Copyright protection... HOW???

Hi,

I posted this question a couple of days ago, but I don't think I was
clear about my intent:

I have designed several slideshows as part of a course presentation
that I alone have offered.

Now that I am heading in a different direction, former collegues would
like to continue offering my course under my name and my guidance.

It's not that I don't trust my collegues, I just want a way to protect
my intellectual property.

After converting the PP to .exe, the protection for the files would
*ideally* be:

1. Each file protected by its own serial number, required upon
opening.
2. The serial for the user would have a 2-3 file-use lifespan
3. There would be seperate administrator and user serials - you never
know when access to the file more than 2-3 times may be necessary.

If I cannot control the usage of the files, I cannot control the
franchise.

I would appreciate any leads you can offer.

Cheers,
CR

Re: Copyright protection... HOW???

CrAviation wrote:
> If I cannot control the usage of the files, I cannot control the
> franchise.

So you cannot control the franchise.

Yours,
VB.
--
At first there was the word. And the word was Content-type: text/plain

Re: Copyright protection... HOW???

"CrAviation" writes:

>Hi,

>I posted this question a couple of days ago, but I don't think I was
>clear about my intent:

>I have designed several slideshows as part of a course presentation
>that I alone have offered.

>Now that I am heading in a different direction, former collegues would
>like to continue offering my course under my name and my guidance.

Write a contract with them.


>It's not that I don't trust my collegues, I just want a way to protect
>my intellectual property.

Sure. Sorry it is not possible.

If your collegues want to take it, and you allow them to show the slides,
then teh slides are theirs.
All your procedures will do is to make the legitimate use hard.

Eg, just run a screed capture program.



>After converting the PP to .exe, the protection for the files would
>*ideally* be:

>1. Each file protected by its own serial number, required upon
>opening.
>2. The serial for the user would have a 2-3 file-use lifespan

And what happens to the 50 copies that are made? Use #1 three times, then
#2 three times,....

>3. There would be seperate administrator and user serials - you never
>know when access to the file more than 2-3 times may be necessary.

>If I cannot control the usage of the files, I cannot control the
>franchise.

You cannot control the useage in the way you want.


>I would appreciate any leads you can offer.

>Cheers,
>CR

Re: Copyright protection... HOW???

Thank you for your honest reply.

Cheers,
CR

Re: Copyright protection... HOW???

The only possibility I could think of making copying harder would be to
use a hardware-based data hash for en/decryption. Since someone has
reading access to the plaintext while presenting, this plaintext still
can be piped somewhere else, but that would be quite an effort on a M$
so-called operating system. On the other hand it would be easy to read
let's say the PC's MAC-address and use it's hash as a key. If you don't
have a programmable MAC address on your computer, you won't be able to
decrypt the file without writing your own decryption routine based on
the reverse-engineered original program and the knowledge of the given
MAC address (your routine wouldn't be open source of course, since this
would contradict your principle "don't let anyone use what you have
created", what makes the implementation quite a bit of work), which is
most likely not worth the trouble for an attacker. The only question is
if your content is worth the trouble of the encryption, but you are the
only one who can answer *that* question.

Of course, there is another, much easier possibility: you explicitely
allow redistribution and usage under the terms of a fair and free
license; this way, no one will be attempted to use your content without
permission but will rather add your name and do it legit, hopefully
bringing the world a bit closer to perfection (remermber: your content
is capable of this, otherwise you wouldn't have considered "protecting" it).

Kind regards,

Christian Huetter