jmucchiello said:
You forget that the easiest way to "steal" your PDF is to copy it verbatim. Thus, why should you worry about making it hard to copy part of the work when copying the whole work is easy.
Actually, I didn't forget it at all. In fact I went on a rather long diatribe noting that I was not trying to find a way to prevent people from pirating things -- that's an exercise in futility.
The format is a theme? a person? which thing is the format that is listed in the definition of PI that allows you to PI it? If I read that the format of the book was PId I'd laugh my head off. Why would you care that someone is reusing your formatting? All that means is that their works will remind others of yours.
No, Joe, the format is a format and it is an element listed in the OGL that can be PI'd. Check out the OGL. Laugh all you want. It's an element subject to PI. Probably because, in a text only OGC product, PI'ing the format, or putting your trademark on the border margin of every page, is the only way to protect your document from resale "as is".
If you want, not to be agressive, but as a thought exercise, finish your latest PDF project. Make sure it has no artwork in it. Open up 100% of the content as OGC. I can 24 hours later come up with a new title page and undercut your price by 3 dollars and sell EXACTLY the same product, killing your sales and making free profit for little more than an hour of work. When 100% of a product's text is OGC, Joe, then unless there is border art, a trademark on every page, PI'd formatting, or extensive use of PI'd images then people can resell your product 24 hours after you list it and crush the life out of your sales. The only thing that would save your sales would be people who actually found out about this and wanted to pay you more money than they could otherwise pay me for the same product. Now clearly I have no intention of doing anything like this, but I also don't want other people to do it to me either.
Every PDF product I've seen has either extensive use of border art or some kind of trademark on every page. Without that, the PDF could be freely distributed ad nauseum, minus its title page. That's a REAL disincentive for people trying to make even a small profit from their PDF games. And, I suspect, that beyond simply making the document appear attractive, it's one of the big reasons why people use these per page trademarks, borders, etc.
Isn't the whole point of writing this stuff to get people to use your stuff? You can't be doing this for the money.
I can't be doing this for a lot of money, but then again, I don't plan on doing it for free either.
If you are really so paranoid about casual users copying your work, perhaps PDF format is not for you. Only release print products.
Actually, either I am not conveying myself well or you just have not read my posts at all. I can't say which. I'm fully well aware of things like piracy (which I mentioned multiple times in spite of the fact that you claimed that I was unaware of it). I'm primarily interested in making sure my PDF has a sales life longer than 24 hours.
If you notice one of my other recent threads, I'm considering releasing the PDF sans art because so many people complain about art work eating up their printer ink. However, if I do that, then I need either to PI the document format or use border art.
I am also curious (though not sold on the notion), that if there were some art on each page (a border, etc.) that the casual user would be less likely to hand out 10 copies of the document to all their friends. I am not convinced of this however. Nor am I convinced that it's at all necessary or effective.
So the primary hurdle I'm interested in setting up is to prevent my PDF from being resold 24 hours later and border art or PI'ing the document format seems to be the easiest way to go.
Everything I release is 100% OGC. The only PI in most of it is my company name and the name of the product. Both of these things are printed (at 9pt) on the bottom of alternating pages. What more do you really need?
If that's your proposal for the best way to mark the product to keep your product having more than a 24 hour print life, then it's a good suggestion, and I thank you for that.
I look forward to buying your April product release, Joe.
Cheers,
Lee