Locklizard Training course copy protection software increases NetMasterClass revenue streams

Online training security for course copy protection

Date: November 12th 2008

“In recent years, education and training have increasingly been delivered by electronic means,” said Dr Trevor Mathews, Chairman of Locklizard.  “What started 20 years ago with television courses and VCR services has become much more sophisticated and much more packaged today.  Distance learning courses are now so advanced that in some cases a live instructor is no longer needed, and examinations to follow training can also be taken electronically.”

NetMasterClass, a leading Cisco Certified Learning Partner, has protected its Cisco training courses using the Locklizard DRM service in order to make them readily accessible and deliverable over the Internet, whilst remaining secure against intellectual property theft.  “We had previously had the unfortunate experience of seeing our training materials posted on public web sites, effectively giving away the work and expertise that we had used to create new and novel training techniques, and you cannot operate a training business in that kind of environment,” commented NetMasterClass.

“Now we are able to deliver on-demand, 24×7 training to customers globally when and where they want it.  And without having the underlying worries about what will happen to our proprietary materials.”

Whilst DRM has been seen as a negative addition in the music and video industries, DRM in the online training industry has been welcomed with open arms by many users.  The reasoning behind this is that when you are paying upwards of $1000 for a course, you do not want to see others bidding $5 for it on auction sites.

Using Locklizard Safeguard or Lock Lizard Protector, publishers of electronic training materials can protect their intellectual property published in the PDF or HTML formats.  Courses can be made available for a specific length of time or number of uses, and the number of prints can be limited or prevented altogether. Publishers can now price their courses according to the functionality enabled or limitations imposed, offering more attractive options to customers.   Better still, updates can be delivered instantly over the web without fear of them getting into the wrong hands.

“Looking forwards,” said Dr Mathews, “We can see that there will be a rapid and significant move towards complete electronic delivery of training, course materials, lectures and notes, without a physical instructor ever needing to be present.  The pressures that the current recession is bringing on the need to increase manpower effectiveness and reduce overall costs are going to accelerate the use of computer based training and education systems, always provided that the content can be adequately secured so that only those who have actually paid for the courses are those who benefit from them.

All of our publishers have noticed a significant increase in their bottom line and many have been amazed at the new revenue streams that have opened up, whilst at the same time benefiting from reduced costs in terms of overheads and distribution.  A win-win situation if ever I saw one.”