Urgent News Ebooks Authors with Unsecured PDF files - Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 has a new feature making it easy to steal text.
I have alarming news for anyone who sells ebooks as unsecured PDF’s. The new version of Adobe Reader 8 has a button that says “save as text”. And sure enough, if you click it, it converts the text in the pdf file to a txt file.
I noticed this just yesterday when my client sent me a news story as a pdf and I was just about to open my tool that converts pdf’s to text when I noticed that Adobe has this new feature.
So if you think that your pdf is protecting your ebook from theft, think again. Imagine how easy it would be for someone to take your entire ebook, rewrite it a bit, and republish it as their own. That’s not a very comforting thought is it. And yet I’m sure it will start happening more and more. As far as other formats, I’ll be researching into other formats.
I know that exe is a possibility. But it’s kind of a pain because usually people have to download a reader to open the exe with.
Anyone else have bright ideas for alternative pdf formats?
Posted on January 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm. About 'Urgent News Ebooks Authors with Unsecured PDF files - Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 has a new feature making it easy to steal text.'.
The save as text feature has been there since forever.
The trick is to create PDFs that cannot be edited (protected by password). I haven’t tested it in Version 8 yet but it used to be any PDF that’s created where it cannot be edited unless you use a password, it won’t ’save as text’. It would act like it would but won’t.
To create PDFs that aren’t editable, you can use the free PDFCreator.
But you want to know the worst problem? There are tools you can get inexpensively to crack the password. Depending on how savvy your market is or how motivated they are, majority of people won’t bother.
Posted on January 26th, 2007 at 12:37 pm. About 'Urgent News Ebooks Authors with Unsecured PDF files - Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 has a new feature making it easy to steal text.'.
I went back to do a check. Created one locked PDF where users can only print, but cannot edit, save a copy or add notes. And one unlocked PDF.
If you open the locked PDF, the ‘Save As Text’ option will be greyed out.
Posted on January 26th, 2007 at 3:55 pm. About 'Urgent News Ebooks Authors with Unsecured PDF files - Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 has a new feature making it easy to steal text.'.
Thanks for the heads up Kristie, and for the research Lynette! Good tips to keep in mind when creating (and updating) information products. Now I need to go check my products to see where I stand.
Posted on November 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm. About 'Urgent News Ebooks Authors with Unsecured PDF files - Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 has a new feature making it easy to steal text.'.
I was just about to write Part II of this article Want to Sell Your eBook…
Fortunately, I found this blog posting so now I know what to include in Part II. This could be a very serious problem for people who make their living by selling information products on the internet. If I find any answers, I will definitely head back here and provide an update!