Combating ebook piracy

Questions about Activ Ebook Compiler:

1. Can someone download an ebook, then email it to their friend and give them their password?

2. Is it easy to automatically generate a password at ordering time, or do you have to have the user send a code and you manually generate the password? (I prefer automation).

3. Can you switch off their ebook? If not, do you have any intentions in providing this feature in future versions?

4. Can I have the ebook only show the first 30 pages, with a password releasing the rest of the book if purchased? If so, would this type of book require different passwords for different people? In other words, is the password tied in to the PC on which it is installed?

I am so pleased you have these forums. It makes all the difference.

Thanks,

2. Yes it can be automatic.  Check the ASP and PHP threads in this forum, or check this tutorial  for a simple HTML-only version
www.ebookapprentice.com/sell/cbpassword

3. No we don't currently have that.  We might add this as an option in future, I am uncertain

There are 3 real downsides to having this

(i) Your legitimate customers need to log on to the Internet periodically with their ebook running to keep it live.  I can't imagine this would please them/

(ii) Your legitimate customers may not be too happy about that you can switch off their stuff at will

(iii) To make this work there needs to be some kind of web / Internet server process which the ebook connects to.

If it connects to the ebook vendor's server, then firstly you are always dependent on them, and secondly it costs the vendor money to run (which is one of the reasons they probably charge you a fee per ebook to do this)

If it connects to your own web server, then you would  need some fairly sophisticated stuff / knowledge to set this up

4. Yes, yes, yes

You create a pool of passwords, (up to 1000)

Which password out of the pool is needed depends on the computer

Eventually 2 people would need the same 1 from the pool, but it's very unlikely (more passwords = less likely) that the same password is going to come up consecutively, so effectively yes it is tied to a computer.