piracy, was that in any kind of converse relationship to the support issues coming from your customers?

          3. Since you pair your products up with membership only benefits, had you considered putting any measures in place to try to track if piracy actually brings you new traffic from people looking for the remainder of what they poached?

          Note, I don't think you'll really have 3, because who would think to test for that. I think it'd be valuable for the industry to know, but I can see why 99% of marketers aren't going to give a rat's ass.

          But still, I'd love to get some metrics on the virality and benefit of including piracy as an explicit part of the marketing program.
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          • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
            Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post


            1. So at least as it stands, for you, the loss of total IP control is worth it for the ease of operation, correct? The overhead of securing it is what caused the bottleneck?
            For us personally yes, it just became to much of a hassle.

            I make this statement however that this was many years ago and
            I have no idea if E-book pro has improved and a number of these
            issues are no longer relevant.

            I'm recounting days gone by history here, probably at least 5 years.

            2. Did the problems with your customers access disappear when you switched over to PDF? Meaning, though you got more piracy, was that in any kind of converse relationship to the support issues coming from your customers?
            Customer service certainly reduced yes, I would say it dropped by
            around 50%. This is the e-book business, you still have a metric
            ton of thickos who can't open a PDF , but in comparison to e-book
            pro, yes, far less customer service.

            Again, I'm making this statement with the caveat I am talking about
            ebook pro from at least 5 years ago, probably more.

            3. Since you pair your products up with membership only benefits, had you considered putting any measures in place to try to track if piracy actually brings you new traffic from people looking for the remainder of what they poached?
            We don't concern ourselves with piracy nowadays at all, it
            doesn't factor into my mind set or daily jobs, even if it
            brought us more traffic , they would only get as far as a
            locked out members area.

            If you're asking do we track IP blockouts on the members
            login page with IP's in the shopping cart, no we don't. It
            wouldn't help if we did either because ultimately there are
            way to many variables in that including DHCP, the fact
            people change PC's , the fact many actual members hit
            the members area and don't login first time and so on.

            You wouldn't be able to accurately track whether an
            illegal copy brought you additional business with any
            real accuracy, especially as most would actually end up
            on the sales page, rather than the members area home page
            and there would be no real way to know how they got
            to the sales page, could have been a bazillion routes
            that didn't include a hookie copy of the e-book, even
            cross referencing referrer ID's and IP's from the cart
            and download area would be fraught with huge holes
            in the data accuracy.

            This approach , ie the viral approach works on some models
            , people like to think it applies to all models , it doesn't.

            Note, I don't think you'll really have 3, because who would think to test for that. I think it'd be valuable for the industry to know, but I can see why 99% of marketers aren't going to give a rat's ass.
            We don't have 3, well actually we do, we know the IP's at the members
            area because we have a system in place that stops multiple IP's
            using the same login , we also have the IP's from 1shoppingcart when
            we use them, but as I said above, it wouldn't really be that much use
            even if you did.

            But still, I'd love to get some metrics on the virality and benefit of including piracy as an explicit part of the marketing program.
            There are excellent metrics on doing the above, I run one
            business on that model almost alone, we create dozens of
            free reports that we purposely put out there to legit sites
            we track them anally and they generate great sales for one
            of our products which is actually a paid members site only.

            However, it's very model specific, when the primary product
            is the PDF, there's no benefit to mass piracy or virality.

            It just sucks a bit.

            You just have to accept that with the loss of protection
            it brings certain benefits and certain negatives.

            There's no spot on right answer , it ultimately boils down
            to various factors , which include what's your Ebook model
            is it a glorified lead magnet or your primary product, and
            so forth.

            What's your ticket price, what's your niche and customer
            base, is it a low barrier to entry lead to a bigger product
            that's immune to piracy.

            Do you have a huge network of themed products in which
            there's intrinsic value in owning more of them, do you have
            high ticket value coaching in your backend, and so on.

            What's your overall $ value per visitor, does it make
            sense to position even a decent product as a viral entity
            because you know your backend is the killer ROI.

            What volume do you do, do you sell primarily to education
            and government whereby the securing of products with
            PDF envelopes that require online authentication is a real
            firewall pain in the ass.

            I could go on, it's not as simple as, yes it's good , or no it's
            bad, as somebody with extensive experience in this in many
            niches, with colleagues doing 6 and 7 figures, with a
            huge understanding of this , I still don't have truly definitive
            answers , other than, as in many things on this forum
            you have to collate all the metrics as best you can and decide
            what works for you a business .

            Past that, it's just a bunch of people in the know guestimating
            and a bunch of people without a clue throwing in what they
            heard somebody else say once..
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  • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
    There's an awful lot of guesswork going on from people here.

    In two years of running our e-books via E-Book pro we never once
    had an issue with it being cracked etc etc and uploaded to a file
    sharing site, never, not one single incident.
    My experience exactly.

    Question: Do your customers know the product they're buying is in .exe format before they buy?
    Yes, it's stated on my FAQ page very clearly. But, remember I'm not in the IM niche and most of my customers don't care what format the ebook is in, they just want the product.

    Also, I've NEVER received an email after purchase from someone because they were pissed that I sold them an EXE Ebook. It's just not an issue with most of them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
      Originally Posted by Christophe Young View Post


      Question: Do your customers know the product they're buying is in .exe format before they buy?
      Yes, it's stated on my FAQ page very clearly. But, remember I'm not in the IM niche and most of my customers don't care what format the ebook is in, they just want the product.

      Also, I've NEVER received an email after purchase from someone because they were pissed that I sold them an EXE Ebook. It's just not an issue with most of them.
      Christophe, the trouble with your position is that you don't know who would have been your customers but aren't, because they passed up your product because of the format. That does happen, you probably are losing sales.

      I used to prefer .exe ebooks, both as a buyer and as a seller. I don't prefer that format any more from either perspective. I'd have to really want something to buy it, or even to download it for free, if it's in .exe format. More often than not, like 90+ percent of the time, I'll pass on the .exe format and go look for another product.

      Of course, it's your business, you can do as you like. Just thought you might want to know your "never had a complaint" conclusion isn't telling you the whole story.
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      • Profile picture of the author Christophe Young
        Wow, this is quite a debate! I've stayed away because it does tend to go in circles.

        Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

        Christophe, the trouble with your position is that you don't know who would have been your customers but aren't, because they passed up your product because of the format. That does happen, you probably are losing sales.

        I used to prefer .exe ebooks, both as a buyer and as a seller. I don't prefer that format any more from either perspective. I'd have to really want something to buy it, or even to download it for free, if it's in .exe format. More often than not, like 90+ percent of the time, I'll pass on the .exe format and go look for another product.

        Of course, it's your business, you can do as you like. Just thought you might want to know your "never had a complaint" conclusion isn't telling you the whole story.
        You're right Dennis. I don't have any way of knowing how many people are NOT buying my product because it's an EXE ebook.

        But, as I said, I'm in a niche where I don't think the file format is really a BIG issue. I don't think the number of sales I'm losing is considerable based on the fact that I've had no complaints from existing customers about the software AND I've never had a potential customer email me asking if I have a PDF version because he/she doesn't feel comfortable buying an EXE ebook.

        Of course, I might still be losing sales but I have to base my business on what evidence I do have from my customers.

        The main argument here seems to be based around the fact that an EXE information product will inconvenience and turn off potential customers.

        But, Alexa and others have stated over and over again that those who do sell these ebooks are not getting complaints from their customers. Take that for what it's worth and to me that's worth a lot!

        And for the record, Ebook Pro is very user friendly and in some cases might be even EASIER to navigate than a PDF ebook. You only have to register it once and after that, it's good to go with the click of an icon without entering a password every time.

        Anyway, some good arguments here but it all comes down to what works best for your niche and business. Hopefully, you'll test both formats and make a more informed decision.
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        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
          I tried to go check out eBook Pro but the only pages I saw said that it wasn't compatible with the Mac, among other limitations. Is ebookpro dot com the software that everyone is referencing? After I opted in (strange that I have to opt-in just to view information about a software product) I got to a page that says:

          System Requirements:

          Windows 98SE, 2K, ME or XP
          Internet access
          Please note that eBook Pro 6.0 is not Mac compatible.
          Am I in the right place?
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          • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
            Originally Posted by mr2monster View Post

            Note the word subtract.


            Someone steals from Wally World - Wal-Mart pays for it at the wholesale price and it comes out of their revenue from actual customers. It SUBTRACTS from their current pot o gold.


            Someone passes around an ebook - There is no overhead cost. It doesn't cost the author a dime. It does not SUBTRACT from their pot o gold.
            You may be technically correct if you want to play semantics, but I think you've moved yourself one step left of the conversation in doing so. The real point is that some people will buy your product if they can't find a way to steal it.

            If I'm selling a $27 product and 50 people steal it, I get nothing. If 47 people steal and 3 buy it because they couldn't figure out how to steal it, that $81 is added to my bottom line, and hence, while technically not selling to those three is not a loss, it is the loss of a gain.

            The bottom line is, my bottom line is affected. Feel free to look at it your way if it makes you feel better though.
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            • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
              Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

              The bottom line is, my bottom line is affected. Feel free to look at it your way if it makes you feel better though.
              A fair point, but the million dollar question is: is your bottom line affected more (or less) than it would be selling DRM'd products?

              The takeaway of this thread so far seems to be that everyone needs to go test it out for themselves.
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                Banned
                Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post


                The takeaway of this thread so far seems to be that everyone needs to go test it out for themselves.
                Amen brother allabout!
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            • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
              Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

              You may be technically correct if you want to play semantics, but I think you've moved yourself one step left of the conversation in doing so. The real point is that some people will buy your product if they can't find a way to steal it.

              If I'm selling a $27 product and 50 people steal it, I get nothing. If 47 people steal and 3 buy it because they couldn't figure out how to steal it, that $81 is added to my bottom line, and hence, while technically not selling to those three is not a loss, it is the loss of a gain.

              The bottom line is, my bottom line is affected. Feel free to look at it your way if it makes you feel better though.

              I agree with your assessment that it might ADD to your bottom line. However, I still stand on the ground that it is a waste of time (essentially) to focus on trying to prevent people from sharing your ebook rather than trying to find people that value your ebook and are willing customers.

              Even if 3... hell, 5 of those 50 people bought your $27 ebook. That's $135 bucks.

              • How many hours did it take you to round up those 5 people through preventative measures?
              • How much did it cost you in technology?
              • How many otherwise happy customers did you anger in the process by making your pipeline that much more complicated?
              • How many hours did it take you to send DMCA notices to sharing sites and domain registrars? (Or how much did it cost to pay someone to do it?)
              • How many hours are you willing to do that EVERY DAY when someone new shares it? It's a never ending process.
              • Is the $135 really worth that much hassle and time when you could make significantly more working on finding people that value you and your products (doing work you'd enjoy nonetheless)?

              And to top it all off, do you really want customers that would RATHER steal from you than pay?

              Spend all that time improving your reach... My bet is that you gain a whole lot more customers that way.
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              • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                lol - okay mr2monster, let me take this one by one, then head into what you may find to be a surprising conclusion.

                I agree with your assessment that it might ADD to your bottom line.
                Actually, it DID add to my bottom line, not might.

                However, I still stand on the ground that it is a waste of time (essentially) to focus on trying to prevent people from sharing your ebook rather than trying to find people that value your ebook and are willing customers.

                How many hours did it take you to round up those 5 people through preventative measures?
                No time...I didn't go looking for them. They show up through normal marketing efforts.

                How much did it cost you in technology?
                Well, nothing extra. It was a matter of using what I already owned to create the product in the first place. It's my option when I compile the product whether to secure it or not.

                How many otherwise happy customers did you anger in the process by making your pipeline that much more complicated?
                No one has complained. The only additional step is to paste in the registration code, which they receive with the download or with the upgrade, depending on which product it is we're talking about.

                How many hours did it take you to send DMCA notices to sharing sites and domain registrars? (Or how much did it cost to pay someone to do it?

                How many hours are you willing to do that EVERY DAY when someone new shares it? It's a never ending process.
                Now see, you're introducing something new into the conversation here. We were talking about protecting a product, not chasing after violators. Protecting a product takes five seconds. That simple act alone has meant more sales.

                Is the $135 really worth that much hassle and time when you could make significantly more working on finding people that value you and your products (doing work you'd enjoy nonetheless)?
                I'm sorry, call me crazy, but I will give up five second of my time for $135. Actually, because I like you, I'll give you a very special rate. How does 50 percent off sound?

                And to top it all off, do you really want customers that would RATHER steal from you than pay?
                Wouldn't it be nice if all our customers were ideal citizens! Of course, in the real world that ain't a gonna happen. Since that is what it is, I would rather have more paying customers and fewer thieves than fewer paying customers and more thieves. Isn't that logical?

                Spend all that time improving your reach... My bet is that you gain a whole lot more customers that way.
                I don't think the five seconds it takes to secure a product is going to do a lot for my reach no matter what I do in that time.

