Do not share original PDFs - use viewer

I’d be very happy to see an option where a publicly shared paper cannot be downloaded but only viewed in a viewer.

Currently, shared folders allow downloading of all attached files as original PDFs.

Google Drive has a lovely option where even if a PDF file is made public, it can be set to “view only”, whereby it will only display in the Google Drive viewer without the download option.

I wonder whether Paperfile would be able to introduce such an option. I think it could even be enabled by default.

Also, if such option is introduced, it would be good to be able to set permissions both globally and individually.

What would be the use case? Why would you allow somebody to view a PDF but not download it?

That’s how I use my collection. I have a library of 3000+ papers on a specific topics and want to share it (through a password-protected page on my Wordpress installation) with selected people whom often I don’t know personally (they are people affected by a specific medical condition, or sometimes researchers without full access to medical literature). I don’t really want them to download and then distribute the papers outside my control, esp. that papers often have the downloader’s/subscriber’s name (i.e., mine) stamped on the pdf by the publisher.

I can imagine other similar uses - a need to share the text while preventing further sharing.

I wrote “I”, but it should be “we” - I am speaking on behalf of a patient organisation.