can you give your Ebook a verification pin?

Question

i want to sell an ebook on my website but i don't want the people i sell it to.Too send it to other people. so i want a verification pin that only works on one ip and a differant one for another. do you know how to do this??????????????????????? If so tell me please
E.G You buy windows liveone care and they give you a pin.(Via email) then they have to download it and type the pin.

Answer 1

You are talking about Copy Protection (a sub-set of Digital Rights Management or DRM).

As you have discovered, the 'problem' with eBooks is that they are really easy to copy (.. yes, it's exactly the same problem as CD's, DVD's etc)

There are a number of ways to 'protect' digital data - however, ultimatly they are ALL doomed to fail .. why ?
... because at some point whatever copy protection system exists MUST allow a legitimate Customer to listen to the music, view the DVD or read the eBook .. and at that point, the data can be copied ...

So the BEST you can do is make it difficult for 'casual' pirates .. i.e. those you only know enough to 'drag & drop' ..
... and 'pin' numbers (passwords really) are one simple way

Essentially, when compressing the eBook for delivery you use a password (easy to do with ZIP, PDF etc) .. and the Customer then has to use the same password to view the eBook later ... if the Customer copies the eBook and sells it on, chances are they will not be able to remove the Password so (assuming you set a different password for every customer) at least you will know who did the copy ..