                Now here's the possible surprising conclusion . . . I'm not advocating securing your products or not securing your products. Everyone should do what they believe is right for them. My original point was that you couldn't prove locking down a product doesn't add to the bottom line. Since you bolded your assertion it was clear you believed in your opinion, so I pointed out that your assertion was opinion and not fact, and therefore not a valid argument when presented as fact.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    While I would love to see a reasonable solution to piracy, I purchased a protected ebook in .exe format. Didn't know it when I bought it. After receiving a couple of emails and numerous instructions and jump through this hoop and jump through that hoop, I deleted the emails and said "screw it". Just not worth it. Didn't ask for a refund, but never read it.

    Since I was considering doing something similar to my customers, I quickly abandoned that idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    Funny how some of the people who are so "for" using EXEs to protect their ebooks are the same ones who were screaming bloody murder that someone else would dare to add ANY level of security to a PDF.

    You just have to laugh sometimes.



    </observation>
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

      Funny how some of the people who are so "for" using EXEs to protect their ebooks are the same ones who were screaming bloody murder that someone else would dare to add ANY level of security to a PDF.
      In general, Steven hit it right on the head: the people who want massive security on their own ebooks are fundamentally selfish. They want the greatest of security with their own stuff, and the greatest of freedom with other people's.

      I just want my customers to be (and stay) happy. How many people besides myself bought MRR to the Traffic Hurricane product? Every single one of those people is now selling a product to customers who can't read the installation instructions, or even their license rights. All of those people should be pissed. All of their customers should be pissed.

      Because when you sell information products to the general public, control over your ideas really means control over other people's lives.

      And honestly, has this ever been used to make other people's lives easier?

      Of course not! It always makes their lives more difficult. (Security is the reciprocal of convenience.) And how, exactly, is making my customers' lives more difficult going to make them happy?

      "Oh, thank God I have to type a password to read this ebook! After all, I wouldn't want to just be opening it whenever I wanted. I should have to prove that I really deserve to open it."

      "Wow, I'm so glad I can't print this ebook. That would waste so much ink and paper. It's protecting the planet, really, when you think about it. I should just read it on my screen."

      "It's so awesome that I can't copy text out of this ebook. Telling someone this great quote is going to be so much more satisfying when I've typed it into the chat window manually."

      That's not what they say. They say "WTF, this is a pain in the arse" and get frustrated. I don't like frustrated customers. Frustrated customers ask for refunds and do chargebacks. Happy customers send me gushy testimonials and joyful emails. I like those, and I'll take as many as I can get.

      And if it means my product ends up on a pirate site, honestly, I don't really care. Because if the only way I can stop it is by making my customers less happy, I care a lot more about those customers than I do about the pirates.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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        • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Just a question, Caliban, but if that's your sole concern, why not just give all your products away instead of selling them? That'll make them even happier. Come on, we're all in business to make some money, and it's surely perfectly legitimate and reasonable that we should be able to discuss concerns about people stealing from us without being branded "fundamentally selfish".
          You have to find a line, a balance. How much to charge, how much security to have, how many emails to send... everything is a balance between making your life easy and keeping your customers happy.

          The goal of any business is to make the most profit possible, with the smallest amount of work possible, while satisfying the customers as much as possible. You will never balance them all perfectly.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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            • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              Good answer. I don't mind not being able to balance them all perfectly, but I'm not so keen on being thought "fundamentally selfish" because I don't want people stealing from me if I can reasonably minimise it.
              I always just think of myself as the customer. If it would irritate me, I don't do it. The exe thing would irritate me. Actually, I bough a product from someone on here that included a list of sites to use. They weren't links, and he had disable the ability to copy text. Think I bought again?

              Things that seem minor will irritate customers... you just how to decide how much you're comfortable with :-/

              Always walk a mile in their shoes... that way you're a mile away with a free pair of shoes.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Just a question, Caliban, but if that's your sole concern, why not just give all your products away instead of selling them? That'll make them even happier. Come on, we're all in business to make some money, and it's surely perfectly legitimate and reasonable that we should be able to discuss concerns about people stealing from us without being branded "fundamentally selfish".

          Alexa, here's the problem.

          Basically honest people, like yourself for example, would never purchase
          an ebook and distribute it illegally. So we don't need to worry about them.

          Agreed?

          The people who will go out of their way to try to find something that they
          know they have to pay for, for free, would have never purchased from us
          in the first place. So there is no point getting worked up over these people.

          They are bottom feeders and not our customers.

          So why make it more difficult for the honest people to access our products?

          I just don't see the point of it.

          Of course this is just my opinion and ultimately each person has to run
          their business they way they feel is best.
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          • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
            Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

            Alexa, here's the problem.

            Basically honest people, like yourself for example, would never purchase
            an ebook and distribute it illegally. So we don't need to worry about them.

            Agreed?

            The people who will go out of their way to try to find something that they
            know they have to pay for, for free, would have never purchased from us
            in the first place. So there is no point getting worked up over these people.
            Agreed, but there is a third group that gets sent or otherwise obtains the product from a friend in a "check this out" sort of fashion. I think that's what Alexa is trying to stop.

            But I think if you've structured your sales funnel properly you're actually gaining a lead. It won't work if the eBook is your sole product, but it might if you're upselling a training course, membership site, DVD set, afilliate products, etc.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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            • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              I suspect, although he didn't say so, that Caliban's extremely strongly-worded feelings on that point arise from a decision he's made that that can't be done without massive security that causes honest customers huge inconvenience.
              Pull those two words.

              Security is always less convenient. It's the nature of security. Whatever you do in terms of security is going to make things less convenient.

              If it makes things less convenient for YOU, that's entirely your decision. You go right ahead and play all the complicated games you want to keep people from downloading your ebook for free; so long as all the customer has to do is click the link in their email, that's your time and not the customer's.

              But when it starts to make things less convenient for the customer... here, I begin to have a problem with it. If I do something in my product that means every customer I ever have will need to do something extra every time they use the product, there is one and only one reason for me to do that:

              Because I have no choice.

              If I have a choice, then I have a duty to my customer to choose what will make his life easier and more convenient. I have a responsibility not to infringe on his rights, not to deny him freedoms that are rightfully his, and to accept that in so doing I provide him the capacity to infringe on my own rights.

              This is how I show my customer that I trust him. And the law of reciprocity comes into play: if I show that I trust my customer, he will in turn trust me. Furthermore, he will often feel compelled to rise to the occasion, and demonstrate that he can be trusted. Even if I'll never know.

              The real problem I have with this kind of security is that it's not for your customer. It's for you. Security that protects your customer from bad things? I have no problem with that. It's security that protects you from your customer that gets under my skin.

              Because in general, you will always have some number of false positives, and a false positive is ALWAYS an unhappy customer.
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            • Profile picture of the author John Lenaghan
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              There's also a third group who are not people like you and I, who are not bottom feeders and non-customers, who will accept an email from a friend attaching a copy of an e-book they bought, just (in their mind) like the friend might lend them a book from Amazon. Some of these people will buy my book if their friend can't send it to them by email.
              Don't you think you might be generating new sales from those people as well, though? Maybe not for that ebook, but if they like the information it contains and want to learn more from you, they're quite likely to become customers. And because they're not bottom feeders, the next product of yours they want, they're likely going to actually buy.

              Heck, they might even buy the one they were given if there's a good enough call to action at the end of it, letting them know that all legitimate buyers get updates, additional info, or whatever you can offer as a "paying customers only" add-on.

              Full disclosure - I haven't actually bought or used an executable ebook in probably six or seven years. I actually didn't even think they were around much anymore, because they were such a pain in the a** last time I used one. So I'm coming at this discussion with a bias that is likely outdated.

              But it seems to me that an unsecured PDF is something that you can read no matter what. The vendor went out of business and shut down the website? Doesn't matter, the PDF still opens.

              But if there's some kind of protection that either needs the vendor's website to verify something, a password that you might have forgotten, or some other thing that you might need to contact the vendor for, and they're gone, you're not going to be reading it.

              I have a PDF report that I bought a few years ago that is password protected. I've long since lost the email with the password and the vendor is nowhere to be found now. I'd like to be able to get at the information in it again, but there's nothing I can do (at least, nothing obvious - I'm not going to go searching for ways to crack this thing) to get access to it now.

              It would be like having a book sitting on your bookshelf that has a lock on it and you've lost the key. You know the information's there, but you just can't get at it (it's a really good lock).

              John
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              • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                  Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                  By expressing that as "FACT", you're concealing that it actually rests on your precise definitions and understandings of the terms "legitimate" and "rights"
                  Actually, what makes a customer "legitimate" is defined by the vendor, and what constitutes a "right" is established by legal bodies in the appropriate jurisdiction. My personal prejudices have nothing to do with either of them.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    Actually, what makes a customer "legitimate" is defined by the vendor, and what constitutes a "right" is established by legal bodies in the appropriate jurisdiction. My personal prejudices have nothing to do with either of them.
                    Define them , I think personal prejudices drive about 50% of your
                    posts on this subject.

                    Classify a users "rights" on somebody elses intellectual property
                    and show the legal bodies you're referring to.

                    Right now abusing somebodies "rights" seem to be defined by them
                    having to enter a password.

                    Let's get some clarity here , that will help.

                    Show me one, just one.
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                    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                      Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

                      Classify a users "rights" on somebody elses intellectual property and show the legal bodies you're referring to.
                      See Title 17 USC 106:

                      "Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:"

                      Specifically, I'd like to discuss section 109...

                      109. Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord

                      "...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."

                      And section 117...

                      117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

                      "...it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (...) such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful."

                      In other words, I have the right to make copies of your ebook, and I have the right to sell my copy of your ebook to someone else.

                      If I abuse those rights, it's piracy.

                      But if you stop the piracy, you violate my rights.
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                      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
                        OOH! Let me play, too! It's easy to highlight the small parts of something that SEEM to support a position, no matter how wrong it is.

                        It makes one wonder why you ONLY want to discuss two small sections. I read the code and there is MUCH MORE to it that supports the opposite of your position, but I will simply use the same passages you did, but highlight different portions of it.

                        See Title 17 USC 106:

                        "Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:"

                        109. Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord

                        "...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."
                        • Buying a copy of a book does not mean the author has given you this authorization.
                        117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

                        "...it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (...) such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful."

                        It says nothing about HOW ONE ACCESSES that information is a right. In other words, prove to us that enterring a password, or whatever, is an infringement on a person's rights to access a work.

                        Besides, your conclusion based on the above code was the sheer definition of a non sequitir. Nice try, though.



                        ~Michael
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                        • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                          Banned
                          Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post


                          It says nothing about HOW ONE ACCESSES that information is a right. In other words, prove to us that enterring a password, or whatever, is an infringement on a person's rights to access a work.

                          Besides, your conclusion based on the above code was the sheer definition of a non sequitir. Nice try, though.



                          ~Michael
                          Michael, can you also ask the question as to why DRM keeps the person from selling their copy?

                          All they have to do is contact the seller and transfer their ownership to someone else.
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                          • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                            Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                            All they have to do is contact the seller and transfer their ownership
                            The law specifically says without the authority of the copyright owner. If the seller has to transfer ownership, then the sale requires his authority.
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                            "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                            • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                              Banned
                              Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                              The law specifically says without the authority of the copyright owner. If the seller has to transfer ownership, then the sale requires his authority.

                              We are talking about software here. Want to check that again?
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                        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                          Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

                          It makes one wonder why you ONLY want to discuss two small sections.
                          Because they're the relevant ones. You are more than welcome to read the entirety of Title 17, and indeed to consult with an attorney on the matter.

                          I read the code and there is MUCH MORE to it that supports the opposite of your position, but I will simply use the same passages you did, but highlight different portions of it.
                          Michael, you're getting a little confused here.

                          Section 106 gives exclusive rights to the owner.

                          Section 109 then LIMITS those exclusive rights.

                          And then you get all confused about the word "owner" - because you think it always means the owner of the copyright. It doesn't.

                          "...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."
                          So when I buy an ebook, I can later sell it, or give it to someone else to sell. In either case, I don't need the authority or permission of the copyright owner.

                          It says nothing about HOW ONE ACCESSES that information is a right. In other words, prove to us that enterring a password, or whatever, is an infringement on a person's rights to access a work.
                          Entering a password isn't an infringement. You're incorrectly combining the current argument with the previous one, that DRM imposes a needless inconvenience on the customer. Nobody gives a damn if their customers are inconvenienced, so I moved on to the point that they're infringing on their customers' legal rights.
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                          "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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          • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
            Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post


            The people who will go out of their way to try to find something that they
            know they have to pay for, for free, would have never purchased from us
            in the first place. So there is no point getting worked up over these people.

            They are bottom feeders and not our customers.
            .
            Yah but here's the issue Steven, well here's a couple actually.

            Issue one, there are absolutely a growing number of Joe Blogs
            who use file sharing sites for music, who have realized, it's
            worth checking those sites first to see if they can get something
            for free and save the $20, it happens.

            Secondly, and this is the bigger issue as the above, isn't
            a huge issue IMO.

