When it comes to copy protecting online media such as images, PDF and video, most find copy protection software for those particular media that require encryption of the media before upload and display on the website. Being the provider of the most secure and robust of those media protection solutions, we get a lot of enquiries and nearly always recommend our other solution that is designed to cater for all media without requiring the extra handling of encryption prior to upload.
Usually the copy protection of images or the copy protection of PDF or video requires that the files be encrypted by proprietary software (for each media) and then uploaded to the website. However to display encrypted files on a web page requires that the media be displayed using embedded code (HTML) and the user's web browser also needs to be able to support browser plugins to decrypt the media and action copy protection where required.
Most site owners today use a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress or Moodle which are designed to create web pages from their online editor page. Consequently they are excellent for creating web pages that use raw (normal) media, and the code that they embed on web pages is limited accordingly. So adding custom HTML to web pages managed by a CMS is most difficult.
However site owners can use of the many plugins available for their CMS that upload and display all popular file types... no special treatment of the media, including images, PDF and video, is required.
But the ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS) will copy protect all media on a web page and that media can be displayed as normal without requiring encryption, and web pages can be edited as per usual.
The CopySafe solutions, CopySafe PDF, CopySafe Video and CopySafe Web, each use encrypted media that requires custom HTML to embed them onto web pages. CMS are limited in that the only way one can add custom HTML to a web page is by way of a CMS plugin that adds "shortcode" to the page instead of the required HTML. That shortcode is converted dynamically (on the fly) as the page loads in the user's web browser.
The good news is that plugins are available for all CopySafe solutions for use in all of the popular CMS such as WordPress, Moodle, Drupal, Joomla and DNN.
The better news is that when using the ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS), you don't need those plugins and can simply use whichever media plugins are already shipped with your CMS.
When using a CMS adding copy protection is very simple as the pages themselves need no modification whatsoever. By using the ASPS Tag Management plugin you simply nominate the url to be protected, or nominate a keyword that can be found in the url, such as "lesson, course, etc".
If using a non-CMS website, web page can be copy protected by adding a couple of lines of HTML, which can be very much simplified when using templates. To limit and control which pages are copy protected (leaving doorway pages accessible) the ASPS tags can be added conditionally., ie: if "lesson" is found in its page request then do the deed.
To use CopySafe solutions on hard coded (static) pages or custom coded dynamic pages delivered via templates, you can simply add the HTML for the embed tags, examples of which are provided with the software and well documented in their user-guides. The same applies to tagging non-CMS web pages for ASPS copy protection.... just add meta-tags to the head of the web page's HTML.
To use CopySafe solutions you need
CopySafe PDF
Protection to copy protect PDF,
CopySafe Video Protection to copy protect video, and
CopySafe Web Protection to copy protect images and any web page to which you can apply a small CopySafe image. A separate program is required for each different type of media because static images, interactive PDF and motion video are completely different, and different browser plugins are required. Also, CopySafe solutions are only supported across Windows computers (all versions including XP).
However the ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS) copy protects all data and media on the web page and is not limited to Windows with support for all OS and other devices coming soon.
Because CopySafe does require encryption of the media it is protecting, the media files themselves are more secure and can be used on both the desktop and offline. With DRM applied for distribution for desktop reading, they are more portable while being most secure. In fact CopySafe solutions are the only copy protection software that can be used both on the desktop and online while safe from absolutely all methods of copy.
For desktop reading CopySafe is the solution to use where livelihoods are at stake because its copy protection and prevention of sharing and unauthorized distribution are incomparable.
A frequently asked questions is "does the user need to download a special viewer/reader?" to which the answer is yes. Because by using a proprietary reader or plugin can the encrypted media be decrypted securely and displayed securely.
Another frequently asked questions is "can my users see the protected content online while using their default web browser?" and the answer to that is emphatically no. Today's popular web browsers can never be considered a secure viewing environment for copy protected content because not only are they designed at cross purpose, but they have dropped support for browser plugins that can interact at system level which is where copy protection needs to be actioned. So to view copy protected web content, the ArtisBrowser is required, and being a web browser properly designed to protect data and online media, now copy protected web content can be very much more secure.
The CopySafe solutions can be used on any web page hosted anywhere, even from mini web servers distributed on disk. But the ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS) requires a dedicated or virtual server, mainly for the permission to install the ASPS module at system level on the server.
ASPS can be installed on all types of web servers including Windows and Linux and webhosting for "virtual servers" on Linux is now most economical with some packages for "managed virtuals" offered for US$10/month and less. For anyone daunted by managing a web server, the "managed server" is the way to go where everyone can be installed and configured for you, and easily managed from a Control Panel. Otherwise, on Linux servers, we recommend using a "barebones" virtual without a Control Panel and installing Webmin with more management tools that don't mess with core systems.
ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS) is most recommended for copy protecting online content as it will soon be supported across all OS and it can be used for all types of websites. Any type of media can be embedded, even media sourced from third party services such as CDN and video services like Vimeo.
ASPS creates a secure tunnel between your website and the user's browser in which nothing can be copied or extracted, not even from browser cache or memory.
Author: William Kent
Date: 6th January 2021
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