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Copy Protecting Web Pages : ASPS Web Page Protection

This article specifically applies to copy protecting PDF displayed on web pages protected by the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) (or service using ASPS) - here we are using normal PDF that is not encrypted like with Copysafe PDF Protection because there is no need to protect the file itself (page is already encrypted). However copy protection does get applied while the page is on display.

📖 How ASPS Protection Works

ASPS runs as a server side filter that encrypts web pages prior to delivery to the web browser. When an ASPS web page is displayed in a secure web browser like ArtisBrowser, nothing can be saved, copied, printed or otherwise extracted from the page. It is essentially a READ ONLY experience. The level of security and copy protection provided by ASPS and the ArtisBrowser has no comparison. In fact there is no alternative solution to compare with. In effect a secure tunnel is created between the website and the user's desktop in which nothing can be copied or extracted by any digital means. The only copy that can ever be made is by standing back with a camera to take a photo of the computer's monitor - and if you have ever tried that, you will know how poor the quality can be.

📖 File vs Image Protection

The two (2) sufaces to protect are the web page (file), and its contents (text, images and media) of the page while on display.

  • Page Protection - the web page cannot be saved. Even view source is impossible. Even web scrapers and packet sniffers, if ever they can get the HTML, will find it encrypted and useless.
  • Image Protection - is prevention of copy of the contents of the page while it is on display. Nothing can be saved, printed or copied even by PrintScreen or screen capture.

Page Protection

ASPS uses military grade encryption especially designed not to increase file size or download time. In fact impact studies under huge loads show no significant increase in server resource consumption when delivering ASPS web pages.

However there may be a slight delay in page rendering because while nornal web pages can start displaying text and images as they are downloaded, ASPS web page HTML needs to be decrypted in entirety before media is downloaded. However the caching of scripts, CSS and other theme content is still applied for other pages.

Image Protection

Without image protection, once a page is open and on display, its contents can be screen captured and recorded, or even printed. The methods to control are:

  • Save Page - ArtisBrowser does not provide such options when a page is in Protect Mode.
  • Print Page - ArtisBrowser does not allow printing when a page is in Protect Mode.
  • Copy-n-Paste - ArtisBrowser does not allow copy, paste, drag options when a page is in Protect Mode.
  • Screen capture and recording - ArtisBrowser does not allow any recordong when a page is in Protect Mode.
  • Remote recording - in Protect Mode, ArtisBrowser will only allow remote viewing if specifically allowed by the author.

Protect Mode

ArtisBrowser functions like most normal web browsers until it detects an ASPS web page, and then it switches to Protect Mode.

📖 Which Pages Does ASPS Copy Protect

Meta-tags are used in the HEAD tags of web pages to be copy protected. Then the ASPS server knows that the page is to be encrypted, and the ArtisBrowser also knows that the page is to be decrypted and to switch to Protect Mode.

ASPS tags can be added manually (for static pages), added dynamically using conditional scripting in header templates, or added automatically (on-the-fly) by using CMS plugins like the ones available for WordPress and Moodle.

📖 Managing Copy Protected Pages on an ASPS Server

To manage copy protected web pages where ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) software has been installed on a dedicated server or VPS, the ASPS Tag Management plugin can be used to nominate which pages are to be protected by simply nominating a keyword that may be part of the page's url. For example, by nominating "lessons", all web pages that include the word "lessons" in their url will be copy protected automatically. Plugins are available for Nuke, Drupal, Joomla, Moodle and WordPress CMS. If not using one of those CMS our support team can assist with templates to use in custom CMS like Bootstrap.

📖 Managing Copy Protected Pages in WordPress or Moodle

ASPS can be used to copy protect WordPress and Moodle indirectly by embedding an ASPS page into your existing web pages. This way ASPS need not be installed, and your website can be hosted on almost any type of shared web hosting service. We say "almost any site" because hosting services like WIX do not provide web hosting that can be customized - you don't get own your web pages and cannot edit the scripts and templates that create those pages.

📖 Copy Protecting All Media With ASPS

While ArtisBrowser can display normal all types of media including images, text PDF and video, some media like PDF and video require special on page viewers, and that is where sepcial care is needed to remove toolbar options and menus for save, print, etc. Care also needs to taken to prevent caching of the page.

📖 PDF Viewers for Web Pages

Normal PDF can be displayed using the following embed code:

Embed code for PDF

Note the paramateres for toolbar and navpanes? They are needed to remove save and print options from the viewer's toolbar.

Another method of displaying normal PDF on web pages is by using the PDFJS resource. PDFJS is a free open-source PDF API that can be downloaded and used on your website. However like above, PDFJS template needs to be customized to remove, save, download, and print options.

Otherwise, while the ASPS web page is viewed in ArtisBrowser, nothing can be copied or printed using the browser menus. So if you have the page viewer's menus under control and ArtisBrowser in Protect Mode, nothing displayed in the PDF can be copied.

📖 Video Players for Web Pages

For most the HTML5 video player will be the easiest to use. But care is needed to set toolbar parameters to avoid providing options that can be used to save or download the video, for example:

HTML5 code for video player

Of course there are many other ways to display video, and some video hosting services like Vimeo make you use their custom player by embedding it in an iFrame. Copy protection cannot be applied to that page which is hosted on a Vimeo server, but by displaying the Vimeo iFrame on an ASPS protected web page, it can still be copy protected overall. This won't be as secure as the ASPS page holding the iFrame which is encypted, but it may suffice.

📖 File Hosting Services

Video and other media can be hosted al most anywhwre for display on your web pages. The advantages of hosting video, which cannot entail a lot of data usage, are in download spedd, availablity and cost savings. But while there are many file hosting services for video, not all may be suitable. Some do not allow dierct access for use on web pages and most provide no options for preventing direct access, ie: ensuring that it is your web page requesting the video and not a direct download from the user locating the link to the video.

Links to media files should not be obtainable while displayed via ASPS, but who knows, you may have inadvertently used that vido on an unpotected page or used Chrome to test the page when it was not protected.

The best and most economical file hosting service for video has to be Amazon S3, where you have options for locking access to your files to your web site so that no-one can ever download it outside the protected realm of your ASPS web page.

📖 Limitations

The only limitation with ASPS is that it is for copy protecting web pages, which means that the user needs to be online.

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