            If you have a popular product, it can end up on the file sharing
            sites and listed in the organic SERPS.

            What happens then is that people who don't even know what
            a file sharing site is, type in your product, they can get a barrage
            of listings for your product name.

            They are in buy mode, they have already read your copy, they
            are probably just looking for a review, then they see
            they can download it for free, just "click here" and boom, sales
            can be lost.

            I'm partially playing devils advocate here, I've seen this issue
            from all sides, inside out and back to front.

            As is often the case on the WF , things get missed, generalisations
            are made.

            On your point about making it annoying for customers,
            if you had to enter your password every time you opened
            a book, dam, it would be annoying, if you to enter it once
            immediately after purchase, would it be such an issue.

            I can't remember the last professional piece of s/w I installed
            that didn't ask for a serial number, I can't remember it
            being annoying, I doubt anybody who installs Photoshop
            starts pulling their hair out when asked to enter their CD key.

            As I said previously, the devil is in the details, folks
            tend to exaggerate elements to make a point, yes
            DRM can certainly be a pain to the consumer and to the
            vendor, but I don't think it's entirely black and white.
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            • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
              Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

              On your point about making it annoying for customers,
              if you had to enter your password every time you opened
              a book, dam, it would be annoying, if you to enter it once
              immediately after purchase, would it be such an issue.

              I can't remember the last professional piece of s/w I installed
              that didn't ask for a serial number, I can't remember it
              being annoying, I doubt anybody who installs Photoshop
              starts pulling their hair out when asked to enter their CD key.
              I, for one, view an ebook as reference material and want to take it with me across computers and other mobile devices. I don't view it the same way as I do software. I want it available wherever and whenever.

              I also want to be able to read it 5 years from now if I so desire. Will I be able to do that if the DRM server goes away (as has happened in several high profile instances)?
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              • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

                I, for one, view an ebook as reference material and want to take it with me across computers and other mobile devices. I don't view it the same way as I do software. I want it available wherever and whenever.
                Which is your perogative and of course people end up viewing things
                in whatever way suits their argument. I don't view an e-report in
                the same way I do software either from a mobility perspective, but
                in terms of the customer hassle perspective, I've purely been
                playing devils advocate, there is no inherent difference in terms of
                the hassle of entering a CD key into software or a password in to an e-book.

                I didn't at any point say software and an e-book where the same as it
                relates to your point, I was purely talking about the way entering
                a password once is no different in s/w than an e-report (from a hassle
                perspective).

                Mobility of a product is entirely different and a great reason why DRM
                on some stuff could indeed be a pain, especially if you're the kind of
                person who likes to transfer the medium to multiple PC's hand helds etc.

                I've personally had this issue, I stated it very early on when I mentioned
                customers moving from one PC to another.

                I also want to be able to read it 5 years from now if I so desire. Will I be able to do that if the DRM server goes away (as has happened in several high profile instances)?
                You're sort of preaching to the choir here, as I'm the guy who removed
                DRM from our sales process for numerous reasons which I've mentioned
                both of which you've mentioned here, not the least being I wasn't 100%
                sure that the DRM solution we were using would even be around in 5 years
                time, I was wrong, it is, but who could tell, it certainly was a factor in
                our decision.

                I'm neither pro DRM or anti DRM

                I'm simply pointing out various issues from various angles as the subject
                matter deserves it.
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                • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                  Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

                  Which is your perogative and of course people end up viewing things
                  in whatever way suits their argument. I don't view an e-report in
                  the same way I do software either from a mobility perspective, but
                  in terms of the customer hassle perspective, I've purely been
                  playing devils advocate, there is no inherent difference in terms of
                  the hassle of entering a CD key into software or a password in to an e-book.

                  I didn't at any point say software and an e-book where the same as it
                  relates to your point, I was purely talking about the way entering
                  a password once is no different in s/w than an e-report (from a hassle
                  perspective).
                  I'm not trying to split hairs with you, since we're generally in agreement. As a businessman, I will do whatever would affect my bottom line which is the smart move.

                  But on the topic of convenience, I definitely have a different usage pattern than the person that has a single laptop to his name, and the idea of CD activations (even once per computer) still bother me. I use multiple computers both at the office and at home, and have several mobile devices. This does certainly put me in a very small percentage of the market, but I'm still a customer... and .exe files just don't work for me. (or .app before anyone else says that Macs are supported by some DRM too!)

                  I use six different computers and two mobile devices on a regular basis, and as I mentioned before I keep all of my ebooks in Dropbox. With a straight PDF this works great as I can view PDFs of all of my devices with ease.

                  But with the products that wrap documents in executable files, I would need at least two copies (for Mac and Windows) and then they wouldn't work on my iPhone and iPad. Then who knows how many activations I get, lack of native reader and OS support, the server problem, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

                  I realize that you and I basically agree on this but I just wanted to summarize because I think it is one of the issues at the heart of the issue.

                  As I've also said before, I can see where certain business models would be crushed by distributing straight PDFs. But I guess what I'm trying to tease out of this discussion is: aren't these then broken business models? If DRM is so limiting and loses customers (which I think we've established), yet distributing paid content to our customers results in rampant, damaging piracy (which we've also acknowledged that it has for some), shouldn't we be trying to find out how to turn this distribution into an advantage (somehow) by retooling business models?

                  Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post


                  You're sort of preaching to the choir here, as I'm the guy who removed
                  DRM from our sales process for numerous reasons which I've mentioned
                  both of which you've mentioned here, not the least being I wasn't 100%
                  sure that the DRM solution we were using would even be around in 5 years
                  time, I was wrong, it is, but who could tell, it certainly was a factor in
                  our decision.

                  I'm neither pro DRM or anti DRM

                  I'm simply pointing out various issues from various angles as the subject
                  matter deserves it.
                  Yes, and I agree with you more than I seem to be getting credit for. I also appreciate that you are one of the few people sharing your actual experiences in this discussion.

                  I'm not anti-DRM for any principled reason, but as a customer it's never been good for me. As a producer of content, I have no tangible proof that having DRM has cost me customers, but I do have the expenses (both for the technology and the increased support costs) that tell a story (as you found). Add to that my personal experiences, though, and I prefer to steer clear of it.

                  Even Apple and Amazon, who seem to have the least restrictive DRM of any I've seen (at least from the standpoint of supported platforms), can't provide the convenience of none at all.
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            • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
              Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

              I can't remember the last professional piece of s/w I installed
              that didn't ask for a serial number, I can't remember it
              being annoying, I doubt anybody who installs Photoshop
              starts pulling their hair out when asked to enter their CD key.
              I see your point and won't even argue it. Every piece of software I have
              ever bought, I had to enter some kind of serial number or key to make sure
              I had a legal copy. I have no problem with doing that.

              But guess what?

              It is NOTHING for somebody to take that serial number and pass it around.

              PC retailers do it all the time when they give you a free copy of Microsoft
              Word or Office or whatever it is. I know it's so because I've bought PCs
              where the guy in the store said to me, "Buy this PC from me and I'll
              install MS Office FREE. And there he is pulling out this card with all these
              software license codes and stuff.

              Point is, if somebody wants to steal something or pass it around, they
              will. But I still have no problem with that for software because usually it
              is a one time thing.

              But I've purchased PDFs, that's right, PDFs, where EVERY time I try to
              open it, I have to type in a password.

              What a pain in the ass. What if I forget the password one day?

              That's the kind of crap I have a problem with and that is the kind of
              crap I would never inflict on any of my customers.

              As a matter of fact, there is one PDF that I am thinking of right now that
              I own that I haven't looked at in so long, I forgot the password and I don't
              have it written down.

              Think I'll ever look at that PDF again?

              So what do you think will happen the next time I buy a PDF and have to
              go through this crap?

              Can you say instant refund and instant deletion from my PC?

              I don't want to have to think of doing anything but just single clicking
              on my MS Office Shortcut taskbar and opening whatever it is I want to
              open.

              If I can't do that...I don't want the product.

              And if I feel that way, I am sure other people do as well.
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post


                It is NOTHING for somebody to take that serial number and pass it around.

                A lot more programs are connecting to their server in order to authenticate. They will be able to see if it comes from different ip addresses and how many times they are activating.
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              • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post


                It is NOTHING for somebody to take that serial number and pass it around.
                I'm purely making the point , folks can't have it both ways.

                They can't say , oh it's awful I have to enter a password into my
                ebook but then not stir when presented with the same on software.

                It's either horrendous and selfish and awful and awkward or it's not.

                Point is, if somebody wants to steal something or pass it around, they
                will.
                Yes, they will but some DRM will make it so dam awkward that
                in reality, they don't . I know this from real world experience.

                To pass a product delivered in EbooK Pro (and other DRM solutions)
                around would require the product to be released from it's
                security packet into a form available to pass around and that is
                actually no mean feat.

                But I still have no problem with that for software because usually it
                is a one time thing.
                So is good DRM, that's the point.

                But I've purchased PDFs, that's right, PDFs, where EVERY time I try to
                open it, I have to type in a password.
                Yah, incredibly annoying and also utterly pointless. PDF password
                security is NOT DRM in any real sense, it's just a dam nuisance
                that benefits nobody at all.

                To make DRM count it has to be done in a way that offers viable
                protection bar transcription services and it shouldn't cause
                the user any hassle past doing exactly what they do for a
                multitude of apps.

                That's the kind of crap I have a problem with and that is the kind of
                crap I would never inflict on any of my customers.
                Join the club, I don't think there's disagreement on PDF passwords.

                Different issue.

                There a large number of very good reasons why DRM sucks IMO, and
                why I just don't use it, I'm pointing out inconsistencies in some of the
                arguments because they can be misleading.
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            • Profile picture of the author TonyDavis
              Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

              If you have a popular product, it can end up on the file sharing
              sites and listed in the organic SERPS.
              Why hasn't Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine taken these sites out of their search listings yet?

              Tony
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        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Just a question, Caliban, but if that's your sole concern, why not just give all your products away instead of selling them? That'll make them even happier.
          Actually, it won't. People don't value what they get for free. If I give people great information, but they don't have to pay for it, then it actively impoverishes them by erroneously communicating that this information isn't worth anything.

          The greatest torment in Dante's Inferno is the first circle of hell, where the people had committed no sin but never been saved either. It is the cruelest punishment of all, not because they are in pain or under torture, but because they think they are happy.

          In the same way, when you give people great information for free, they think they are happy. They think that this is a great bargain. But because they do not value it, having improperly conflated monetary value with actual value... they are unable to take real action with it. And they don't know why.

          Personally, I am of the opinion that I am not the devil, and being my customer should not be one of the torments of hell. Let alone the single greatest and cruelest among them.

          Of course, if you'd like to take your marketing lessons from the source of all that is evil, go right ahead.
          Signature
          "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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      • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
        Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

        In general, Steven hit it right on the head: the people who want massive security on their own ebooks are fundamentally selfish. They want the greatest of security with their own stuff, and the greatest of freedom with other people's.

        And if it means my product ends up on a pirate site, honestly, I don't really care. Because if the only way I can stop it is by making my customers less happy, I care a lot more about those customers than I do about the pirates.
        It's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that those interested in
        protecting their intellectual property are by definition , a) selfish,
        b) not interested in happy customers.


        Content protection shouldn't be boiled down into such
        emotive issues. It's a far more interesting topic than
        pidgeon holing people as "selfish" for not wanting their
        content distributed.

        The problem when you're content ends up on pirate
        sites in a big fashion, is that ultimately it devalues
        your product, it devalues its worth in customers
        eyes, it can actually generate unhappy customers
        believe it or not. It can even generate refund requests.

        It's rather easy to do an ivory tower on this one but
        it's more interesting to take on board, as I have that
        we have people here with PDF protection and perfectly
        happy customers.

        Much depends on the details, we have for example a 720
        page PDF, it's the culmination of more work than
        most people can imagine.

        Would we really be that selfish for asking somebody to
        enter a password ONCE , in order to protect that content?

        As usual , the devil dwells in the details of various elements
        of the discussion.
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        • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
          Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post


          Would we really be that selfish for asking somebody to
          enter a password ONCE , in order to protect that content?
          No, not at all. But you should know that having to enter a password IS going to annoy some of your customers. Without question, it will annoy some.

          And

          A "password" is not protecting your content... it is merely giving the image of protection.
          Signature

          Bare Murkage.........

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          • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
            Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

            No, not at all. But you should know that having to enter a password IS going to annoy some of your customers. Without question, it will annoy some.
            Possibly , but minimal Jay, I wouldn't be overjoyed and a password which
            popped up every time I tried to read it, but once after purchase, it's not
            a big issue

            And

            A "password" is not protecting your content... it is merely giving the image of protection.
            Yes and no, depends on how it's being protected , from past
            experience I can tell you it does indeed protect it, to the degree
            it matters.

