Vitrium Systems

Generally, publishers of content in digital formats have used digital rights management (DRM) solutions to protect their content from being stolen and distributed illegally to non-paying and unauthorized readers. In the past, DRM has been considered a nuisance by the document’s readers, including those reading from the ubiquitous PDF format, because often the PDF DRM solution has rendered the document inaccessible or requires the reader to download special viewing software.

However, that has all changed with the new technology that is available today! But many publishers do not know what to look for in a PDF DRM solution that makes their documents both secure and easy for readers to access. So the question is, what makes a great PDF DRM solution?

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Vitrium Systems is hosting a free webinar on October 19th, 2010 at 12:00pm ET.

This webinar focuses on the struggle that educational institutes have had finding an acceptable balance between their need to proliferate copy protected material to the student population, while assuring content authors that their intellectual property is being adequately protected.

What are the challenges in managing digital content and how are leading educational institutions addressing the practical difficulties in a changing environment?

Learn how educational institutions are taking a fresh approach to protecting and enforcing exclusive rights on the Internet. You’ll get answers to the following questions:

• What are the benefits and ROI of effective Digital Rights Management?
• What are the leading and most effective approaches to protecting intellectual property?
• How can you streamline costs and increase revenues through DRM distribution?

Who should attend:
Anyone in the business of managing or disseminating educational information in a digital format.

Register for Digital Rights Management Without Borders today!

Vitrium has a busy couple of weeks ahead of us!

Yesterday, Vitrium attended its first virtual conference as an exhibitor at Publishing Business Virtual Conference 2010. We wanted to say a big thank-you to everyone that stopped by our virtual booth! Our staff was able to live chat with anyone that was inside our booth, and visitors were also able to download a variety of informational materials about protectedpdf.

Since the focus of the conference with digital and mobile publishing, we wanted to inform our booth visitors about how the can start leveraging PDF protection to protect revenue generated from sales of online publications. We answered many questions from attendees about why protectedpdf would be the best PDF protection solution for them. Many visitors were concerned about the ease-of-use for their readers. It turned out that many felt that PDF DRM was a hinderance to access for their readers and wanted to stay away from PDF protection, mainly because their readers would have to download extra software to access publications. Our booth staff were very pleased to dispel that myth, and explain to our booth visitors that, in fact, protectedpdf documents can be viewed using Adobe Reader without any additional software or plug-in downloads required!

Next Tuesday, you will be able to find the Vitrium booth at IMC Vancouver at the Four Seasons Hotel. For all of you who are interested in internet marketing, make sure to check out the conference and stop by our booth!

6 Features to Consider When Choosing a PDF Protection Solution

To sum up our 6 part series about optimizing your readers’ experience when choosing a PDF DRM solution to protect PDF content, we’ve compiled the following list for you to consider:

1. Balance the reader’s privacy with the publisher’s need to know - Ask only necessary information to validate your reader’s identity
2. Keep the validation process simple for your readers - Make sure that when controlling your content’s distribution the validation process is simple and easy for your readers to remember
3. Consider readers’ desire not to install extra software to access PDFs - Your PDF DRM solution shouldn’t require your readers to download anything extra to access your PDF content
4. Understand your readers’ use patterns - Choose a PDF protection solution that allows your reader some flexibility (if appropriate) when it comes to what computers they can access your PDF content on
5. Understand your commitment to maintaining the reader record - Try to accommodate your readers’ expectations for document shelf-life with your control over PDF content
6. Implement a tolerable document security level - A DRM solution should be a deterrent from unauthorized access yet doesn’t hamper authorized readers’ access

This is the FINAL post of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Make sure to check out the previous 5!

(6) Implement a tolerable document security level

Often DRM is considered by the reader to be a pain and hinders their ability access the content. It is important that the reader feels that the level of security is balanced out by the perceived value of the PDF document’s content.

Takeaway: A DRM solution should be a deterrent from unauthorized access yet doesn’t hamper authorized readers’ access

This is the fifth of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Stay tuned for the last installment!

(5) Understand your commitment to maintaining the reader record

How long should you keep a record of who has access to documents and maintain those protected documents? There needs to be a balance between keeping DRM systems simple and databases clean for you (the publisher), and your readers’ expectation that, once authorized access is granted, they will have access to those documents for a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes documents are time sensitive and can only be accessed for a short period of time, other documents have an eternal shelf-life and readers want to be able to access it forever.

Takeaway: Try to accommodate your readers’ expectations for document shelf-life with your control over PDF content

This is the fourth of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Stay tuned for the other two installments!

(4) Understand your readers’ use patterns

Many people download a document on one computer and want to read it on another. For example, one of your readers might download your PDF at work but then may need to transfer it to a laptop to travel. Many PDF DRM solutions do not allow the reader to access the document on different computers, impeding your readers’ ability to access the content. However, as the publisher you know best whether multi-computer access is appropriate for your content.

Takeaway: Choose a PDF protection solution that allows your reader some flexibility (if appropriate)

This is the third of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Stay tuned for the other three installments!

(3) Consider readers’ desire not to install extra software to access PDFs

Many consumers are reluctant to have proprietary software installed on their computers in order to gain access to protected documents.  Requiring your readers to download special PDF viewers or validation plug-ins will hamper their experience and make it more difficult for them to access your content, resulting in readers abandoning it.

Takeaway: Your PDF DRM solution shouldn’t require your readers to download anything extra to access your PDF content

This is the second of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Stay tuned for the next four installments!

(2) Keep the validation process simple for your readers

Unprotected content can be easily distributed, and is shared often – 89% of adult internet users share email content with others. However, unprotected PDF content is usually less valuable than information from protected sources (there’s a reason why the content publisher wants it protected). Protected PDF content is only accessible as long as the reader recalls their username and password – otherwise the content will be inaccessible.

Takeaway: Make sure that when controlling your content’s distribution the validation process is simple and easy for your readers to remember

This is the first of a six part series about features to think about when choosing a PDF protection or PDF DRM solution. Stay tuned for the other five installments!

Optimizing the PDF reader’s experience while protecting your PDF content will increase the likelihood of your PDF’s success. If it is too hard to access the content, your readers are just going to give up.

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