"I offer digital products on my website. Once a visitor places an
order and has her credit card information approved, she receives the URL
to download my report(s). What is there to prevent visitors from establishing
a link directly to that page or accessing that page at a later date? How
should I protect my intellectual properties?" -- Margaret Chan, Biblical
Blueprint
Here's my philosophy. I try to make it difficult for thieves and other
low-lifes to get to my digital product download pages. But I've decided
that most thieves and their buddies aren't really potential e-book buyers
anyway. (The opposite is true of peer-to-peer MP3 music downloader thieves,
who have put a significant dent in CD sales.) If you take expensive precautions
to prevent e-book theft, you still won't get these scumbags to buy your
ebooks. You gain no sales, only paranoia. What have you really lost except
a few electrons?
Having said that, it's wise to do what you can. Your web hosting service
can help you password protect the download directory to cut down on unauthorized
access. Most software designed to sell and deliver digital products offers
a feature that gives buyers a temporary URL that expires in a few days.
A couple of inexpensive products that do this include ClickBank
Download Protector (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/download_protector.htm)
and PayPal-IPN
Download Protector (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/download_protector_ipn.htm)
from WebmasterInABox.
