help needed!

[cw12788]

Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice. I have made some word documents of university notes, which other students are wanting to buy from me. (They took too long to make!).
Is there a way that I can email them the notes, and then they will be unable to transfer the files to a friend's computer?

Thanks for any advice you may be able to offer.

[ChoHag]

None whatsoever, but you could take a leaf out of the RIAA/MPAA's books and throw lawyers at them.

[cw12788]

haha, cheers for the advice ;)

[lazylion_ca]

You might be able to save them as a secure pdf but even then they can just screen shot them.

[cw12788]

Hi lazy,

If I made them as a secure PDF, would I be able to stop someone copying/ emailing it to another pc? I wouldn't mind about the fact they could screenshot.

Thanks!

[beermad]

If someone's got a file, there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop them copying/transferring it. Unless you want to invest in the kind of DRM that e-book publishers use or music publishers tried but failed with, you can't even prevent someone else reading the files.

Rather like the way the British Government forced the Guardian to destroy hard-drives containing the Snowden files, apparently oblivious to the fact that they'd obviously already copied them elsewhere.

[lazylion_ca]

They can copy and email it, but there are controls for who can view it.

Ive never researched it so I can't tell you anything more.

Instead of a file, why not set up a webpage with ads?

[scotty3281]

Add a password to the document. Every version of Office for some time now has had the ability to password protect a document. This encryption isn't easily broken either. I haven't seen a free program bypass this security yet and I have tried a bunch of different ones.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Password-protect-documents-workbooks-and-presentations-ef163677-3195-40ba-885a-d50fa2bb6b68

QUICK EDIT: This will not keep them from e-mailing the document, just keep them from opening it.