A couple of eagle-eyed customers have noted that in my last website update I no longer use LockLizard for copy protection. They asked the background as they’re also looking for alternatives. So here are some details.
Most publishers want to copy protect their content to retain value for their customers.
We used LockLizard for copy protection as overall it came out best in a technical evaluation of several similar vendors at the time.
However, to me as a start-up publisher, it was very expensive up front – both in fees and hosting charges – and I found among other things that it wouldn’t easily work with tablets and smartphones that more and more people use today for online access.
In fact too often I found that I was bypassing LockLizard to service my customers, which largely defeated the purpose of having it in the first place.
And when it emerged that that there were no refunds when I didn’t use LockLizard – which is a great business model for them if not for me – then it was the final straw.
There had to be a better way.
As a publisher I want my documents copy protected. But I also want my customers to be able to access my documents hassle-free on any device with any operating system. Was I too much of an idealist perhaps?
So I did a bit of research, including using People Per Hour, and fortunately found a very clever website designer who figured out a way of putting my documents on the cloud, where all my paying customers could then access them online using any device – pc, tablet or smartphone – on any operating system – and yet the documents were still fully protected against copying or printing – and all at a cost to me of only $15 per month.
Wow. Brilliant solution for my customers – and for me so much easier, cheaper and better than using LockLizard. Hence why I dumped them.
I’m not technical so I don’t understand how it’s done. But if you want to try this solution on your website then contact that designer at babs@babshobbs.com