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If you have set out to sell software online, you must be wondering about methods to secure your products. In other words, how can a digital file be protected? You can do so easily with the help of the web. Let’s see a list of ways to protect your download data. We’re going to discuss the pros and cons of the existing options.
Tactics to Protect Digital Products
Almost all digital product protection tactics are not working equally. Below we have listed several strategies and the quality of protection that these provide.
Limit access to downloads
What are ways to prevent paid users from sharing their downloaded files? Limit the number of downloading instances of your files. These techniques have proven effective, limiting the number or quantities of downloads to legitimate clients. If you use Ecwid to sell a digital product or service, you can restrict access by going to Settings > Shopping basket. You can use a dedicated feature to restrict your download limit to 3. So, the link to your product will expire after three downloads when it is paid. After that period, users are no longer able to download.
Create product licenses
One other technique of preventing theft is creating a unique license on a copy of the product. For accessing the product, the user is given a license identifier. This is how many software firms have protected their products. Entering the length of alphanumeric code is familiar to most software developers. Creating a license for software can be difficult for customers but can provide significantly more advanced safeguards for users. Consider the tradeoff to get broader protection. There are many methods for generating a license for your products.
Stop search engines from indexing your pages
Search engines transmit a considerable amount of software to search for thousands of pages every day called crawls. These spiders will search the entire website without any permission from you. When a site shows all of the protection files, it may also crawl it for a search result. Quickly stop spider attacks from your website using the robot.txt file. This document is simple to read and controls robots’ behavior. This file must be stored in your root directory. To block access to the folder, insert the following code into the Robots.txt file: user-agent:
Monitor the Web for Stolen Products
Keep an eye out for stolen products on the web. This way, you will know whether a person has a legal right to distribute the product. You can do that by setting up Google Alerts with a particular brand name. Enter your brand name and set a new default setting. Note that some products are not released under their initial name. When monitoring, keep an eye out for variations like alternate names for products, website names, personal aliases, and others. When you are posting a website, use Copyscape to create a website.
Note: Acquiring copyright for your product
Before considering acquiring a copyright, please take note of these things. Getting a copyright will not prevent unauthorized copies, but it can help you get compensation for stolen goods. It also indicates that the person who owns the rightful right to use IP can be prosecuted for infringement. Since copyrights vary between countries, we advise you to consult your local legal advisor. Alternatively, you can contact copyright offices.
Hide Your Product from Prying Eyes
If you want to protect the products against hacker attacks, you have to make them challenging to locate. Unless someone finds it, a person is unlikely to get it. When a business sells digital goods on Ecwid, you are not required to follow these steps. Otherwise, make sure you upload your digital product to your shop, and Ecwid generates download links at the beginning of every purchase without giving them to search engines. It’s ok to hide your Ewa data.
Place Downloads Behind a Login
It’s simple to hide your product from users – and you can easily remove the password. Customers can get their username and password after they purchase rather than download. The buyer may use it when logging into the website to view downloads. Although this doesn’t stop paying customers from copying or distributing file formats, this offers some advantages as well. See membership, member-only, membership press, wishlist members.
Place your product inside a Zip file
Search engines can find scanned PDFs easily in search results. Any web user can find such documents in a Google search using file-type operators. If you place the PDF in an archive, search engines cannot view it, being protected from loss.
To sum up
Protecting your files against theft is possible through various methods. From creating product licenses to deciding to get copyright or placing it within a Zip file, you have several options. Check them out and based on the type of digital products you are selling online, decide which option suits you best.
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