selling my companies .epub files

[fading]

Hi,

I have what may seem like a basic question, but I can't find the answer anywhere having searched around for the last couple of hours!

I work for a publisher, and we run quite a successful website where we sell our physical books.

Using a conversion house, we are slowly getting our archive of printed books converted to .epub files which we then pass on to digital wholesalers to sell.

What we'd like to do is start selling these .epub files on our own website, alongside the printed versions, but we are concerned about security, which raises the question of DRM.

My question is, how do I add DRM to our existing .epub files which have already been converted by our conversion house? Our wholesalers claim that they are adding DRM before they sell our files, but how do we do this ourselves?

I'd be really grateful for any help!

Thanks,

Sam

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by fading

My question is, how do I add DRM to our existing .epub files which have already been converted by our conversion house? Our wholesalers claim that they are adding DRM before they sell our files, but how do we do this ourselves?

I doubt you'll find many people on MobileRead willing to help you add DRM.

Consider that selling your files without DRM will make them more desirable, and adding it won't prevent anybody from removing it and pirating it anyway.

So you can either have more desirable files and some piracy, or less desirable files and probably more piracy.

There is no option without piracy.

[Jellby]

Not to mention that to add DRM you'd have to pay someone (Adobe, B&N...), so adding DRM means more expensive ebooks for you, and probably for your customers.

[AnemicOak]

Since all current ebook DRM (except maybe Apple's?) has been broken and is easily removed IMO all you're doing is adding extra expense for you and hassle for your customers. However if you wanted to sell ePubs with Adobe DRM what you'd need to do is setup an Adobe Content Server.

From Adobe's site...

Initial fee
Adobe Content Server 4 is available for the initial fee of $6500, with no limits on the amount of content you can protect and distribute or on the number of CPUs on which you can install the server. The initial fee includes the server software, the first year of access to the Adobe digital signing service, and maintenance, support and upgrades as provided for by the License Terms and Conditions for Content Server 4.

Adobe digital signing service fee
The initial fee also includes a one-year service plan that enables you to access Adobe's digital signing service as well as receive Adobe Content Server software upgrades, maintenance and support as provided for by the License Terms and Conditions. Customers are required to renew this service plan every year for $1500.

Transactional fee
In addition to the initial fee and signing service plan, Content Server customers are charged a small fee per transaction. Whenever you sell or loan content, a request is made from Adobe Content Server 4 to an Adobe License Service for a digitally signed license. Once signed and returned to your server, the license and protected PDF or EPUB file are available to your customer.

Whenever a transaction is signed, a small license fee is charged to your account. The amount depends on the type of license you select, of which there are two types:

• A permanent license gives the user access to the signed content forever. For each permanent license, you are charged $.22.

[neilmarr]

You don't seem to have offered a publisher's link here on in your profile, Fading. Might be helpful to see what kind of work's on offer. As has been said, though, I think you're in the wrong place to ask about DRM. It's like asking on the Amnesty International forums for advice on how best to lock up innocent folks for life. Cheers. Neil

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

You don't seem to have offered a publisher's link here on in your profile, Fading. Might be helpful to see what kind of work's on offer. As has been said, though, I think you're in the wrong place to ask about DRM. It's like asking on the Amnesty International forums for advice on how best to lock up innocent folks for life. Cheers. Neil

Great response, Neil. Your publishing firm and many others do not use DRM, and are thriving. So why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to use DRM?

Regards, Alex

[Jonas777]

As others has said: DRM is not favoured here.
But you could also try what some Swedish publishers are trying: To add some watermarking instead of encrypting DRM.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

As has been said, though, I think you're in the wrong place to ask about DRM.

The ePub forum is entirely the correct place to ask about ePub DRM.

[DixieGal]

Accept it and move forward: there do be pirates.

But not too much. Try to equate it with how you feel about passing around a book, if that helps.

Adding DRM is just an annoying distraction that takes 2or 3 minutes to strip off, so why bother?

[JSWolf]

I hope this publishing house is good enough to know how to properly format an eBook so it looks good. A lot of ePub come looking like it was slapped together by a child.

[Gregpet]

Old thread but a related comment/question...

I wouldn't be so concerned about copying as much as someone getting in to the EPUB file and making changes to the content.

Is password protecting the EPUB file (but not copy protecting it) considered less controversial? Is it even possible?

Thanks,
Greg

[Toxaris]

Sure it is possible. It probably cannot be read anymore, but it is possible...

[st_albert]

If you're concerned about someone clandestinely making changes, you could publish the MD5 or SHA hash for the file. That should help others validate it.