Using Song Protection, you can distribute your songs with a much greater level of security than other formats such as Midi files can provide.

A variety of protection features are available to prevent others from changing or using the content of your song file.

Applying Protection

Protection is applied during the Package Song process.  Each aspect of protection can be individually selected, so you can tailor the restrictiveness of the security you wish to impose.

Even in a fully protected song, playback is always possible (otherwise there would be no point to distribution!).

The master volume, tempo, and some track setup controls can always be adjusted to ensure satisfactory playback on the destination computer.  However, you can prevent these setup changes from being saved with the Prevent Resave option.

Most staff settings can always be changed to suit the preference of the recipient.  However, you can prevent these settings from being saved with the Prevent Resave option, and you can prevent your song being printed with thePrevent Printing option.

When a song is protected, it is also encrypted, to ensure that the protection cannot be circumvented.

Protected Songs

In a protected song, the song banner appears as shown.

The padlock icon on the left indicates protection, and the publisher icon on the right indicates a publisher link.

Most protection features disable a Songtrix operation which is normally available for editing, or producing output from a song.  It you try to invoke one of these operations in a protected song, you will instead get a message as shown.

Songs and Styles

Song and style files can both be protected, but you should be aware that protected styles are not as secure as protected songs.

Styles are inherently designed to lend their content to a client song by filling autostyle segments with virtual events.

When a style is protected, the file itself can be made secure, but you cannot prevent its events from being used in this way.  Indeed, what would be the point of the style if you could?

By contrast, the events of a fully protected song cannot be accessed for other use at all, either by copying, exporting or printing.

Protected songs cannot be converted to styles, to prevent this difference being used as loophole to extract their events.

Removing Protection

If you click on the padlock icon in the banner of a protected song, or use the Song-Protection command, you will open the Song Protection window, which displays the protection features that have been applied.

If permitted by the protection, a password can be entered here to unprotect the song.  This gives you the ability to distribute protected work, but allow selected recipients greater access to it.

Alternatively, you can prevent the song from being unprotected, to ensure maximum ongoing security.

Publisher Link

If you click on the publisher icon in the banner of a protected song, or use the Song-Publisher command, you will be taken to the ChordWizard Network in Network View to view the profile of the member who published the song.

If login is not possible for any reason, the publisher is displayed in a newly launched browser window instead.