            The argument that somebody can transcribe and so forth holds
            water only in specific scenarios.
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            • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
              Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

              Yes and no, depends on how it's being protected , from past
              experience I can tell you it does indeed protect it, to the degree
              it matters.
              If it's being "protected" in any way shape or form by a password, then it isn't really being protected. I proved this a couple weeks ago, right here on the forum... I provided a link to that discussion a few pages back.. have a look.

              The argument that somebody can transcribe and so forth holds
              water only in specific scenarios.
              Why would I need somebody to transcribe anything?... The password can be jacked in seconds... and the .pdf is no longer troublesome.. I can open it with one click I'm not saying it is right to do this.. I'm saying it is easy.

              And once somebody does it, your product is freely distributed. No password required.
              Signature

              Bare Murkage.........

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              • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

                If it's being "protected" in any way shape or form by a password, then it isn't really being protected. I proved this a couple weeks ago, right here on the forum... I provided a link to that discussion a few pages back.. have a look.



                Why would I need somebody to transcribe anything?... The password can be jacked in seconds... and the .pdf is no longer troublesome.. I can open it with one click I'm not saying it is right to do this.. I'm saying it is easy.

                And once somebody does it, your product is freely distributed. No password required.
                Try it with ebook pro, I'm not talking about simple PDF password
                protection, PDF password protection isn't DRM, it's just amusing.

                The other thing to note is this Jay, when DRM is provided in a manner
                that means simply cracking the password doesn't actually allow you
                access to distribute the product, it tends to kill piracy.

                It may be possible for somebody to crack an Ebook pro password
                and username combo (unlikely but possible) but even then
                all they have is access locally, they can't rip it from the container
                and pass it on in any usable format, it won't even exist as a PDF
                in the wrapper.

                Can it be replicated yes, would in reality anybody bother in a
                magnificient number of niches and implementations, no, and
                that's the key point.

                Just because something can be done with extreme measures, you
                have to have a market to support it or there be a purpose or benefit
                and often, there simply isn't so the DRM works fine for those people.
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        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
          Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

          It's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that those interested in protecting their intellectual property are by definition , a) selfish, b) not interested in happy customers.
          Why?

          If you'd rather protect your intellectual property than protect the rights and privileges of your customers, you're more interested in your own financial self-interest than you are in the convenience of your product - and hence the happiness of your customers.

          That doesn't mean you have ZERO interest in that happiness, but it's certainly less interest than you place in your wallet.
          Signature
          "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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          • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

            Why?

            If you'd rather protect your intellectual property than protect the rights and privileges of your customers, you're more interested in your own financial self-interest than you are in the convenience of your product - and hence the happiness of your customers.

            That doesn't mean you have ZERO interest in that happiness, but it's certainly less interest than you place in your wallet.
            I explained why, there are numerous factors involved here , especially
            DRM application and so forth.

            The problem is people are becoming emotive , you use terms like "protect
            the rights and priviledeges of your customers".

            People wax lyrical to give their point emphasis.

            I'm pretty sure I never thought my "rights and my privileges "were
            at serious disruption or indeed any disruption when I entered my
            Windows XP CD key or when I installed Photoshop and so on.

            You could start to level this argument at almost any scenario.

            My rights and privileges have been effected by the fact I have
            to pay for my shopping when I buy it, not by check two days later
            when it was more convenient to me.

            Was the supermarket selfish, or was it purely protecting it's
            investment, you can level the selfish argument at a myriad
            of scenarios, but it's so dependent on many factors it
            sort of loses steam as a method for pushing the discussion.
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            • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
              Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

              I'm pretty sure I never thought my "rights and my privileges "were at serious disruption or indeed any disruption when I entered my Windows XP CD key or when I installed Photoshop and so on.
              Would you feel that way if you had to enter your CD key every time you booted your machine?

              What about if Adobe released an upgrade to Photoshop, and your own version stopped working?

              Would you feel your rights and privileges were being infringed then?
              Signature
              "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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              • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                Would you feel that way if you had to enter your CD key every time you booted your machine?
                My answer to that is clear CD, I've stipulated it at least 3 times already
                but has already been stated, it's not a requirement of all DRM. Even 6+
                years ago, you didn't have to do that with E-Book pro.

                What about if Adobe released an upgrade to Photoshop, and your own version stopped working?
                Yes , I would find that intensely annoying, but your making a blanket
                statement with a flawed analogy, that this is the upshot of all DRM
                solutions.

                Sometimes, it's not horrendous to admit that depending on circumstance
                and application that your argument against something isn't always
                applicable.

                Anyway, I'm done with this one, at this point it appears to be going
                around in circles and there's no benefit to reiteration really.
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                • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                  Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

                  but your making a blanket
                  statement with a flawed analogy, that this is the upshot of all DRM
                  solutions.
                  FACT: There does not exist any DRM solution that materially affects piracy efforts without also preventing activity that legitimate customers are entirely within their rights to perform.

                  Prove me wrong. All it takes is one example. Just one.
                  Signature
                  "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    FACT: There does not exist any DRM solution that materially affects piracy efforts without also preventing activity that legitimate customers are entirely within their rights to perform.

                    Prove me wrong. All it takes is one example. Just one.
                    Adobe - information security | Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES2
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                    • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                      Adobe's products are some of the most pirated on the internet. If they're using their own software to protect their own stuff like CS5, I wouldn't say that product is a good example of materially affecting piracy.
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                      • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

                        Adobe's products are some of the most pirated on the internet. If they're using their own software to protect their own stuff like CS5, I wouldn't say that product is a good example of materially affecting piracy.
                        What you are talking about is hacking software. That doesn't have anything to do with this thread.

                        Besides, CDark asked a specific question and I was answering that question.

                        Piracy of software wasn't the question nor does their rights manager have anything to do with software protection.

                        I would be interested in hearing what adobe pdf files are being shared illegally when using their rights management system.

                        Please enlighten us.
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                        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                          I would be interested in hearing what adobe pdf files are being shared illegally when using their rights management system.

                          Please enlighten us.
                          You got me there. I can find unencrypted PDFs all over the internet but I have no way of knowing which ones came from broken Adobe DRM.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    FACT: There does not exist any DRM solution that materially affects piracy efforts without also preventing activity that legitimate customers are entirely within their rights to perform.

                    Prove me wrong. All it takes is one example. Just one.
                    It's been mentioned at least a dozen times in this thread alone.

                    You keep simply glossing over it with more blanket statements.

                    For reference customers don't have any specific rights past legit
                    access with somebody elses product other than those laid down by the
                    owner.

                    There are a variety of DRM solutions out there, I don't spend
                    much time with them as it's not really of relevence to me as
                    for me personally as already stated , they don't benefit my
                    business enough to make it worthwhile.

                    I'm not inclined for obvious reasons to run around testing
                    and researching DRM for you CD, especially as no doubt
                    even when faced with a legitimate answer to your question
                    you'll find due course to discount in some manner not
                    really related to the core topic.

                    However EBook Pro has been mentioned numerous times, it
                    only requires they activate it once, making mincemeat of your
                    continued bleating on about constantly requiring a password,
                    it doesn't infringe on any of these so called "rights".

                    The only way around serious protection is for somebody to
                    go and print out every page of a product, then go and
                    run it via OCR software, (that if it's not watermarked with
                    the buyer ID) and go down that route.

                    The reality is, and this is based on actual real world experience
                    not just constantly guessing, that it just doesn't happen
                    in the kind of niches people like Alexa are discussing.

                    Even then if the DRM is any good, it will make it very
                    awkward because they implement techinques to make
                    OCR quite awkward.

                    It's simply a real royal pain in the ass , especially in
                    any volume and when a product costs $29, there's no
                    point in it being done.

                    We have in this thread two users of a DRM solution called
                    E-Book pro, they have both stipulated that they have
                    not a single issue of piracy on the products protected
                    by this DRM method.

                    We could, I'm sure invite the entire E-book pro customer base
                    to this forum with the same comment and some folks
                    would still say DRM can't protect your content.

                    And you know what, they would be partially right because
                    ultimately if people want to go to extreme manual lengths
                    to print,scan, ocr , remove watermarks and so on, or
                    transcribe and make into a new document, you can get around
                    it, but ultimately in the real world, this doesn't happen
                    in the vast majority of business and niches.

                    Hackers are simply not interested in your home eye sight
                    test or how to cook chicken 200 ways and so on.

                    So DRM can and does protect your work in many cases,
                    there are always caveats in any discussion on anything
                    but just because there are caveats doesn't mean that
                    every other reality falls by the way side.

                    Why people can't appreciate that DRM has it's place when
                    properly implemented for some companies and it's
                    frankly a pain the ass and useless in others is beyond me.
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                    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                      Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

                      For reference customers don't have any specific rights with somebody elses product other than those laid down by the owner.
                      Wrong. First-sale doctrine comes to mind, right offhand.

                      it doesn't infringe on any of these so called "rights".
                      I don't think you can say that with any degree of accuracy when you've just incorrectly asserted that no such rights exist.
                      Signature
                      "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                      • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
                        Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                        Wrong. First-sale doctrine comes to mind, right offhand.
                        Ok, so just to be clear, after putting forward the rather simple point
                        that a password only need be entered once, you're dropping that
                        argument, and we are now moving on to the "rights" of the consumer
                        as regards distribution , correct ?

                        I also did state specific rights for reference, all customers have some
                        rights, I didn't think I would need to be so anally specific , clearly if
                        you buy something you do have certain rights, I'm trying to pin down
                        what rights it is you think DRM remove , not general rights.

                        Ok, progress, so as you're holding the wiki page up as evidence to support
                        the fact that DRM is supressing users "rights" by stopping people sending
                        copies to other people, is that the rights, you're referring to as please note
                        you're yet to specify.

                        If so , please yank out the pertinent section from the source, that you feel
                        substantiates that claim and please do it without removing the relevent
                        caveats also specified in the wiki.

                        I skimmed it briefly and if you don't think a PDF on one machine and a PDF
                        on another machine is a copy, then this could be hard work.

                        Is it your conclusion that it's legal to print out a book you purchased
                        and then sell it or pass copies to any other party?

                        This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy ends once that copy is sold, as long as no additional copies are made
                        This is taken from your source, where it clearly states "as long as no additional
                        copies are made" So when you somebody opens up a PDF on the machine you
                        emailed it to, it is your belief that is not an additional copy, is that correct?

                        Is it your position that all content owners should without any evidence provide
                        their content for free as long as one person pays for it, and perhaps hope that
                        other copies are deleted from computers etc ?

                        Again further down.

                        So, for example, if the copyright owner licenses someone to make a copy (such as by downloading), then that copy (meaning the tangible medium of expression onto which it was copied under license, be it a hard drive or removable storage medium) may lawfully be sold, lent, traded, or given away.
                        If the owner licenses someone to make a copy, NOT , if you happen to
                        feel like it.

                        And again

                        The acts specifically excluded:
                        A computer program which is embodied in a machine or product and which cannot be copied during the ordinary operation or use of the machine or product;
                        "Which cannot be copied during the ordinary operation."

                        I could go on.


                        I don't think you can say that with any degree of accuracy when you've just incorrectly asserted that no such rights exist.
                        You were trying to make a case earlier that having to enter a password
                        was an infringement of these rights. There's accuracy as it relates to what
                        I referred to in my post.

                        The source material to substantiate the users rights doesn't do so either.

                        Perhaps as I said in a post above you could start by clarrifying what
                        "rights" it is your "protecting".

                        At this point you seem to be sliding into the territory that content is all
                        fair game and that measures taken to protect it from distribution and
                        copying infringe on a users rights.

                        The facts don't support that, or lets say it's far more complicated than that
                        and starts getting into licencing not sales and many other issues, you'll
                        actually note that some information sellers do indeed make this clear, that
                        they are licensing you a copy of that information and you only.

                        Could you clarrify exactly what rights you think DRM ilegally prevents
                        users from carrying out.

                        That would help focus the conversation, because wiki pages
                        a) arn't hugely trustworthy and b) don't support your claim clearly.

                        We seem to be swerving from one issue to the next with not a single
                        admission from yourself that some of your comments don't hold water
                        as it relates to some DRM implementations.

                        What exactly, are you debating, because we do seem to have now moved
                        past at least the passwords issue, etc and you're now focussing on
                        the consumers rights to copy and distribute other people's content.

                        So if you could really narrow down exactly what you're saying as it relates
                        to that matter, that would help.
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          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
            Banned
            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

            Why?

            If you'd rather protect your intellectual property than protect the rights and privileges of your customers, you're more interested in your own financial self-interest than you are in the convenience of your product - and hence the happiness of your customers.

            That doesn't mean you have ZERO interest in that happiness, but it's certainly less interest than you place in your wallet.
            DO you stay by your computer and personally send out each order 24 hours a day?

            Or do you use an automated script that allows them to download?

            I hope you don't use an automated script because then I would consider you selfish because they do tend to screw up at time. I hate thinking your customers can't get their downloads after they purchased.

