Can't copy text from a pdf file

"The pdf file has probably been locked against copying text. Below are two ways to unlock it:

If the pdf has not been locked against printing, you can print it to a virtual pdf printer to create an unlocked file. See this: ""Remove Password and Unlock Protected PDF Which Allowed To Be Printed Without Knowing Secret"".
If the print function has been locked out, see this : ""Remove Restrictions and Decrypt Password Protected PDF Files With PDF Unlocker""."

"I was able to create a DRM-free version of your PDF file using Ghostscript (which is available for Windows).

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=stripped.pdf VassilakisP2001Dissertation.pdf

The resulting file stripped.pdf can be loaded in Adobe Reader, and Reader will happily allow you to copy any part of it you wish. It also preserves most of the formatting of the table."

"You can use GT Text
is a program that translate images
(also pdf snapshots = image)
to text.
You can select the area and copies it to clipboard
It is free

The official home page is
http://gttext.googlecode.com"

"This managed to convert basic text. It stuggled with tables though.

http://www.onlineocr.net/documents"

"If you're just looking for short snippets, you can often type a few words into google inside quote marks and find the exact quote already scanned in some other format or typed by someone else.

Another option is ""Document from Photo"" in the Google Docs Android app, which will put the text through OCR. This is error-prone, of course.

I wish PDF locking functionality never existed. :("