Why Do You Let Members Download Your Paysite Content?

[srockhard]

Then complain that your videos and pics are being uploaded and shared all over the place? Is there anyone else that has disabled the abilities to download videos and photos from their paysites?

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by srockhard

Is there anyone else that has disabled the abilities to download videos and photos from their paysites?

Yes.

[iSpyCams]

Currently streaming only with mechbunny and 0 complaints

[mineistaken]

Don't you limit your customers base?
1. If I was a customer I would definitely want to watch it on my computer not live. No way I would pay for streaming only. What if I want to enjoy it at my cabin where is no internet etc? Or on my tablet outside my house/office where wifi is not fast enough and I do not want to pay premium for mobile internet. Just random examples.
2. Many people don't have fast enough internet to stream high quality video.
3. Not sure if its that difficult to pirate from the stream.

[rayadp05]

I have always given my members the ability to download the content in my members area, but I will never offer zip files. With all of the piracy going on these days, the last thing that I would want to do is give them the ability to mass download the sets, and considering that my members area has nearly 130,000 high resolution photos, as well as many HD videos, I would imagine that it would take someone a very long time (and a lot of clicking) to download everything that I have to offer.

But yeah, I am interested in seeing what other pay site operators have to say about allowing or not allowing their members that ability to save the content.

Interesting thread.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

Don't you limit your customers base?
1. If I was a customer I would definitely want to watch it on my computer not live. No way I would pay for streaming only. What if I want to enjoy it at my cabin where is no internet etc? Or on my tablet outside my house/office where wifi is not fast enough and I do not want to pay premium for mobile internet. Just random examples.
2. Many people don't have fast enough internet to stream high quality video.
3. Not sure if its that difficult to pirate from the stream.

Those are all myths. Much like the DRM. The only people that bitch about those things are the people who want to site rip all of your content and post it up on pirate forums. I have yet, in 15 years, to see loyal members bitch about any of these things in mass like is made out on the forums.

That being said, while there are 'some' who want to download their favorite clips, that is not the majority in my experience. I tracked this very things for a year a few years back. The pay site had 1000 plus scenes on it. Most members did not even watch all 1000 scenes. They found some favorites, and just watched them over and over. Additionally, less than 15% actually downloaded clips most appeared to prefer the stream for whatever reason.

While I am not saying everyone would see the same thing, I can speak from my own experience and tracking this for a year. We then took away downloads, and not a single complaint. If they wanted the download, and it was available, they would go pay $5-10.00 at the clips4sale store.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

Those are all myths. Much like the DRM. The only people that bitch about those things are the people who want to site rip all of your content and post it up on pirate forums.

Wow. I love you but, you've never been more wrong. The people that bitched about DRM were the gajillion people that had their access to the content they paid for fucked up by DRM.

This is why the music and movie industry dropped DRM. It is shit. It doesn't work. It punishes legit customers.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...BKSeyQPV3ICYCQ

Suggesting people that oppose DRM are pirates is as stupid as Bobby saying anyone that suggest he is pissing in the wind (which he unarguably is) is somehow involved in piracy.

That stupidity aside, ask yourself this. Are you providing a BETTER experience than someone would get from a pirate tube? If not, then rethink. If you want people to pay for your content, the experience has to be BETTER than piracy.

[sandman!]

i would never sign up to a site where i could not download the content

[Penny24Seven]

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

Those are all myths. Much like the DRM. The only people that bitch about those things are the people who want to site rip all of your content and post it up on pirate forums. I have yet, in 15 years, to see loyal members bitch about any of these things in mass like is made out on the forums.

That being said, while there are 'some' who want to download their favorite clips, that is not the majority in my experience. I tracked this very things for a year a few years back. The pay site had 1000 plus scenes on it. Most members did not even watch all 1000 scenes. They found some favorites, and just watched them over and over. Additionally, less than 15% actually downloaded clips most appeared to prefer the stream for whatever reason.

