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Tanja Rosteck will <<... soon be working on a web-hosting service "user
manual" for one of my clients. She is super-concerned about competitors
stealing this manual - apparently she has had to take legal action 10 times
in the past 5 years against competitors who have used copyrighted material
from her site. She tells me that a well-written user manual
is a hot commodity in the web-hosting biz, so she's really worried about
security.>>
There are only two ways to keep it secure: post lurid photos of the dead and
mutilated corpses of those who stole the manuals and got caught on your Web
site <g>, or don't let anyone see the manual. For the first suggestion, I
hasten to note that a similar strategy doesn't keep squirrels out of the
birdfeeder. The second is obviously impractical, and once you post the
manual, it's stealable. Worst-case scenario for the documentation thief: if
they can read it, they can copy it down by hand (with a chisel on a slab of
wood), rewrite it longhand with leaky fountain pen, then retype it one
letter at a time on their old IBM Selectric. Best case scenario: they snatch
it and copy it in less time than it takes you to try to protect it.
If you can't control access to the documents, you can't stop them from being
stolen. Period. The real solution is to provide the manuals only to your
customers, and make it clear that if they let the manuals out of their
hands, they're giving very expensive valuable information to their
competitors. Then resign yourself to the fact that some of them won't have a
clue and will let the manuals out of their hands.
On the other hand, this suggests a great get-rich-quick scheme: Revert to
plan A, namely taking legal action and putting the competitors out of
business. Hire Andrew Plato to write your manuals, post that hot property on
the Web site, and lurk behind your site rubbing your hands together,
chortling with glee, and catching and sueing everyone who downloads the
manuals. After all, why waste your time writing manuals or hosting Web
services when you can make a decent living through lawsuits? <g>
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman
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