how to protect info. on a cd - to sell...?

No way to prevent it. Absolutely no way. Sorry to sound so certain, but I know for a fact there is no way to protect this once it's in digital format. If you're that worried about it, I'd release this in print format - it's a lot harder to copy and pass around.

RMX

 

I can explain at length, but I'm tired right now. Copyright will protect automatically, in theory, and you can register in the CRO to perfect your rights, including for extraordinary remedies. But, having legal protection does not protect against the reality of copying. Witness the copying of CDs, DVDs, etc that are freely, if illegally shared daily over the 'Net.

You can encrypt content, in the same way that commercial DVD movies are encrypted -the newer HD formats have more robust encryption- requiring a player that can decode the encryption- typically branded players available thru ordinary retail channels. But, you need an appropriate
manfacturing house, with licenses for the encryption, which will add incrementally to your production cost. And, of course, encryption gets hacked.
This should be considered a superficial introduction to the wonderful world of content protection.
I can explain more later.

 

What kind of access model (per person, per use, time limit, etc) and for how many people are you looking to impose access restrictions? Your requirements will determine the most effective/economical way to apply content protection. Any content protection can theoretically be broken, however your objective is to raise the cost of breaking it to be higher than its worth to the vast majority of users. If you're protecting the source code to Windows Vista, that could be worth several hundred $B, and you can count on an all out attack; if your info is worth $1000 to 100 people, the attack will be probably be very skimpy to non-existent.

 

RMX is right. Anything done digitally can be reproduced somehow. The only way to stop it would be through legal means. From what it sounds though you probably won't have to worry terribly much with people cracking encryption and spreading it around the internet. Not a whole many TR owners, and certainly not a whole many TR owners that are willing to do engine work at home.

 

One thing is, there are not a lot of people looking to do this (themselves) to their TR's *AND* of the mindset of thinking 'hey - I know a buddy of mine that has a DVD on how to do this - maybe I can copy his DVD !'.

Most folks that own a TR will either have a shop do it, or will pop $20-$99 for a DVD/Book set - IF it is truly complete and professionally done.
Have a money-back guarantee ? Most folks don't ask for their money back on anything, it's not worth the hassle for a low-budget item.

Bottom line is, you cannot stop it from being copied, and you don't have a big enough market to even worry about it.

 

dont laugh but you could ALWAYS try selling it on ebay. Ive seen people sell things like "how to reprogram your car radio if you are locked out".....so anything is possible....

 

More time now. For something that is very limited in production and distribution, you could do it. But, it wouldn't be worth it. Wanna know how?
First, each person that is to receive a copy has to sign a pretty powerful agreement, that is not much different in some ways than what many of you have seen in the form of NDA's. But, it would protect the content, not just from a copyright standpoint, but from a trade secret standpoint as well, with appropriate provisions for remedies~
Next, the copy is made available in a format that is not susceptible to easy copying by electronic means- nothing is foolproof but you can put up some barriers-
hidden watermarks are embedded as well, so that if a copy surfaces, it can be readily traced back to the source;

None of this is 'new'....

 

I like your entrepreneurial spirit, but think about how many 348s there are and your market is pretty small. Pretty much everyone here just posts up what they've got in a goodwill effort. That might be worth more than the few bucks you might make.

 

I could see where it would be well-worth it to buy it just to SEE if a guy can do it himself, the mechanic that thinks he's pretty good, but...... not sure if he wants to tackle this or not, it would definitely help him make that decision beforehand.

As far as copyrighting it goes, just do that on every page, so if the notes DO make it around, that maybe you can throw up some kind of an argument, but I still think your market is pretty small.

Question: have somebody try following your doc (on a TR in real life) to see if it's really good, and if they say it's awesome, I'd suggest writing a series for different models - starting with a 308, 328, 348, then 355 and so on.
You never know, you may be onto something here.

 

Easy enough to place some decryption code on the CD/DVD and require the use of a dongle which is serialized and registered. The CD/DVD could be vieved in another computer as long as the dongle is present...unless your code mapped the pc. You would end up with very unhappy customers...the system is perfect untill someone misplaces the dongle. I have sold software and figured my losses were minimal doing nothing to protect it.

 

Losing one's dongle is serious business.