Which is the best content protection?

[dispersee]

I saw a lot of helpful topics on this forum, so I decided to start a thread here. As far as I read, there are a few options to protect your content:
1.File for a copyright.
2.Encrypt your pages and disable browser functions.
3.Use PDF.
4.Use printed copy.

Unfortunately, all of these methods have their drawbacks.
1.Yes, you can earn some cash from the criminals who have copied your material but if your content is extremely popular and easily distributed, it will be practically impossible to find all the places where your "copyrighted" material is spreaded. And if your content suddenly gets into the P2P world, who are you going to sue then--the millions of annonymus users, ha?!?
2.Because I wanted to test everything, today I tried three of the so called HTML Protectors. I used HTMLProtector, HTMLGuardian and Aerotags TagsLock Pro. What can I say - my IE 6.0 with SP2 blocks the active content and the page becomes completely unprotected or error full. Moreover, Opera isn't affected at all by all these disabling scripts! The only thing I found useful was the image splitting (in 1x1 pix) which I believe can't be bypassed.
3.The problem with PDF is that even though you can disable the print/copy functions, your pages can easily be stolen by the Printscreen button. And even if the Printscreen button is disabled, there are programs for screenshot making, that will do the job. Afterwards the image can be easily printed or OCR-ed.
4.The use of printed copy is as vulnerable to OCR, as PDF. A whole book can easily be scanned, OCR-ed and proofread for a few hours.

So guys, what can we do?!? I am preparing a book at the moment. I am considering to put my pages under password protection on my website. Unfortunately, I am scared of the copy/printscreen thing. So, is there a way to disable these functions in *all* browsers? Is there a way for me to use images for my text, so that even if Printscreen is used, the OCR would be impossible? Is there a really good piece of software/eBook creation suite that handles all these nightmares?

Thanks in advance!

[crescenta]

I don't think there is a way to prevent any copying on all platforms. What might work with Windows might not work with Linux or Mac, and so forth.

I personally think that print books are the best option if you want to make your content inconvenient to copy. Of course people can still copy, but they have to work harder at it. NOTHING you publish is invulnerable, though.

Content stealing and unauthorized copying makes my blood boil as much as it does for the next person, but a certain amount of it comes with the territory when you publish anything. The trick is to try to keep most of the theft small. I think a print book is your best bet for that. Publish samples on the web, but keep most of it in print (paper).

[BigDave]

The only failsafe way to go is to take your one and only copy of the book and feed it through a shredder, burn the remains and dump them in the ocean.

Becoming obsessed with trying to stop casual copying will likely hurt your sales more than help them. If you try too hard, you will become a target of people that will copy your work just to "show you".

Accept that there will be a certain amount of casual copying, and try to get advertising value out of it. Make sure that it links back to your site. You may not like it spreading through the casual channels, but if it is going to go that way anyway, try and get some value out of it.

Fight those that go beyond casual copying. You need to set your own threshold for what level is worth fighting.

Finally, concentrate on the selling part of the equation. You can spend your whole life fighting the infringement. If your work is worth the money, there are those that will pay for it.