Are eBooks protected by copyright?

Copyright in Vietnam

Though today, books take on a whole new life with electronic formats, readers, and platforms, the copyright laws that protect a writer’s work from being stolen, shared, and re-sold still apply to e-books.

Nonetheless, with the rise of digital piracy, e-book copyright law has been notoriously difficult to implement in a way that deters people from unfair use of copyrighted material. This is especially the case for self-publishing authors, who neither have the funds or resources to pursue legal cases.

If you want to protect your e-books, you need security that is specific to their “digital” nature.

Digital rights management solutions (DRM) are the industry-standard tools to use if you want to implement e-book protection.

There are 3 main types of protection solutions that can be used to secure your e-books and deter piracy. They include:

Expiring Download Links

Expiring download links allow you to send your e-books for download by customers, with the link expiring after a certain number of uses, or a specified time period.

Watermarking

Watermark technology protects your e-books by imprinting visible or invisible watermarks containing your customer’s personal information on their pages.

Adobe DRM Encryption

This is the industry-standard solution used by major publishers. It enables you to set different permissions for copying, printing, and accessing your e-books. Adobe DRM encryption is the most secure way to protect your e-books.

I recently wrote a blog post for the EditionGuard blog, EditionLink vs EditionMark vs Adobe DRM: Choosing The Right eBook Fulfillment Option, which explains in more detail how to select the right type of DRM protection for your e-books. Check it out to see which one is right for you.