How it works
ArtistScope DRM manages access to documents by checking and
validating the access privileges assigned to both the document and the user. For a user to be
allowed access they must be known to the DRM database.
Adding users to the database
Users can complete an online application for an account or an administrator you can use the "quick add" option to add users
by simply recording their email address, in which case the system can
send them an email automatically with further instructions. The Quick Add option is ideal
for online sales of eBooks.
The DRM site owner has unlimited rights to add, modify and delete
groups, users and documents. Next down the chain of command are the
administrators of groups assigned by the owner. Next come the authors
who are assigned by administrators to have the right to publish
documents to their groups. An administrator account, as assigned in this
DRM portal, will be the representative of your company or account, who
can then create new users as fellow authors to share the task of
publishing and create more new users as subscribers.
As an author you can add new users to your group. Members of such
groups can view a list of all documents assigned to that group and will
have permission to open those documents. Or you can add a new eBook
user, in which case the user is added to a closed group where only the
individually assigned eBooks can be seen in the list of documents. Users
listed as eBook uses can only open those eBooks that you assign to them.
For example when they purchase your eBook, you will be giving them
permission to open that particular eBook (as opposed to group members
who can read all books belonging to their group).
Adding users from sale of eBooks
Following the online sale of an eBook a user may be automatically added
to the database, however as most sales can be through PayPal you will be
dependent on the user clicking though after a purchase. I they don't
bother or close that page to continue exploring elsewhere their addition
to the database will not be completed, so it is therefore a much better
idea to wait for a sale notice from PayPal and then manually add the
user to your list of authorized eBook users.
From the "eBooks" page in your control panel, click on "Add eBook user",
select the eBook and type in their email address and password. You don't
have to worry if it's an existing customer or if the user is already
listed in the database because the system will check all records and
update accordingly.
Demo accounts are affected by automatic expiration, so if you add an
eBook user who just so happens to already have a "demo" account in the
system, then their status will be updated so that expiration on their
account no longer maters. Such users will no longer be "demo" users and
their account privileges will be changed for downloading and reading
eBooks only.
User identity validation
The very first time that a user
opens a CopySafe protected eBook, they will be prompted for their
username/password so that their computer be validated. Should they change
computers at a later date, they can always log into the system
using the same username/password to update their details.
Subscription billing
DRM site owners can charge a fee to their authors for publishing and validating
their documents by using the inbuilt options for monitoring and managing
subscriptions. Authors
can be billed periodically with unlimited document validations or they
can be billed according to a set number of validations (hits) which are
prepaid in advance.
Billing by period
Billing by period can be chargeable monthly, quarterly or yearly,
during which time the author/user has unlimited access. At the end of
the period the account will need to be renewed to continue access to the
protected documents.
Billing by validation hits
Billing by "hits" means that every time a protected document is
accessed, the usage count is decreased by one hit. These accounts are
paid in advance for 100-1,000 hits and the usage is subtracted from the
balance. For example if an author prepays 500 hits then his account will
start with 500 credits. Each time his document is accessed by a
different user his account will have 1 hit deducted. When hits in credit
are used up the user/author can renew the account by purchasing more
hits or changing the account type to billing by period.
Uploading
File types that can be uploaded will depend on the resources that
have been installed on the server. If the CopySafe PDF Protector has
been installed on the server with the Server DLL for interfacing with
the DRM Management Portal, then authors will be able to upload PDF documents
and convert them for either copy protected PDF or DRM protected format.
If the site's resources consist of the DRM Management Portal only, then
authors will only be able to upload ENC files that have already been
converted using the CopySafe PDF Protector on their own computer.
Adding new documents
From the page that lists your documents there is a link for Add New
Document. If you already have the CopySafe PDF Protector on your own
computer you can upload the converted ENC files, making sure that they
were correctly encrypted for this site. Otherwise you can upload PDF and
use the server-side protector to convert to ENC.
Adding new eBooks
To create an eBook for listing in the eBook Store, you first need to
upload the document as PDF using the option for Adding a New
Document. Then from your list of documents you can convert to eBook
by clicking the Add link in the [e] column. later you can use the
[e] link for editing the eBook.
First provide all of the required information and click save
before uploading the cover image. Help and hints for the required
information can be seen to the right of the input pields.
When converting an uploaded/converted document to eBook status, the
eBook will be assigned a new group to keep it separate from your usual
documents which are usually seen in the index of your group users. Once
assigned to the unreachable eBookDocs category the document's group
cannot be changed
Conversion types
The main conversion source is PDF. CopySafe PDF Protector will convert
PDF documents to encrypted .ENC files suitable for viewing by the
CopySafe PDF Reader. Once converted to PDF you have the option of:
- Copy protected conversion of your PDF to CopySafe PDF for general
distribution
- Copy protected conversion of your PDF to DRM for restricted distribution
Copy protected PDF
Our server side software will encrypt and convert your PDF to CopySafe
PDF format which is safe from all copying, printing, Prinstscreen and
screen capture. This option enables distribution to anyone with the CopySafe
PDF Reader installed... a free download to the public.
DRM protected PDF
DRM protected PDFs enjoy all of the above mentioned copy protection
features plus more. When converted to DRM your document can only be read
by the person/s that you entitle. You can limit the number of times it
can be viewed or how many times it is printed. And you can change these
permissions at any time with immediate effect regardless of whose
computer it is stored on.
Document types
The most secure method for copy protecting images and documents for
distribution is by encrypting for use with the CopySafe PDF Reader.
.ENC documents
Documents in .ENC format are lightweight library
files that can be read by anyone with the CopySafe PDF Reader installed.
Use .ENC documents where you have a regular readers who already have the
reader installed.