            After all they would be in hell waiting for you to come out of your rum induced coma.
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            • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
              Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

              I hope you don't use an automated script
              I hope you don't think I lose sleep at night over what you hope I'm not doing. :rolleyes:
              Signature
              "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                Banned
                Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                I hope you don't think I lose sleep at night over what you hope I'm not doing. :rolleyes:
                Of course not, I imagine you lose sleep trying to find different ways of arguing threads on the warrior forum. :rolleyes:
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                • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                  That's not a DRM solution, it's an IRM solution. Go learn the difference.

                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  I imagine you lose sleep trying to find different ways of arguing threads on the warrior forum. :rolleyes:
                  Nope, I just have one. I say what I think, and I back it up with facts.

                  Works every time. Of course, there are always people who want to plug up their ears and sing so they don't have to hear it, but most ignorance is willful.
                  Signature
                  "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    That's not a DRM solution, it's an IRM solution. Go learn the difference.



                    Nope, I just have one. I say what I think, and I back it up with facts.

                    Works every time. Of course, there are always people who want to plug up their ears and sing so they don't have to hear it, but most ignorance is willful.

                    You mean like this.

                    Digital rights management, IP protection | Adobe manufacturing solutions

                    Actually, you try to pick little parts of the discussion to argue when a lot of times it has no bearing on the real discussion.

                    You say Alexa is selfish when she tries to protect her products from theft.

                    Of course you have no problems with automated delivery of products knowing they will never work 100% of the time.

                    I guess you don't care enough to make sure your customers get their products right after payment by delivering them by hand.

                    Some could say that is selfish on your part.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                      Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                      I guess you don't care enough to make sure your customers get their products right after payment by delivering them by hand.
                      Actually Thomas, if you want to be technical, hand delivery isn't 100% either.

                      If the ebook or product has to be delivered through an email attachment
                      (and yes, I have had to do this when for whatever reason DLGuard link
                      didn't work for them) sometimes they just don't get the email. As you
                      know, with all the spam filtering, email delivery is no longer a reliable
                      medium for delivering a product. In fact, it is probably less reliable than
                      DLGuard.
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                      • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                        Actually Thomas, if you want to be technical, hand delivery isn't 100% either.

                        If the ebook or product has to be delivered through an email attachment
                        (and yes, I have had to do this when for whatever reason DLGuard link
                        didn't work for them) sometimes they just don't get the email. As you
                        know, with all the spam filtering, email delivery is no longer a reliable
                        medium for delivering a product. In fact, it is probably less reliable than
                        DLGuard.
                        Dang. Looks like we are all selfish.
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                        • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                          Dang. Looks like we are all selfish.
                          I agree. Maybe we should all quit and go sell strawberries on the side of the road where hand-delivery still means something!
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                          • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                            Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

                            I agree. Maybe we should all quit and go sell strawberries on the side of the road where hand-delivery still means something!
                            The only fool proof (well, near fool proof delivery method) is to take the
                            person's name and address and send them a CD in the mail.

                            Now, do you think somebody who wants their ebook right away wants to
                            wait 3 days for it to be delivered?

                            Oh, I know...Overnight delivery.

                            Well, it's better but still not perfect. They have to wait a day.

                            But okay, if that's what my customers want, I'll do it. And I'll also do
                            what every other legit business person does when they deliver physical
                            products...charge them for shipping. So now my $27 ebook is now $37.

                            Yes, I'm sure this is what my customer wants.

                            Why is it that so many people want to nit pick about motives (selfishness
                            or whatever you want to call it) when the arguments are absurd?

                            In over 7 years of delivering digital products, I had ONE person email me
                            complaining because they thought it was going to be a REAL book
                            delivered to their house.

                            Didn't the fact that I didn't ask for their mailing address in the order form
                            give them a clue?

                            Know what, this whole discussion is becoming so ridiculous that I am
                            wondering what the point of it is anymore.
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                            • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                              Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                              Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

                              I agree. Maybe we should all quit and go sell strawberries on the side of the road where hand-delivery still means something!
                              The only fool proof (well, near fool proof delivery method) is to take the
                              person's name and address and send them a CD in the mail.

                              [...]

                              Know what, this whole discussion is becoming so ridiculous that I am
                              wondering what the point of it is anymore.
                              Oh, I wasn't addressing your comments. That was just my way of checking out of the conversation.
                              Signature

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                        • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                          Dang. Looks like we are all selfish.
                          I wouldn't say that. I'd say that most of us, at least I like to think most of
                          us, simply want the best solution for our customers so that they are happy
                          with our service and want to continue to do business with us.

                          But by all means, if you have a better solution than automated delivery
                          through DLGuard, I'm more than willing to consider it.
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                          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                            Banned
                            Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                            I wouldn't say that. I'd say that most of us, at least I like to think most of
                            us, simply want the best solution for our customers so that they are happy
                            with our service and want to continue to do business with us.

                            But by all means, if you have a better solution than automated delivery
                            through DLGuard, I'm more than willing to consider it.

                            We also have to do what is right for our company otherwise we all will be out of business and there won't be any more pdf files to protect.

                            We will alienate a certain amount of customers because you can't please everyone all the time.

                            I have protection on my software products which allows them to install a certain amount of times before they have to contact me.

                            Now, sometimes it is a pain in the butt when a computer goes down or they purchase another one.

                            But, I have yet to have anyone complain. Not only that, but a lot of customers like the idea of my protection because it also protects their investment in my programs.

                            Sometimes the automated scripts fail because of Paypal or something on your server. People contact support to get it taken care of.

                            Sometimes product fail like with CDark OP and you contact support to get help or ask for a refund.

                            No technology, that I am aware of, works 100% of the time.

                            I can't tell you how many times I downloaded a pdf file to find out it was corrupted. Should I make a post on the warrior forum complaining about it?

                            My problem with some posts is the fact that we do things in our business because it is selfish to a certain degree. No getting around that, you just don't want to see it.

                            That is because you can't please everyone and people tend to think businesses should be run their way. Just look at this thread to see what I mean.

                            If the majority of Alexa's customers had a problem with her product packaging she would be out of business.

                            Very simple....

                            No matter what you will get some people who don't like the exe, don't like the fonts used, don't like having it zipped, don't like downloading it without it being zipped, hates the idea of only being able to download it for the next 48 hours and so on...

                            For those that use automated scripts, I would like to ask if you limit the time they have to download or keep the link live?

                            It will be better for the customer to keep the link live forever so they could come back and dowload if they lost the pdf.

                            Just another example of being selfish.
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                            • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                              Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post


                              We will alienate a certain amount of customers because you can't please everyone all the time.
                              Something I can't argue with one little bit. You're right, you can't. So you
                              have to do what you think is the right thing to do for your customers, which
                              ultimately means you're doing it for you too. Because if you have happy
                              customers, then you have a better chance of keeping your business going
                              than if you have unhappy customers. I think we can agree on that much.

                              The only variable is how each person determines what is best.

                              And no, I will never tell anybody how to run their business. I was only
                              expressing my views on how I run mine and why.

                              That in no way means that my way is the only way or even the right way.

                              It is simply right for my customers which is ultimately what's right for me.
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                              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                                Banned
                                Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                                Something I can't argue with one little bit. You're right, you can't. So you
                                have to do what you think is the right thing to do for your customers, which
                                ultimately means you're doing it for you too. Because if you have happy
                                customers, then you have a better chance of keeping your business going
                                than if you have unhappy customers. I think we can agree on that much.

                                The only variable is how each person determines what is best.

                                And no, I will never tell anybody how to run their business. I was only
                                expressing my views on how I run mine and why.

                                That in no way means that my way is the only way or even the right way.

                                It is simply right for me.
                                That is what makes for a healthy discussion. We can all learn from these types of posts. Yes, even CDark if he really, really wants too.
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                                • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                                  That is what makes for a healthy discussion. We can all learn from these types of posts. Yes, even CDark if he really, really wants too.
                                  Caliban's cool. He's just very passionate about some things.

                                  Look, I can see both sides of this issue and no, it's not black and white,
                                  especially if somebody can absolutely show documented sales stats that
                                  when selling PDFs with no protection they made less money than when they
                                  sold EXE books.

                                  I mean selfish or not, ultimately we are in business to provide for our
                                  family. And if we can't do that with unprotected products, then no, it
                                  makes no sense to continue selling unprotected products. I understand
                                  that. I mean if we want to be in the charity business we might as well
                                  just give away everything.

                                  It's just that personally, I haven't seen a reason to protect my products
                                  any more than just using DLGuard.

                                  And ultimately, I don't want to start experimenting with protected ebooks
                                  and risk pissing off my customers because I have no proof that I won't.

                                  And that's the key to this whole thing for me.

                                  What I do now, works. I don't want to mess with that.

                                  But by all means, if marketers want to do split testing with delivering
                                  their products (easy enough to do) to see which sells better, they should.

                                  And THEN if they can come back here and show some stats with real
                                  differences, that would be great.

                                  Until that happens, all of this is just speculation as to what is better,
                                  for sales AND for your customers.

                                  But I can speak for myself because I know what I like.

                                  And what I like is to buy a PDF and be able to open it right up. I don't
                                  want to have to type in a password to open it...even if it's only one time.

                                  I guess, as a customer, you can call me selfish.
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                                  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                                    Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                                    Look, I can see both sides of this issue and no, it's not black and white, especially if somebody can absolutely show documented sales stats that when selling PDFs with no protection they made less money than when they sold EXE books.
                                    Trouble is, it's impossible to document that either way. It can't be about the sales - it has to be about the principle of the thing. There is simply no way to demonstrate in any rational, scientific fashion that providing a given product with or without DRM is better.
                                    Signature
                                    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                                    • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
                                      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                                      Trouble is, it's impossible to document that either way. It can't be about the sales - it has to be about the principle of the thing. There is simply no way to demonstrate in any rational, scientific fashion that providing a given product with or without DRM is better.
                                      "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." -- Albert Einstein

                                      We could probably come up with a way to disprove various statements but it would indeed be impossible to prove every case right. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that neither case is going to be ideal each and every time, for every particular business case.

                                      On a different note, it might be fun to find out the value that your customers place on DRM-free product versions. For example, if N is the base price of your standard DRM-riddled ebook, then there is some premium X that users will pay for a DRM-free version. It would be interesting to see just how high you could get X before people stopped buying the straight PDF.

                                      What would be more fun would to see if patterns emerge across different price points. If everyone who did this experiment found out that the max value of X was, say, 120% of the DRM version, we'd be on to something.
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                    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                      Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                      Yep, just like that.

                      "Advanced DRM systems enable a policy-protected document to 'phone home' to the server to authenticate the user and verify permissions each time the document is accessed."

                      Aaaaaaaand I'll let you think about that, for a while.

                      Actually, you try to pick little parts of the discussion to argue when a lot of times it has no bearing on the real discussion.
                      The "real discussion" is that I can't install a product I legitimately own because some jackhole was worried about people stealing the INSTRUCTION MANUAL and the LICENSE TERMS.

                      You say Alexa is selfish when she tries to protect her products from theft.
                      Nope. I say that anyone who decides to disable or complicate the legitimate rights of their customers in an effort to protect the products from theft is selfishly choosing their own interests over their customers' interests.

                      I don't know what Alexa does to protect her products, and she doesn't have to tell me; it's her business, not mine. But if it disables or complicates legitimate rights of her customers, yes, she's selfish.
                      Signature
                      "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                      • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                        Yep, just like that.

                        "Advanced DRM systems enable a policy-protected document to ‘phone home’ to the server to authenticate the user and verify permissions each time the document is accessed."

                        Aaaaaaaand I'll let you think about that, for a while.



                        The "real discussion" is that I can't install a product I legitimately own because some jackhole was worried about people stealing the INSTRUCTION MANUAL and the LICENSE TERMS.



                        Nope. I say that anyone who decides to disable or complicate the legitimate rights of their customers in an effort to protect the products from theft is selfishly choosing their own interests over their customers' interests.

                        I don't know what Alexa does to protect her products, and she doesn't have to tell me; it's her business, not mine. But if it disables or complicates legitimate rights of her customers, yes, she's selfish.

                        This will be my last post to you since I know you like to argue for arguments sake and it is pointless to continue.

                        Maybe you can learn something besides your obtuse way of looking at the world.

                        "Phoning" home may not be a problem for most people. Maybe if you actually sold anything outside this forum you would realize this forum isn't reality.

                        If Alexa's customers thought or had a problem with her product packaging, she would be out of business.

                        Her customers dictate what she can or can't do.

                        You and others in this thread are not her customer.

                        YOU don't know what her customers are thinking.

                        Personally, I think you like to get on a high horse about certain things that in the end show you are a hypocrit.

                        You have no problem with automate sales systems but then your customers may be put out when it fails. Of course you don't address that issue when talking about the principal of your customers and their rights.

                        Don't your customers have the right to get what they paid for after making payment?

                        I guess not...
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                        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                          Maybe if you actually sold anything outside this forum you would realize this forum isn't reality.
                          This is.



                          I have a legitimate license to this product, but I can't read the manual.

                          Because when it phones home, it doesn't find the authorisation it needs.

                          Now, explain to me why I don't have the right to read this manual.

