According to Marketing General, 51% of people join membership associations to learn about their industries’ best practices or access specialised information. As a result, the best way for membership organisations to provide value is through the production and curation of high-quality documentation and information.
Unfortunately, this is time-consuming, difficult, and fraught with risk. It’s not uncommon to see the countless resources an association has pumped into creating compelling content go to waste when a member shares it with the wider world. Members will start to wonder how much value they’re really getting when they see the same content they paid for floating around the web for free.
When it comes to prevention, however, there are some hard questions to answer. First and foremost is whether associations can reasonably expect to prevent unauthorised sharing in a digital medium, where there are few physical restrictions.
Many would tell you no, and this is because the password and invite-based systems that have become standard are ineffective. Though they do stop some unauthorised viewing, it’s far too easy for a member to download, screenshot, or copy and paste documents and share them with others. Web browsers are just too easy to manipulate using JavaScript editing or free add-ons.
Systems that rely on a password, whether that’s a PDF encrypted with Adobe Acrobat, a “secure” data room, a sharing portal, or a Facebook group, are inherently insecure. Though a password being hacked is also a risk, the bigger risk is somebody simply sharing the password with friends, co-workers, or strangers.
Thankfully, while the “go-to” options aren’t effective, it’s not a futile endeavor. You just need more dedicated software. And so we enter the world of Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM represents the controls by which you can prevent someone from copying, printing, editing, or otherwise making available your privileged information to other people. In other words, the right to control what the purchaser is entitled to do with it.
Membership associations and DRM document control
A document DRM solution offers membership associations fine-grained control over what users can and can’t do with their documents while ensuring that only authorised members can view your exclusive information. Here are a few features DRM solutions typically offer:
- A password-less experience: Passwords are replaced by a licensing system that transparently delivers decryption keys to only authorised users and locks those keys to their devices.
- Anti-sharing capabilities: A combination of several technologies eliminates the ability for members to copy and paste, edit, print, or otherwise duplicate documents. In addition, documents are locked to authorised devices with a license installed.
- Expiry controls: Document DRM systems can revoke documents at any point after their distribution. This allows membership organisations to expire all or specific documents after a subscription has expired or manually revoke users and documents if fraudulent credit card activity has been discovered.
- Usage tracking: Most systems allow you to optionally monitor the opens and prints of documents. This is key for membership organisations as it allows them to discern how much specific content is actually being referenced and adjust their content strategy accordingly.
- USB distribution: Associations that deliver print content via post can bundle in a USB stick that contains protected documents. This removes the requirement for members to ever connect to the internet or install software, yet maintains security.
- Membership management integration: Most DRM tools will integrate with existing member management software and portals via the direct upload of protected documents or an API.
The flexibility of DRM software makes it an excellent fit for membership associations not just because it makes management easier, but because it helps to maintain a profitable business. Effective protection allows associations to take full advantage of new markets via the internet without compromising the exclusivity of their content.
Locklizard protects your documents from being stolen, shared and misused. Protect, control, & analyse confidential, sensitive or revenue-generating documents on any device, in any location.
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