Hi folks:

I ran into a strange situation yesterday. I was ordering a game (pdf format) from an online seller, but it turned out that I had to buy a copy on disk. Okay, bear with me. As I understand it, the seller is working with a dial-up connection, so he couldn't do an attachment in an e-mail.

Anyhow, I know that other ways exist to sell pdfs (like the Foge Bookshelf for example), but I don't know thing one about how a person sets up something like that. I was hoping that the more internet savvy amongst you could give me pointers which I could pass along. The seller in question sells games by small, independant minis game makers, so it does relate to the sorts of stuff that folks at this site do.

Thanks for any info!

Search Google on "ecommerce" and "download" and "shopping cart" and see if you can find a plug in for a web site that unlocks access to download for users after going through payment processing.

Conversely, you can try to manage it manually by having per-purchaser passwords that allow each buyer to reach a password-protected folder on the site (after you've received his or her payment, of course). Give a new buyer, say, 48 hours to download the PDF before deleting his or her access to the secure folder. That gives time to download (or re-download, if needed due to a dial-up glitch) without leaving your PDF sitting waiting for some lamer to post a user ID and password to download it (any given access is good for such a short time that it should mitigate piracy some).

But, in the end, there is nothing reasonable that you can do to really secure digital distribution. That's why folks are now looking at the Ransom Method for producing creative content. Search Google for more information.
David