                          Personally, I think you like to get on a high horse about certain things that in the end show you are a hypocrit.

                          You have no problem with automate sales systems but then your customers may be put out when it fails. Of course you don't address that issue when talking about the principal of your customers and their rights.
                          Thomas, there are two critical distinctions you're missing here.

                          First, you're talking about what happens with an automated sales system that fails. I'm talking about what happens with DRM that works exactly as expected.

                          Second, the reason I'm not addressing the customer's right to download products instantly is because there isn't one.

                          It's not a question of hypocrisy. Instant downloads just plain aren't anyone's legal right. They may be an industry standard, and we may be upset if we don't get them, but there's no law that says we have to get them.
                          Signature
                          "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                          • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
                            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                            This is.



                            I have a legitimate license to this product, but I can't read the manual.

                            Because when it phones home, it doesn't find the authorisation it needs.

                            Now, explain to me why I don't have the right to read this manual.
                            You DO have the right. You just aren't getting the access to exercise that right. That doesn't mean the right isn't there. You are confusing two separate issues.

                            But, don't get me wrong. I think it sucks and demonstrates one of the advantages of PDFs over EXEs. There is no reason why you should be having such an issue, but you are. Again, that doesn't mean your right is gone, it just means there's a bug in the system.

                            I have the right to bear arms, but if I can't buy a gun because the store is closed, that doesn't mean my rights have been infringed upon. Surely you can see how the two things are separate issues.

                            Did you contact customer support or request a refund yet?

                            All the best,
                            Michael
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                            "Ich bin en fuego!"
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                          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                            Banned
                            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                            This is.



                            I have a legitimate license to this product, but I can't read the manual.

                            Because when it phones home, it doesn't find the authorisation it needs.

                            Now, explain to me why I don't have the right to read this manual.



                            Thomas, there are two critical distinctions you're missing here.

                            First, you're talking about what happens with an automated sales system that fails. I'm talking about what happens with DRM that works exactly as expected.

                            Second, the reason I'm not addressing the customer's right to download products instantly is because there isn't one.

                            It's not a question of hypocrisy. Instant downloads just plain aren't anyone's legal right. They may be an industry standard, and we may be upset if we don't get them, but there's no law that says we have to get them.

                            Next time I download a pdf that ends up being corrupted I will contact the US legal system to complain about legal rights.

                            Did you contact the owner to rectify the problem? You are again being obtuse. Just because a problem occurred doesn't mean you are not going to get what you paid for.

                            I will cry to the US Congress when your download link expires before I am able to download what I purchased.

                            I know instant downloads isn't a legal right. I never stated it was a right.

                            Again obtuse...

                            I said the customers deserve their product when they purchase. If you are using a download script it will fail and they will not get what they ordered.

                            They will have to contact you just like you will have to do with the product that didn't work for you.

                            It is the same thing in principal when you were talking about inconveniencing your customers.



                            You are talking about many things in this discussion.

                            First it was about the principal of not inconveniencing your customers with DRM. When in fact you are still inconveniencing some of your own customers when your fulfillment scripts don't work.

                            Now you decided to take this to legal rights of the consumer.

                            Where would you like to go now?
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                  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    That's not a DRM solution, it's an IRM solution. Go learn the difference.



                    Nope, I just have one. I say what I think, and I back it up with facts.

                    Works every time. Of course, there are always people who want to plug up their ears and sing so they don't have to hear it, but most ignorance is willful.
                    I knew there was no way anybody could come up with a satisfactory answer. That's okay, it proves your point. I'll admit the vast majority of this topic is over my head. I am confident enough in what I know to have NO PROBLEM hinting that I may not know everything. But what I was really wondering was in reference to the other part of your post...

                    "Works every time"? I guess it depends what you're trying to do, and how you deifne "works".

                    The reason I say that is that YOUR perception is one thing, but the REALITY may surprise you. Of course, I could just as easily say that about anything I type here, too. And, again, I have no problem admitting it.

                    Perhaps the worst ignorance is ignorance of self? Maybe?

                    Anyway, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it was intended. Which is one mainly of semantics and what you mean by the phrase "works every time" and how others may be thinking of the outcome, or how they are defining "works" in reference to the same posts.

                    All the best,
                    Michael
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
        Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

        In general, Steven hit it right on the head: the people who want massive security on their own ebooks are fundamentally selfish. They want the greatest of security with their own stuff, and the greatest of freedom with other people's.

        I just want my customers to be (and stay) happy. How many people besides myself bought MRR to the Traffic Hurricane product? Every single one of those people is now selling a product to customers who can't read the installation instructions, or even their license rights. All of those people should be pissed. All of their customers should be pissed.

        Because when you sell information products to the general public, control over your ideas really means control over other people's lives.

        And honestly, has this ever been used to make other people's lives easier?

        Of course not! It always makes their lives more difficult. (Security is the reciprocal of convenience.) And how, exactly, is making my customers' lives more difficult going to make them happy?

        "Oh, thank God I have to type a password to read this ebook! After all, I wouldn't want to just be opening it whenever I wanted. I should have to prove that I really deserve to open it."

        "Wow, I'm so glad I can't print this ebook. That would waste so much ink and paper. It's protecting the planet, really, when you think about it. I should just read it on my screen."

        "It's so awesome that I can't copy text out of this ebook. Telling someone this great quote is going to be so much more satisfying when I've typed it into the chat window manually."

        That's not what they say. They say "WTF, this is a pain in the arse" and get frustrated. I don't like frustrated customers. Frustrated customers ask for refunds and do chargebacks. Happy customers send me gushy testimonials and joyful emails. I like those, and I'll take as many as I can get.

        And if it means my product ends up on a pirate site, honestly, I don't really care. Because if the only way I can stop it is by making my customers less happy, I care a lot more about those customers than I do about the pirates.
        Yep.

        It's funny that trying to protect a PDF with ANY level of security (big, small, real or imagined) was so frowned upon, but some of the same people are defending the use of EXEs, which have been shown to be buggy, untrusted and unreliable.

        What it came down to in the thread I'm referring to was convenience. But, by golly, when it's THEIR method of trying to protect their work, then the inconvenience is the fault of the end user and not the product creator (as was the case for PDF creators).

        Furthermore, when I make a PDF with a layer of minimal protection, it doesn't keep people from downloading it or reading it. But the problems with EXEs, when there are problems, tend to be much more exasperating.

        So, is it about convenience for the end user? Or is it about defending your methods, in spite of evidence that shows it could be a problem for a lot of people?

        Anyway, like I said...sometimes you just have to laugh.

        All the best,
        Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author XoOaiL
    Perfect.....................
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    The problem with some people who do nothing but argue is that they pick out the one thing they can argue about.

    They are quick to disagree.

    Slow to agree.

    And never say, "You know what? Perhaps you are right. I never thought of it that way."

    When those arguments happen, it rubs me the wrong way. I have seen that here (not surprisingly) and it really makes me wonder.

    So, to those particular people I would like to say...

    Stop taking it so personal, and...

    Just because somebody is disagreeing with one part of what you said doesn't mean they disagree with all of it, and...

    Things aren't always black and white. There's often a third, forth, fifth...viewpoint.

    Why does it bug me? Because when you dig your heels in it makes you look stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, AND it detracts from what could otherwise stay a half-way decent discussion.

    All the best,
    Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    Heck, let's just drive to all of our customer's homes and download it to their computers for them.

    Of course, we would just have them leave the door unlocked so they wouldn't have to inconvenience themselves by getting out of their chairs to answer the door when we arrive.

    Or, even better. Let's drive to their homes and read it out loud to them. That way they don't even have to move their eyeballs back and forth.

    Or maybe you care more about yourself than your customers. Hmm?

    Yes, at some point (like when you single out two specific words form a lengthy post) the arguments become quite ludicrous.

    ~Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    Or what if you had to open a folder and click on the ebook icon?

    Or what if you had to open the CD tray and push buttons to get to the right track?

    Or what if, what if, what if?
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    LOL

    HINT: You don't have to waste time asking a question if you are going to tell people how to answer.

    Sheesh!

    Get a grip.
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    • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
      Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

      LOL

      HINT: You don't have to waste time asking a question if you are going to tell people how to answer.

      Sheesh!

      Get a grip.

      I was merely illustrating that she didn't answer my question. She generalized and refuted with a rhetoric, and then called me out on not giving her credit for answering, for which she didn't.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tom B
        Banned
        Originally Posted by mr2monster View Post

        I was merely illustrating that she didn't answer my question. She generalized and refuted with a rhetoric, and then called me out on not giving her credit for answering, for which she didn't.
        Actually, your argument is unreasonable.

        It isn't hard to see that pdf files are being shared. From time to time we get a new person posting a link on this forum to share sites trying to help others.

        So it isn't unreasonable to take precautions before her stuff happens to be one.

        Your argument is like asking children to prove they have chicken pox before they can get their vaccination. :rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author lilgrace
    This is maybe the second time on the WF that I actually laughed out loud and for a long time! I LOVE the sarcasm!!! Lost it when I got to 'unused'!
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Christophe,

    Like I said, it's your business, I'm not trying to tell you how to run it. Just wanted to make sure you weren't missing that one point.

    By the way, I conducted an experiment a long time ago, providing one of my ebooks in both EXE and PDF format. The PDF gets downloaded almost exclusively. The EXE . . . crickets.
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  • Profile picture of the author rondo
    Most ebooks aren't sold as .pdfs, they are sold as .exes of some kind.
    One of the most popular ebook platforms is still Microsoft Reader

    But for some reason in the IM world we expect ebooks to be pdfs. I suspect the reason pdfs became so popular in IM is because they were easier to create and distribute.


    Andrew
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    • Profile picture of the author Robert Puddy
      Originally Posted by rondo View Post

      Most ebooks aren't sold as .pdfs, they are sold as .exes of some kind.
      One of the most popular ebook platforms is still Microsoft Reader

      But for some reason in the IM world we expect ebooks to be pdfs. I suspect the reason pdfs became so popular in IM is because they were easier to create and distribute.


      Andrew
      They became popular in the IM world because there are no restrictions on who can download and use them.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Wow... This thread just never ends.

        Anyway, I'm just thinking about the non-IM eBooks I have purchased over the years.

        I have an eBook in the legal niche which I purchased five years ago. It is a PDF.

        I have eBooks in the writing niche which are all PDFs.

        Investing: PDF.

        If I remember correctly, I think I've even purchased non-IM eBooks that were delivered as .DOC files, and these weren't eBooks meant for resale or rebranding or anything. That was years ago, and I don't have any of them on my current computer, so I can't double-check.

        As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I do have one that was an .EXE. If there had been competitor with a similar product as a PDF, I would have bought the PDF.

        I also have a baseball eBook that was an application rather than a PDF. But, it has video and audio in it, and it was from before PDFs had those capabilities. Plus, it was from back in the days before high speed Internet and it was delivered on CD. Consequently, I'm not sure that one is a fair comparison.

        Anyway, I think it's safe to say that PDFs aren't primarily limited to the IM world.
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  • Profile picture of the author kyhell
    by far the most amazing picture of Johnny Cash ever!
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    There is a resson that eBooks come in Adobe Acrobat format, and that is that it is a well known format that is not going to harm your computer. I don't want no damn executable ebook. Next thing you know if these got popular, there would be a rash of make a million overnight offers and it will be an executable eBook, cept it will not be an eBook, it will be a virus and your computer is screwed.

    I will not buy one, and if I get one, I will refund it. Not interested, don't want it.
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  • Profile picture of the author sodette1
    Wow... CD, you got it rollin' here!

    1. I buy books... like, physical books, lots of 'em. When I'm done reading them, I keep some - some I give away - some I trade at the used bookstore (GASP! I don't have a reseller's license to do that!), the used bookstore doesn't have a reseller's license to make 100% profit on those books (do they?), I've even been known to sell a few at my wife's garage sales and keep 100% of the profit and - heaven forbid - buy them at garage sales from others who also do NOT have resellers licenses! GASP AGAIN!

    If Barnes and Nobles or Amazon sold physical books with finger-print security locks on them and magical non-scannable pages - they'd be $997.00 each.

    Of course, someone would create the audio book and sell that bootleg on the black market! Sigh.

    2. Jimmy D. Brown is pretty slick - I'm not really sure how he does it, must be some NLP stuff he has in his legal disclaimers on page two of almost every single digital product he has (.pdf) that says something about "You Don't Have the Right to Give This Away" "You Don't Have the Right To Sell This" - (I actually swiped his pages, with his blessings and permission, for my e-books and lessons).

    In those disclaimers he basically says - don't - or I'll come and find you with my lawyers pen blazing. Sure, it's only a threat... but you know what? I've given two of my own clients copies of Jimmy's materials - and danged if I didn't feel bad about it at the time and recall it again reading this thread. Think I'll send him some money - hell, I owe him some commissions for referring me clients anyway... I'll add it to the transfer.

