secured PDFs

grant at hedgewizard.net grant at hedgewizard.net
Tue Mar 3 14:33:50 PST 2015


We deliver unlocked PDFs.
The only time I use locked PDFs is at the customer's request.
As for illegal reuse; we have seen lawsuits successfully brought by Cisco and
Brocade (successful in that the defendant agreed to rework their docs).
 
Grant
 

> On March 3, 2015 at 2:17 PM Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
>  It's more a matter of our verbage and/or images being copied and used in the
> documentation by competitors.
> 
>  As a tech writer for two world-known heavy equipment companies over the past
> 17 years, I know first-hand that it is not uncommon for former technicians and
> trainers to be put in front of a keyboard and terminal to produce manuals when
> they get "too old" to travel long distances or for extended periods for
> training or service duties. Their skills are valued far more than their
> ability to write coherent text.
> 
>  They obviously know every thread-pitch, ampere and torque of all bolts and
> everything else, but proper writing skills and observance of copyright laws
> are TOTALLY foreign to many of them. That is exactly what happened when I
> worked alongside a former friend who had been a trainer for many years but
> then got into technical writing. Cutting and pasting stuff verbatim from
> competitors' manuals was totally what he did. When I told him our company
> could theoretically get sued out of existence, he brushed it off.
> 
>  In the real world, I don't know if that kind of stuff (being sued for using
> plagiarized text and graphics in construction equipment manuals) actually
> matters, but my job -- the way I see it -- includes protecting my employer
> from this kind of stuff.
> 
> 
>  On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 4:00 PM, "john.x.posada at us.hsbc.com"
> <john.x.posada at us.hsbc.com> wrote:
> 
>    > > 
> >    Ken...just wondering...
> >    If a customer buys your product, what do you care if they make changes?
> > 
> >    John X Posada
> >    AML Syst & Ops Supt Data Analyst | US FCC & RC Systems Control &
> > Analytics
> >    | HSBC North America Holdings Inc
> >    330 Madison Ave., NY NY
> >                                                                   
> >    _______________________________________________________________
> >                                                                   
> >                                                                   
> >                                                                   
> >                                                                   
> >                                                                   
> >    Phone                                                         
> >          Int: 212-525-5483 Ext: Personal Cellphone - 732-259-2874 
> >    Fax                                                           
> >          Conference Bridge - 877-304-0052, Code 74809254           
> >    Email                                                         
> >          john.x.posada at us.hsbc.com <mailto:john.x.posada at us.hsbc.com>
> >                                  
> >                                                                   
> >    _______________________________________________________________
> >    Protect our environment - please only print this if you have   
> >    to!                                                           
> >                                                                   
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    From:    Ken Poshedly < poshedly at bellsouth.net
> > <mailto:poshedly at bellsouth.net> >
> >    To:    " tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com
> > <mailto:tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com> "
> >                < tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com
> > <mailto:tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com> >, "Johnson, Joyce"
> >                < JJohnson at abtg.com <mailto:JJohnson at abtg.com> >
> >    Cc:    " framers at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com> " < framers at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com> >
> >    Date:    03/03/2015 03:56 PM
> >    Subject:    Re: secured PDFs
> >    Sent by:    framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    In addition to hard-copies of our manuals included in the operator cab of
> >    the heavy construction equipment my company manufactures and markets
> >    worldwide, we also make available pdf files of our manuals with passwords
> >    to prevent changes, copying text & images, etc.
> > 
> >    So far, we're not aware of any plagiarism or other unauthorized use of
> > our
> >    stuff. At least not yet.
> > 
> >    -- Ken in Atlanta
> > 
> > 
> >    On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 3:33 PM, " tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com
> > <mailto:tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com> "
> >    < tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com <mailto:tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com>
> > > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >    We used to deliver user guides as secured PDFs; however, the security
> >    settings in Acrobat 9 never fully suited our needs. We have since
> > upgraded
> >    to Acrobat 12, but I haven't checked if the settings are any better. That
> >    said, securing the documents ended up being more pain than it was worth.
> >    Too many users wanted to extract pages or do other things that we deemed
> >    were OK. We dropped the securing documents years ago. I know there is
> > fear
> >    that someone could steal some trade secret (I never found one in our
> >    manuals), but as long as you are distributing a document in either PDF or
> >    print, you have to assume that sooner or later your competition will
> >    manage to get a copy.
> > 
> >    As far as protecting ourselves from someone modifying our documentation
> > in
> >    a way that could expose us to liability for machine damage or personal
> >    injury, we cover ourselves (per the lawyers) by including disclaimers in
> >    the preface and noting that the documentation always remains our
> >    proprietary property and cannot be altered or duplicated without our
> >    permission. I'm sure that doesn't stop anyone, but the legal folks say
> >    that if a customer violates that clause, they place themselves at risk
> >    through no fault of ours.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    Tom Beiswenger
> >    Manager, Technical & Training Documentation, Project Manager - Inspection
> >    Business
> >    Emhart Glass Mfg. Inc.
> >    1140 Sullivan St.
> >    Elmira, NY 14901
> >    PH: +607 735-4279
> >    FX: +607 734-8278
> >    Mobile: +607 769-4779
> >    Email: tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com
> > <mailto:tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    From:        "Johnson, Joyce" < JJohnson at abtg.com
> > <mailto:JJohnson at abtg.com> >
> >    To:        " framers at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com> " < framers at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com> >
> >    Date:        03/03/2015 03:14 PM
> >    Subject:        secured PDFs
> >    Sent by:        framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
> > <mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >    We deliver user guides (software and hardware) to customers  via
> >    password-protected pdfs, loaded onto servers and also posted on our
> >    customer web portal.
> > 
> >    I’m wondering how members of this group deliver customer-facing
> > documents.
> >    Do you use pdfs? If so, do you secure those pdfs? If you secure them, how
> >    do you accommodate in-house colleagues who request unsecured pdfs so they
> >    can extract pages and images?
> > 
> >    Thanks in advance for your responses.
> > 
> >    Joyce
> > 
> >    Joyce M. Johnson
> >    AmerisourceBergen
> >    Lead Technical Writer
> >    Technology Group
> > 
> >    1400 Busch Parkway
> >    Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
> > 
> >    847.808.5875
> >    888.537.3102 ext 15875
> > 
> >    www.abtg.com
> > 
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> >  > 

 

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