Copy Prevention - Commonly Asked Questions
As the pioneer and the leading developer of copy protection solutions for the
Internet, the following questions and answers are provided as authoritative advice from those who have made it happen when and
where others claimed it to be impossible:
Can web pages be protected from search and grabbers?
Yes. By detecting the visitor making the page request, it is
possible to redirect them to another page or prevent the page
from displaying its contents. If you use
web page encryption,
unless the visitor passes your scrutiny, they will never be able
to access the page's content. However, this will not be possible
if the encryption and
detection relies on JavaScript, which is too easily decoded. The
encryption and detection routines should be server side to
protect the resource and the encryption technique. Naturally,
once downloaded to the visitor's web browser, the page and its
contents will no longer be protected unless you employ some form
of copy protection.
Can images and movies be protected from search and grabbers?
Yes. Any file on the Internet or your website can only be
accessed if the visitor or search engine has a link to it. How
they usually get a link to it is by following links from page to
page and accessing links to other pages and your files. If the
link is published on a web page or sent by email, then the file
will be accessible from the Internet. By using
web page encryption and
unauthorized access detection, the page can be prevented from
displaying its contents. By using
link protection, you can prevent direct access to files using
links that are not found within your own website.
Can documents be protected from search engines and grabbers?
Yes. Again, the solution is to use
link protection or web page
encryption, which can detect the visitor that is requesting the page
or link and can prevent access to the content if found to be unauthorized.
Whichever solution you do use must have the capacity to function,
if and when JavaScript is disabled.
Can web pages be copy protected while
displayed in a web browser?
Yes. While the makers of web browsers make it increasingly
easier to copy and save web pages and their content, there are
many protective measures that can
be employed.
Can web page source code be
protected from plagiarism?
Yes. However, it is usually JavaScript that users want to protect
as it is really the only code that is provided and accessible
client-side. The HTML itself will be of no consequence, so
it will not be worth protecting. JavaScript can use encoding functions to obscure and even encrypt its source code but since everything originates client-side, such protection can easily be compromised and disregarded by anyone who really wants to copy.
Can files distributed by
CD/DVD be protected from copying?
Yes. They can be protected from saving and copy by almost all copying techniques up to—and including
-- taking screenshots. However, to prevent the duplication of the file itself, it will require a more sophisticated protection than what is possible from within the file. At best, files that are freely distributed and can be opened and viewed from any computer regardless of whether they are connected to the internet or not (for local viewing), will only be able to prevent the extraction of their contents and copying by Print Screen and screen capture. Unfortunately, the file can still be forwarded to others (redistributed).
Can files distributed
by CD/DVD be protected from redistribution?
Yes. There are some CD protection solutions that provide a layer
of security in the format of the disk itself, whether it is on
CD, DVD or USB drive. The more secure of these solutions provide
specially prepared media (disks) and special software for disk
production. The method employed by these solutions obscures the
content by storing key information in segments on the disk that
are not usually interpreted by disk copying software. When
techniques like these are used for popular media such as music or
movie files, then software will surely be published to get
around even this most clever protection technique. Using a low
profile solution may survive longer.
But as usual, once a file on a protected disk has been opened in
its viewing application or native program, then its contents can
still be used without permission, unless copy protection is employed for the file
itself.
Also, once the file is opened, it may be possible to copy the
file to another location (off the protected disk) for
redistribution by sending onward to other people. The only way
to prevent redistribution of files in this sense is to use a DRM
(digital
rights management) solution. When this happens, even if they can get a
copy of the file, sending it otheirs will be futile because the next
person will not be able to access it.
Summation
Copy protection, like any form of security or measure taken to
prevent theft or unauthorized use, can never be 100% secure.
Some may say, "In that case, why bother?" and others hope that
nothing was in their way to do whatever they want with the
intellectual property of others and your livelihood.
But why make is it easy for them.?There is a lot that we can do
and most security measures that we can employ on the Internet
will protect your property from most Internet users (+92%). Very
few, even those who may have the skills and know how, will want
to go to great lengths to get around your security and if done
carefully, your security measures can be so difficult to get
around that the effort required will not be profitable for them
and they will lose interest.
For the best and most secure of the possible solutions that we
have discussed here, you only need to look in the right hand
menu of this web page.
Return to top |
|
 |
|