    3. It was mentioned a few times about protecting your "Intellectual Capital" here.. .pdf or .exe - is not relevant in that argument. Your IC is protected the moment you put your product in any deliverable form - it's protected by copyright automatically. You don't even have to mail a copy to yourself in an unopenned envelope anymore! LOL

    The issue here is about protecting your profits, right?

    With that in mind - here are a few things to ponder:

    a. Are the people passing your material around BUYERS or people who would not buy your material secured, unsecured, .pdf or .exe? In other words, are these SALES missed?

    b. Take away all of the cheats and swipes - how many sales did you make? Add all of the cheats and swipes, how many sales did you make? My guess - about the same.

    c. What if you happened upon a swipe site, of course none of you would ever be seen there on purpose... but just, what if... and what if you saw a product that was at the top of the swipes and that had been downloaded 500 times and people on that bad, bad place were all saying "Holy crap - this guy Schminkle VanWinkle's membership (.pdf/.exe-cracked) is UNBELIEVABLE! Finally... a guy that tells the truth and can help you!...

    Would you download it?

    Better question - what would happen the next time you saw Schminkle's name on a legitimate site? This guy you did not know before his "Fame" on the swipe site?

    I'm ranting... and my overall position is simple: Protect your materials as best you can, tell your customers what they are getting before they buy, make sure your customer is well taken care of and you profit from helping them.

    Rinse. Repeat.

    When you get filthy stinkin' rich - buy security that the CIA can't crack with your millions.

    If Apple or Microsoft and Uncle Sam have their way - eventually, you will have to embed GPS in each e-book with audio and video capabilities - then you'll be able to track every single copy down and make sure the reader is a legitimate buyer.

    I guess I'll have to stop buying, trading, and selling my used physical books at that time too - who knows, I might be the guy in jail next to Bubba when he asks me "What are you in for?" who humbly replies "I passed a used book that I really liked to a friend and didn't pay the author and publisher for it..."

    *Sigh again...*
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
    I thought the OP was real funny. With Johnny Cash in there. Woo boy!
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  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
    @CD, are you pulling that from the same WIKI or a different source?

    I've already demonstrated in the post above that while you can
    quote without the caveats to make a point, there's plenty of data
    there to show that clearly it is not legal to distribute a COPY of
    somebody elses intellectual property, as one would expect.

    Huge DRM solutions would all be breaking the law and would last
    about 2 minutes before being shut down if your assessment held
    real water.

    I don't have further time to go through the data, but I can clearly
    see that while something can be taken out of context to prove
    a point, when you read more carefully and look at the mitigation
    , caveats, exceptions etc, the data is as clear as it can be in
    an area with various black holes.

    You might also like to read this:
    Clickwrap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Which is linked to from the primary wiki and basically states that
    if you accept the T&C of the vendor then you don't have a leg
    to stand on and it's upheld when challenged in law.

    That a simple "you can't distribute our resell our content" message
    can negate entirely the primary tenet of "first sale" pretty much
    suggests it's applicable only in very specific circumstances.

    If DRM companies were all flouting US law, and were based in
    the US, how long do you think they would last.

    There's a major DRM solution out there now which has the US
    Gov, military and academia as customers, does it seem likely
    that they are in direct contravention of US law ?

    You may feel it's your right to be allowed to distribute other people's
    property at will, but ultimately it's not, and for somebody
    spending a lot of time on morals, and people's rights
    you seem rather quick to trample on the rights of the
    people who wish to protect their product from the
    distribution you believe is entirely legal.

    I'll have to call it a day now, you're cherry picking information
    from that wiki to suit your purposes and it doesn't hold water
    under scrutiny.
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  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
    @Michael

    This is why I stipulated to CD:

    If so , please yank out the pertinent section from the source, that you feel
    substantiates that claim and please do it without removing the relevent
    caveats also specified in the wiki.
    I knew of course it would be ignored when suited.

    Good catch Michael, If you have the time and inclination have fun, me I'm hopping
    the unsubscribe bus to productivity.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    People stealing from you DOES NOT SUBTRACT from your bottom line.
    I think piracy is a huge problem for sellers of info products and I think that sellers should consider it without being branded as selfish for wanting to protect their intellectual property. It isn't really the pirates that are "sharing" it on BH sites that piss me off ... I get more pissed about the pirates setting up membership sites and selling everyone's products for the price of their membership fee and believe me, most of the WSO here can be found there, and if you think that doesn't affect your bottom line, think again.

    But ... having bought an exe ebook and found it to be so user-hostile that I never even read it, I have to say that the solution that I would use has not yet been invented. I'm not going to put my customers through the level of frustration that I went through trying to access that exe ebook. That would be worse for my business than the pirates.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord
    The key word being dispose.

    Nobody gives a damn if their customers are inconvenienced, so I moved on to the point that they're infringing on their customers' legal rights.
    That is simply a false statement., and you know it. You will NEVER admit it, but you know it.

    Don't worry, we get it.

    You have a driving need to argue, even when somebody agrees with your main point, you latch on to the tiniest bit that you disagree with.

    Can you look back over your posts and see anywhere where you may have been a little off in what you said? Or that you may have learned something? Or considered another point of view as being possibly correct?

    Okay, the two words you want to hear..."YOU WIN".

    (Not really, but I know you live to hear those words, so I figured I cheer you up. You need it.)

    ~M~
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    • Profile picture of the author AllAboutAction
      FACT: There does not exist any DRM solution that materially affects piracy efforts without also preventing activity that legitimate customers are entirely within their rights to perform.
      You guys are really something. You call CDarklock out on his statement above then, when he provides sources to back up his statement, you complain that he's being argumentative and nitpicky. In fact he's provided very good evidence that the statement above is true. But it seems that you just want to pile on and try to shout over the top of him to prove him wrong.

      Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

      OOH! Let me play, too! It's easy to highlight the small parts of something that SEEM to support a position, no matter how wrong it is.
      How ironic this statement is given your next statement:

      Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

      "...the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord."

      * Buying a copy of a book does not mean the author has given you this authorization.
      No, but it does make you "the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title" and gives you all of the rights mentioned.

      Originally Posted by SimonHarrison View Post

      Which is linked to from the primary wiki and basically states that
      if you accept the T&C of the vendor then you don't have a leg
      to stand on and it's upheld when challenged in law.
      The very same article (on Clickwrap) you quoted states:

      It should be noted however that even though courts have ruled some clickwrap licenses to be enforceable contracts, it does not follow that every term of every clickwrap license is enforceable. Clickwrap licenses must still meet the criteria for enforceability of a unilateral form contract.
      And the article CDarklock linked says

      Federal district courts in California and Texas have issued decisions applying the doctrine of first sale for bundled computer software in Softman v. Adobe (2001) and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. (2000) even if the software contains an EULA prohibiting resale.
      Then there are these kind of responses

      Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

      This will be my last post to you since I know you like to argue for arguments sake and it is pointless to continue.

      Maybe you can learn something besides your obtuse way of looking at the world.

      "Phoning" home may not be a problem for most people. Maybe if you actually sold anything outside this forum you would realize this forum isn't reality.

      [..]

      Personally, I think you like to get on a high horse about certain things that in the end show you are a hypocrit.
      I don't think that's deserved.

      You guys claim he's argumentative, but he's the one providing (useful) facts to back up his claims. You claim he doesn't listen to reason but yet you seem to be the ones holding onto a position and not letting facts get in the way of your opinions.

      Too bad too. This was a good thread with a lot of useful points and counterpoints.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tom B
        Banned
        Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post


        I don't think that's deserved.

        You guys claim he's argumentative, but he's the one providing (useful) facts to back up his claims. You claim he doesn't listen to reason but yet you seem to be the ones holding onto a position and not letting facts get in the way of your opinions.

        Too bad too. This was a good thread with a lot of useful points and counterpoints.

        When you tell others they are selfish because they are inconveniencing their customers because of a certain technology are hypocritical when they use other technology that DOES inconvenience some of their customers.

        CDark has his facts and I have my own.

        Sorry to get your panties in a twist.

        I prefer to take legal advice from competent people instead of people on a forum. AS far as I know CDark is not an attorney who specializes in this field of law.
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        • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
          Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

          When you tell others they are selfish because they are inconveniencing their customers because of a certain technology are hypocritical when they use other technology that DOES inconvenience some of their customers.
          Thomas, this argument is simply batsh!t insane.

          DRM inconveniences all of your customers on purpose.

          A broken sales system inconveniences some of your customers accidentally.

          See how that isn't the same thing?

          Furthermore, the extent of that inconvenience is not having the sales system. If that inconvenience isn't acceptable, then you have to have an automated sales system, no matter how often it breaks.

          CDark has his facts and I have my own.
          Funny thing about facts: if they are, indeed, facts... anything that contradicts them is wrong.

          AS far as I know CDark is not an attorney who specializes in this field of law.
          Nope. Software developer. Twenty years. The last six at Microsoft.

          Hmm. What technology has Microsoft been adding to their products since 2003? Starts with a "D."
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          • Profile picture of the author Tom B
            Banned
            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

            Thomas, this argument is simply batsh!t insane.
            I feel the same (I see others may feel the same way) about some of your arguments.


            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


            DRM inconveniences all of your customers on purpose.

            Not at all. They are intended to restrict access to people who are not suppose to have access.

            All my customers have to do is type in their email address to register their copy.

            How is that an inconvenience?

            Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


            A broken sales system inconveniences some of your customers accidentally.

            See how that isn't the same thing?
            You said it is inconvenient for your customers and based on principal people shouldn't use DRM.

            If it is based on what is best for your customers then an automated sales system will not work as well as time constraints on their download links.

            You will still inconvenience some customers because your sales system will never work 100% of the time.

            Is your downloads restricted based on a time period or do you keep all download links up at all times for all customers?

            So I do say if you want to jump on principal then don't leave it at DRM.


            Furthermore, the extent of that inconvenience is not having the sales system. If that inconvenience isn't acceptable, then you have to have an automated sales system, no matter how often it breaks.

            Funny thing about facts: if they are, indeed, facts... anything that contradicts them is wrong.
            Your opinion isn't fact even though you sometimes try to make them.

            DRM isn't about inconveniencing people. Just because you say so does not make it fact.


            Nope. Software developer. Twenty years. The last six at Microsoft.

            Hmm. What technology has Microsoft been adding to their products since 2003? Starts with a "D."
            You may want to work on your law degree before trying to tell people about the law.

            I have been a software developer and manager for over 17 or so years and worked all over the world for governments and large insurance companies.

            So what?

            All you and I are doing now is going in circles and frankly I have better things to do with my time.

            I am bored saying the same thing only to listen to you saying the same thing.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
              Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

              Not at all. They are intended to restrict access to people who are not suppose to have access.
              What they intend to do and what they do are often two different things.

              For example, I own a name brand software product. I purchased it legally. I purchased it, if I recall, direct from the company.

              The software activates or deactivates remotely to make sure I am in compliance. Normally, it's not a big issue. If I want to move to another computer, such as a new computer, I uninstall on the old, releasing the license, and install on the new.

              Here's the problem. The first hard drive I installed it on crashed. There is no way to uninstall. The hard drive is dead, defunct, pushing daisies. The hard drive is no more. However, that ties up the license.

              Which means I have to call essentially for authorization to do what I am in my full rights to do.

              I'm sure you might say that it's a rare happening, but it is, nonetheless, a major inconvenience. Not only do you have the hassle of dealing with a crashed hard drive, but the additional hassle of waiting on hold for customer support, then talking to someone who either doesn't believe you or doesn't understand that you cannot uninstall your license on a hard drive that is unusable, all in order to do something that you have full legal and moral rights to do in the first place.

              And all this is for a system which provides me with no benefit.

              And don't say that the benefit is that it keeps the price down by reducing piracy because these programs, even with their authentication systems, are relatively quickly hacked/cracked and distributed online through illegal file sharing sites. So, while the people that actually steal the software don't have to put up with this hassle, I, the paying customer, the one that doesn't download illegal software from file sharing sites, the one that obtains software legally, am forced to put up with this additional hassle and inconvenience.

              Why? Why? WHY?
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              • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                What they intend to do and what they do are often two different things.

                .
                .
                .

                Why? Why? WHY?
                Dan....THANK YOU. You said, what I was trying to say, so much better
                than I could have ever said it.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

                  Dan....THANK YOU. You said, what I was trying to say, so much better
                  than I could have ever said it.
                  Thanks.

                  But really it's only because I threw in a Monty Python reference. Without that, my post probably borders on average.
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              • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
                Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                Here's the problem. The first hard drive I installed it on crashed. There is no way to uninstall. The hard drive is dead, defunct, pushing daisies. The hard drive is no more.
                Somewhere, John Cleese would be proud.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

                  Somewhere, John Cleese would be proud.
                  And here I thought CD would be the first to spot the reference.
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

                What they intend to do and what they do are often two different things.

                For example, I own a name brand software product. I purchased it legally. I purchased it, if I recall, direct from the company.

                The software activates or deactivates remotely to make sure I am in compliance. Normally, it's not a big issue. If I want to move to another computer, such as a new computer, I uninstall on the old, releasing the license, and install on the new.