While I am not saying everyone would see the same thing, I can speak from my own experience and tracking this for a year. We then took away downloads, and not a single complaint. If they wanted the download, and it was available, they would go pay $5-10.00 at the clips4sale store.

really? where do you get this info? When I did the change I lost count on members who freaked out and at least 30 were members for over a year.
They were more then pissed off. I had to change back and make up some bullshit story to get them to join again by blaming the change on someone we hired to do something else LOL.

[Penny24Seven]

Originally Posted by DamianJ

That stupidity aside, ask yourself this. Are you providing a BETTER experience than someone would get from a pirate tube? If not, then rethink. If you want people to pay for your content, the experience has to be BETTER than piracy.

well that says it all right there.

[nexcom28]

As a member of several adult sites in various niches, the first thing I do after purchasing my 3 day pass is run HTTrack or teleport pro to rip the site contents.

I can then watch whenever I like. I would be pretty pissed if sites blocked me from doing this.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by DamianJ

Wow. I love you but, you've never been more wrong. The people that bitched about DRM were the gajillion people that had their access to the content they paid for fucked up by DRM.

I was using that as an example (DRM). I am indifferent on that technology. Love ya back.

Originally Posted by DamianJ

If you want people to pay for your content, the experience has to be BETTER than piracy.

It's hard to compete with free and 100,000+ scenes. I am simply saying, we have noticed the patterns as we wanted to see just how many were downloading versus streaming alone. We also tracked members to see if they were watching all 1000 scenes or not, and most never made it over 250-300 even if they were a member for months or a year. This led to us changing our business model.

That being said, I worry about myself and my business. How others choose to run theirs is up to them. What works for me may not work for you. We based how we do things on patterns we have observed and the lack of complaints showed us most people did not miss it. Those who did just went to the clip store as we can compare membership records with those who purchase clips. Either way, I made more money.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by nexcom28

As a member of several adult sites in various niches, the first thing I do after purchasing my 3 day pass is run HTTrack or teleport pro to rip the site contents. I can then watch whenever I like. I would be pretty pissed if sites blocked me from doing this.

When we allowed downloads, we throttled you anyway. So you were not going to be running any site rippers, we would just block you. If you throttled them to be sneaky, we put in a daily maximum per user. Normal members do not use paysite memberships in this way, and I do not care about losing those who do.

In short, I do not pander to those who buy a one month membership, suck down all of my content and then cancel. For those who try and do this, we have always tried to make it difficult to discourage these sort of users. For the rare occasion we would get someone bitching, we would refund them and send them on their way.

Again, this is how I choose to run my business. I do not pander to those one month site rip members.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by Brian837

really? where do you get this info? When I did the change I lost count on members who freaked out and at least 30 were members for over a year. They were more then pissed off. I had to change back and make up some bullshit story to get them to join again by blaming the change on someone we hired to do something else LOL.

Simple. You actually proactively run experiments to track members patterns and habits so you know if they are even downloading in the first place, and how many. How many videos they watching, etc, etc.. Honestly, if you are not bothering to track your members habits in an effort to build a better mousetrap, that is probably part of your problem right there.

[srockhard]

If a member to your paysite requests a hard disk by mail with all of the content of your site would you send it? FUCK NO! ....then why allow downloads? Why enable the pirating of your content and then complain that it is being played illegally on tubes? You are the owner of the content and you control what happens on your site (hopefully) so just button it up and save yourself some heartache.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by srockhard

If a member to your paysite requests a hard disk by mail with all of the content of your site would you send it? FUCK NO! ....then why allow downloads? Why enable the pirating of your content and then complain that it is being played illegally on tubes? You are the owner of the content and you control what happens on your site (hopefully) so just button it up and save yourself some heartache.

Exactly.

People used to tell me I was crazy to have high quality, large video files at the time I started my first pay sites saying NO ONE would download them as they were too big. Of course, they were wrong. When I used Dvix to encode videos, I was told by people on the forums this was stupid and you would lose members because of the specialized codec, again, this was wrong. When I choose to not make 5-10 versions of every single clip on my site (different sizes, quicktime, wmv, avi, etc.) people said you would lose members and people bitch. Again this was wrong.

Almost everything I was ever told on anything along these lines I have done has been wrong or I should better say, it did not impact my members nor membership. Out of those few who did contact me to complain, you just told them to get a different player, or download the codec, and they were happy as a clam and remained a member just like any other when you had gotten them over the hump.