Setting DRM document
permissions
Each registered author can set user access permissions on document for:
- Expiry date
- Password
- Number of views allowed
- Number of prints allowed
Authors with admin permissions can set all of the above plus:
- Edit all documents including those of their members
- Add new members and edit
- Add new groups and edit
Account rules
To cater for the maximum possibility of variations in groups, accounts
and documents the following rules apply:
- Every account must have a unique username (email address) per
computer
- Each database is limited to 999,999 users
- Each database is limited to 999,999 groups
- Each database is limited to 999,999 documents
- Each database is limited to 999,999 web pages
The same web site or server can host an unlimited number of databases,
for example one database for each author account who may have up to
999,999 users each, extending the scope of your DRM solution to cater
for every one in the world from a single domain.
Admin rights
Admin rights vary according to user status and group. For example a
demo account can:
- Add and edit new user accounts but cannot make them active
- Upload and create documents and web pages for their own group
- Edit their own documents and pages
- Send test emails to their own email address
- View their own gallery and documents
- View all documents and pages assigned to their group
Any author with admin permissions (but not a demo account) can:
- Create their own group
- Add and edit users belonging to any groups which they are a
member of
- Set access levels to users, groups and documents that belong to
their groups
- View, add and edit all documents and pages where they are author
- View and edit all documents and pages that are active in their
groups
- Send newsletter emails to all groups and users which they author
- Customize the look of the pages used by their users and groups
- View statistics on their pages and documents and reset their
users' hit counts
- Set expiration and renew subscription dates for all users in
their groups
The owner has absolute control over all aspects plus:
- Set new memberships for auto approval when validated by email or
manually approve each user
- Enable or ban access by IP number or network group
- Enable or suspend any group, user, document or web page
- Move users, documents and pages to different groups
- View statistics on all pages and documents including failed
validations
Expiry date
When setting expiration on a protected PDF for public distribution, the
expiry date is embedded in the encrypted document and is final... it
cannot be changed without uploading the original and re-converting.
However when setting expiration for a DRM document, the expiry date is
stored on record and can be changed at any time. When choosing to use an
expiry date you have 2 options:
- date and time validated by an online time server
- date and time according to the user's computer clock.
Note that using validation by time server is most recommended
because then the end user cannot foil expiry by turning back the
clock/date on their computer. The less secure option of using the user's
computer for time cha\ecks has been included for clients who have
technicians in the field without internet connectivity.
Expiry dates by time server will expire at midnight of that
day according to GMT. Local time checks will expire a document by the
time on the user's computer.
IP ban and networks allowed
Users can be banned by IP number or network and exceptions to the rule
can be set. For example you can ban a network but permit an individual
IP number. Likewise you can allow a network and ban a single IP from it.
For example to ban an ISP you can set 100.100.100 or 100.100. You can
also set 100. but be warned that you will also ban any IP numbers or
networks that contain "100". In the main settings file for the DRM site
you can set to allow all networks except those listed, or deny all
networks except those listed.
Password
Setting a password for a document only applies if it's not converted for
DRM options. If a password is applied to a copy protected document (not
DRM) then it is embedded into the document.
Users and groups
Permissions can be assigned to groups and/or users. Documents can be
assigned to a single group and multiple users. Web pages can be assigned
per group only so that they can get a menu of all pages assigned to
their group.
Print limitation
When converting a document for DRM the number of prints allowed per user
or group can be limited. DRM print limits can be varied at an time.
Document quality
The quality of your copy protected PDF will depend on its content and
the PDF converter that was used in its creation. While some converters
may be able to produce a file that behaves like a PDF it may not survive
encryption. CopySafe PDF has been optimized for use with Adobe PDF
documents, supporting all versions of Acrobat to version 8. Acrobat 9
documents using layers and transparency may not end up looking
like the original, and authors are cautioned to ensure that PDF
documents conform to the general PDF standard. The choice of image format is also a factor.
Image quality
For the best quality do not use compressed images or images of low
resolution. It's also best to avoid using GIF images because when viewed at smaller or higher percentages of the actual
document size, the images may not look so good. JPG and PNG are good but
BMP will always look better all round when the page is varied in size.
Quality control
The recommended practice is to start with the document original. Not the
original PDF but the original image or Word document that was used to
create the PDF. Start by using UDC locally to create the PDF. Then when
when you have a PDF document you can use the CopySafe PDF Protector
locally or the one online (if you have that option installed) to
encrypt it for
CopySafe PDF and/or DRM.
Email distribution
From your document menu you can select a file to send to your readers by
email as a newsletter. You have the option to select which users or
groups to send to and which file format to send. The best practice is to
send a test email to yourself first so that you can check the output.
Maintenance
As an administrator (owner) you have total control over who uses your
distributable and what functions are available to your users. You also
have the choice of allowing automatic account approvals (email
validation required) or being notified by email when a new user signs up
for an account so that you can allow disallow their access, assign to
select groups or set other restrictions.
Maintaining consistency
The key linking your DRM console and your end readers is the file
itself. It is unique and there cannot be any duplicates. You can
overwrite documents but you cannot add the same document twice. So
before distributing a document, make sure that you proof read it and
test the download links etc. Once a document is distributed any changes
to the files stored on the server or their permissions could affect your
readers accessibility. For example if the earlier version had different
users assigned as authorized readers, if they are not set on the updated
document then readers with the first version will not be able to view
the new document.
File update and overwrite
Modification to existing documents is not recommended, especially after
distribution to your readers. However a document's details can be
modified by selecting the "Edit" link beside its entry in your document
menu. To update the actual document file requires that you upload an
original file of the same name.
Statistics and usage counts
Registered authors can view the hits on their documents and if needed
reset the usage count for author accounts. |