                Here's the problem. The first hard drive I installed it on crashed. There is no way to uninstall. The hard drive is dead, defunct, pushing daisies. The hard drive is no more. However, that ties up the license.

                Which means I have to call essentially for authorization to do what I am in my full rights to do.

                I'm sure you might say that it's a rare happening, but it is, nonetheless, a major inconvenience. Not only do you have the hassle of dealing with a crashed hard drive, but the additional hassle of waiting on hold for customer support, then talking to someone who either doesn't believe you or doesn't understand that you cannot uninstall your license on a hard drive that is unusable, all in order to do something that you have full legal and moral rights to do in the first place.

                And all this is for a system which provides me with no benefit.

                And don't say that the benefit is that it keeps the price down by reducing piracy because these programs, even with their authentication systems, are relatively quickly hacked/cracked and distributed online through illegal file sharing sites. So, while the people that actually steal the software don't have to put up with this hassle, I, the paying customer, the one that doesn't download illegal software from file sharing sites, the one that obtains software legally, am forced to put up with this additional hassle and inconvenience.

                Why? Why? WHY?
                Poor Dan.

                Actually, people that steal software have a lot of hassle when trying to keep up with updates and getting viruses from hackers.

                Basically, it seems your saying not to include any type of DRM on any software. Can you imagine the sharing then? Why purchase anything when I can get it from my neighbor.

                Don't tell me it is already being done because a lot of people do no hit the cracked versions because they are a bigger hassle then you can imagine and can be loaded with viruses.

                But installing the original cd without any type of measures will be a lot easier.

                When businesses fail because they don't make the sales or enhancements stop or support closes down you will start complaining that you didn't get your money worth.

                Don't buy any software if this is a huge inconvenience. Obviously for a lot of people it isn't a big enough hassle or no hassle at all.

                Heck, I hate having to take off my shoes in order to board a flight but I still fly when I have to get somewhere fast.

                Just because it is an inconvenience for you doesn't mean it is for everyone. Otherwise the companies wouldn't be able to do this stuff.

                I just see people bitching a lot about things that really don't matter. I hate videos with no buttons. I hate passwords. I hate pop ups, I hate pop tarts, I hate gonorrhea.

                The one thing I do know. I can come to this forum and see what people are bitching about and will be almost sure it will increase my bottom line if I incorporate it into my business.

                The things most people complain are the things that makes me more money.
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                • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  Poor Dan.

                  Actually, people that steal software have a lot of hassle when trying to keep up with updates and getting viruses from hackers.

                  Basically, it seems your saying not to include any type of DRM on any software. Can you imagine the sharing then? Why purchase anything when I can get it from my neighbor.
                  I expect to have to register and to have software protection incorporated into the software I buy. I've had computer crashes and it was a simple matter of making a phone call to the company and explaining the situation and getting a fresh license for my new computer. Had a pleasant enough chat to boot.

                  I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It seems to me that business minded people would want to protect their business. I've already stated somewhere in here that I'm not going to make my customers jump through massive hoops to get a $13 ebook, but software is a whole different matter. If and when a piece of software is developed that provides ebook protection without the type of hassle I went through to try to read an exe ebook that I bought, then I'll buy that too.

                  I'm in the process of going to a lot of hassle and expense to have software developed for me right now and you betcha I'm going to protect it when it's complete. Just plain stupid not to, IMO.

                  Maybe it'll be cracked anyway, but that's what DMCAs are for.
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                • Profile picture of the author The_Archer
                  If e-book security is an issue for you, check out CB-Protect's Virtual Vault. I've used it in the past and it's outstanding. Yes it will allow you to convert your e-book in EXE format but it also protects it as a PDF if you don't want to use EXE. Always worked fine for me, I just went out of the e-book biz but I do recommend that service. Here are a few perks:

                  -Seal in Virtual Vault
                  -Customers will need to enter an email in order to get a product key
                  -Copy/paste/browser save blockage
                  -Set an expiry date (if you want)
                  -Offer a free trial
                  -Block a certain registration key to access the content
                  -Create registration keys to give to your friends (IE: Warriors)

                  It may a be a steep investment @ $29.99 per month but you can get a free 30 day trial. Support is also responsive.

                  I'm not an affiliate nor am I paid to post on their behalf, just thought it would be good to tell those who are looking for e-book security.
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                • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  I just see people bitching a lot about things that really don't matter. I hate videos with no buttons.

                  <snip>

                  I hate gonorrhea.
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                  Bare Murkage.........

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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

                    One shot of penicillin will knock that stuff out. At least that is what I heard.

                    How did I know you would be the only one to actually read my post. hehe
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                • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  Actually, people that steal software have a lot of hassle when trying to keep up with updates and getting viruses from hackers.
                  Thus an added incentive for them to purchase the software, no?

                  Basically, it seems your saying not to include any type of DRM on any software. Can you imagine the sharing then? Why purchase anything when I can get it from my neighbor.
                  I've purchased software since before they had the DRM they have now. As to why purchase, see your first point about viruses...

                  Heck, I hate having to take off my shoes in order to board a flight but I still fly when I have to get somewhere fast.
                  And do those measures actually improve safety or merely the illusion of safety?

                  Just because it is an inconvenience for you doesn't mean it is for everyone. Otherwise the companies wouldn't be able to do this stuff.
                  Perhaps people put up with it simply because the alternatives suck and not because they are happy little campers that don't mind the inconveniences.

                  I just see people bitching a lot about things that really don't matter. I hate videos with no buttons. I hate passwords. I hate pop ups, I hate pop tarts, I hate gonorrhea.

                  The one thing I do know. I can come to this forum and see what people are bitching about and will be almost sure it will increase my bottom line if I incorporate it into my business.

                  The things most people complain are the things that makes me more money.
                  Best of luck to you in your gonorrhea business.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post


                    Best of luck to you in your gonorrhea business.
                    Thanks Dan. It is a great niche of desperate buyers.
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            • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
              Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

              Not at all. They are intended to restrict access to people who are not suppose to have access.
              How is a restriction not an inconvenience?

              an automated sales system will not work as well as time constraints on their download links.
              How exactly are you proposing to put time constraints on download links without an automated system? Surely, something has to turn it off.

              DRM isn't about inconveniencing people. Just because you say so does not make it fact.
              DRM doesn't exist to GIVE people access. You don't need DRM to GIVE people access. DRM exists for the pure and explicit purpose of DENYING people access. That's all it does. It denies access to anyone and everyone that can't prove they have the right to access it.

              So yes, it is about inconveniencing people. It is exclusively about inconveniencing people. That is all it does.

              You may want to work on your law degree before trying to tell people about the law.
              You may want to design and build at least one working DRM system before trying to tell people about DRM.
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              • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                Banned
                Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post


                You may want to design and build at least one working DRM system before trying to tell people about DRM.

                I have it incorporated into my software products which has been already stated. So much for reading comprehension.

                If I purchased a product from you will the link I go to download be available to me for a week, two weeks, month, year or more?

                As to the rest of your post... it says the same thing you have been saying in this thread. Nothing new to comment on.
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                • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
                  Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

                  I have it incorporated into my software products which has been already stated. So much for reading comprehension.
                  I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear the words "designed and built" in there. I seem to hear a weasel, though.

                  If I purchased a product from you will the link I go to download be available to me for a week, two weeks, month, year or more?
                  It will be available well in excess of what your legal rights guarantee.
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                  "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear the words "designed and built" in there. I seem to hear a weasel, though.

                    Yes, design and built by me.

                    Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

                    It will be available well in excess of what your legal rights guarantee.
                    Dancing around a question makes YOU sound like a weasel.
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
        Originally Posted by AllAboutAction View Post

        How ironic this statement is given your next statement:
        Hi AAA,

        It was wasn't ironic, it was intentional.

        By doing the exact same thing, I was trying to point out how foolish the practice itself is.

        Sometimes it's easier to demonstrate things than to explain them.

        However, I have freely admitted, several times, that I may not be right, that I could be mistaken, and that I don't completely understand the technicalities of security. In other words, I am trying to remain open-minded, have AGREED with C on several points, and am not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

        So, maybe it was ironic in a way, but that was WHY I did it.

        All the best,
        Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    In the end.. protection like this (if it works) may slow or stop SOME people, but eventually people will get through it. For example, as soon as I heard of Angela's "protection system", right away something pop'd in my head as a work around, and no I didn't tell anyone or use it.

    Spend the time and money on bettering your product, don't waste it on trying to protect it. People will rip it one way or another, and these people would never buy it anyways.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Steven, the simple solution to your hypothetical problem is to do what I do. Whenever I buy anything that needs a registration code or other information I may need at a later date, I print out a copy of that information and file it away. I can find any information for any product I own in 5 seconds.

    Now, I know not everyone does that, but since you're offering the consumer's point of view of a problem, I'm offering a consumer's point of view solution to the problem. After all, once a sale is completed and you have been given everything you paid for, it is your responsibility to protect your investment.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

      Can't it be both?
      Probably but that would be even more painful.

      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      Whenever I buy anything that needs a registration code or other information I may need at a later date, I print out a copy of that information and file it away.
      In the case of password-protected PDFs and software, you could also rename the file with the password. That way, you always have the password handy.
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      • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        In the case of password-protected PDFs and software, you could also rename the file with the password. That way, you always have the password handy.
        Yeah, most file traders will do that before distributing, too - pretty standard. "My Name Is My Password" and all that.
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  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    I must say...

    This has been a fascinating debate.

    Thank you all for contributing, it's great to see so many differing opinions. Expressed in a mature way by the majority.

    I'd love to get deeper into this, but time is limited

    Peace

    Jay
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    Bare Murkage.........

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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Stirling
    haha.. that's awesome!

    plus you've got a piece of useless software clogging your PC now that
    you can uninstall!! I'm jealous.
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  • Profile picture of the author sharp
    That was awesome.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Antoni
    When it comes to ebooks the experience I've had is just to keep it as simple as possible. We had support requests from people who couldn't even download a pdf, so I imagine downloading an exe and installing it would be even harder.

    That program was in the internet marketing niche and I would guess it does depend on the niche.

    Plus, I agree with a previous poster that if people work that hard to download your ebook for free let em have it. This becomes even better if you setup your ebooks to lead to higher priced products.

    I actually had a customer who bought one of my ebooks, refunded it (I saw it refunded in clickbank) then a few weeks later signed up for a $3,000 program I was running which paid me $1,000. The ebook he refunded was selling the $3k program.

    I talked to him on the phone and never mentioned the $47 refund.

    And in regards to the "unused" ebooks comment, here's a sad story. I used to create dynamic ebooks that contained affiliate links based on who was promoting the ebook. It also put in the buyers info which was cool.

    Anyway, the software that made these dynamic ebooks went down for 2 days. During that time we sold about 50 ebooks. No one said anything. Finally, 1 person submitted a ticket that they couldn't download their ebook.

    That's how we found the error. Kinda sad, huh?
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    You know, this reminds me of when I was on the EU ProtoDoc team at Microsoft.

    We would all sit around discussing what the extent of the required documentation was, and the argument looked a lot like this. There were a lot of people talking about speculative decreases in bottom lines and projected losses to business if we delivered these or those details about this or that process, and then there were a couple of us saying "it does not matter what the business impact is - the ruling is very clear about what we need to deliver, and we must deliver it."

    Ultimately, we lost that particular argument, so the documentation delivered to the commission didn't meet the standards. I left that part of the company (a smoker again, after six cigarette-free years - thanks, guys, really appreciated that) to go work on fresh sexy new cloud stuff in the mobile division, and a couple weeks later a 900 million Euro fine was slapped on Microsoft for failure to comply.

    See, European courts don't work like American courts, where you can stick your thumb up your butt and act like you didn't know any better while they continue your case time after time. They don't play those games on the other side of the Atlantic. They say "do this," and if you don't, you suffer the consequences.

    So I'm going to go work on a fresh sexy new product, and the rest of you may feel free to sit in here justifying your decision to abuse your customers in the name of "crap we made up that scares us." I wash my hands of it. You know where I stand, and deep down, you already know I'm right.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom B
      Banned
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      So I'm going to go work on a fresh sexy new product, and the rest of you may feel free to sit in here justifying your decision to abuse your customers in the name of "crap we made up that scares us." I wash my hands of it. You know where I stand, and deep down, you already know I'm right.
      Must be tough always being right.

      Maybe one day we can all be like you and the world will truly be a good place.

      Of course that could never happen because we all would always be right in everything we say.
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      • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
        Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

        Must be tough always being right.
        Dude, tell me about it. But you know what the hardest part is? Just getting people admit it so we can all move on.

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        • Profile picture of the author Tom B
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

          Dude, tell me about it. But you know what the hardest part is? Just getting people admit it so we can all move on.


          hehe I hear ya.

          Sometimes people like me are a little too difficult.
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  • Profile picture of the author daviddeschaine
    Do you give away an ebook on your optin page?
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    Thanks,
    David

    Contractor OS

    "Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning".
    -Benjamin Franklin-
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