Jack,
IPC distributes their documents through IHS. There is DRM on the IHS documents.
Instead of sending a printed copy upon request to an IPC member when a document is released, IPC is now enabling a one-time print of the document and a single computer use via IHS. I raised the issue at APEX of what happens when the member gets a computer refresh. They can no longer read the IPC document and storing a printed copy in a binder is cumbersome.
“Beginning March 1, IPC member representatives who request their free copies of new standards will receive them in electronic single-user format. These copies will come from IPC distributor IHS and will include digital rights management. Users will be able to print one copy. The electronic copy will be locked to the computer on which it is opened.” – from IPC Review March/April 2009, “IPC Goes Green”
I raised this issue at the CCC meeting in April during APEX. There needs to be a better method than locking it to a computer to protect IPC’s rights and allow a user to access the documents their company or they bought.
In the olden days, businesses had rooms with the hard copies of the standards. It was checked out by many employees and depending on demand the business may buy a few copies of the same standard. Now there needs to be a copy for a computer and that computer needs to never be upgraded and accessible by many folks in the corporation.
Going green is good for the environment but hard copy books could be used for many years even as the technology advanced. If you were lucky enough to get a personal copy of a standard, you could put notes in the margin and read them and the text together not have a comment pop up and hide the text for which it was written. I know you can make comments in pdf documents if you have the right version of software and the document allows you to do it and save the document. I haven’t tried to do that with IPC documents but some of the DRM documents I have do not allow me to do anything but read them.
I am getting off my soapbox now and going back to work,
-------------
Karen McConnell
LM EPI Center
Senior Member Engineering Staff - Electrical/PWB
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 856-792-9417
Fax: 856-792-9455
From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jack Olson
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC] IPC security scheme for PDFs
I have to apologoze for publicly showing my ignorance.
To set the record straight, if you buy a publication from IPC
you are accepting a license agreement, but you can use iton any one computer (and you can make a backup copy,
too).
If you buy it from ANSI, however, (which my company did)
it comes with some kind of code that enables it on that one
computer, and if you switch computers it won't open
(but worse than that, it doesn't give you any clue why it won't
open, no message or anything, so you wonder if it's been
corrupted or something). Once you realize what the problem
is (if ever), you just call them and get a link to download it
again.
So my problem was with ANSI, not with IPC.
onward thru the fog,
Jack
.
On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Jack Olson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I recently bought a new publication from IPC and
chose the computer version rather than hardcopy.
Now I have a NEW computer, and I can't open it anymore.
(which is how it is supposed to work, only one computer)
but how do I regain access to it?
Is this published somewhere?
onward thru the fog,
Jack (the "wish I woulda waited two more weeks" guy)