My point is, you run your business how you see fit. For me, I have opted to not allow downloads on most of our new content on the pay sites. We are working to add in username/ip on the player in case they try and rip a video, it will ID who that person was. If they would like to pay $5-10.00 per clip to get the older stuff off of clips4sale stores, have at it. You're paying a premium for that.

This business model works for me. It may not work for others. It's your business to run how you see fit.

[srockhard]

Doesn't it make you cringe when you see the same subscriber signup for 3-4 days every 3-4 months? You know what he is doing right? He is either 1)Signing up to download all your great new content that he saves for private use or 2)Signing up to download all your content that he shares either for free or at his own premium price. We hope for best case scenario #1 here and even then why are you giving this luxury? If you provided streaming only then he would rely on having access to your site at all times in order to watch the content that he has paid to view...and don't give me that BS about slow internet connections that can't stream HD videos LOL seriously? Those people likely aren't your audience anyway so why even say that?

[mineistaken]

Originally Posted by sandman!

i would never sign up to a site where i could not download the content

Same. And on top of what I said I forgot one more important thing - you (non pirate regular surfer) want to be able to watch favorite videos even after your membership expires.

[Jel]

people leave netflix in droves because they can only watch as much as they like, as often as they like, while members, and can't download to watch whenever they feel like it.

oh, wait...

[srockhard]

Originally Posted by Jel

people leave netflix in droves because they can only watch as much as they like, as often as they like, while members, and can't download to watch whenever they feel like it.

oh, wait...

Exactly!

[mineistaken]

Originally Posted by Jel

people leave netflix in droves because they can only watch as much as they like, as often as they like, while members, and can't download to watch whenever they feel like it.

oh, wait...

And compare it to parallel universe where netflix allows to download. Nobody is saying that everybody would leave, but here is decent percentage who would not join streaming only, but would join streaming + download.

But most importantly netflix and porn are two different things. Most people watch netflix shows once and most people like to watch favorite porn scenes over and over.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by Jel

people leave netflix in droves because they can only watch as much as they like, as often as they like, while members, and can't download to watch whenever they feel like it.

oh, wait...

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

And compare it to parallel universe where netflix allows to download. Nobody is saying that everybody would leave, but here is decent percentage who would not join streaming only, but would join streaming + download.

You are not going to satisfy everyone all of the time.

You have to decide how you want to run your business. If losing a few members keeps you up and night, than by all means make it as easy as humanly possible for them to rip your entire members area, and give it all away for free. If you want to remain in business, produce original content, then you need to balance out the risk versus the reward.

[iSpyCams]

Yep one positive thing about tubes, is that it definitely has people geared to streaming. People these days just seem to accept that when they are offline, entertainment is not going to be the same. Youtube, Netflix, Pandora, etc. why not porn?

[Jel]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

And compare it to parallel universe where netflix allows to download. Nobody is saying that everybody would leave, but here is decent percentage who would not join streaming only, but would join streaming + download.

But most importantly netflix and porn are two different things. Most people watch netflix shows once and most people like to watch favorite porn scenes over and over.

no, I'll compare it to if there were 2 of the exact same netflix, showing the exact same shows/movies, and 1 was streaming + download - but there isn't the porn equivalent, so if there was:

netflix #1 with the shows and movies I really wanted to watch, streaming only

vs

netflix #2 without the shows and movies I really wanted to watch, streaming + download

guess which one I wouldn't NOT join just because it was streaming only?

anyway the point is moot - if customers want a specific show(s), join a site, the shows are there and easily viewable in streaming, I'd guesstimate only a few would leave/cancel, never to return. Also, I don't live in a parallel universe, and nor does my income.

[venus]

This summer will be 17 yrs for my site, about 5 yrs ago we blocked downloads and it did not stop the people who want to pirate and repost. Anything on your screen you can capture and save, videos, photos...they still posted the images/videos... they were not high quality, just screen caps, but that did not stop them. So instead of having so many people complain about not being able to download, we let them do it again. We also use htaccess to block known site sukers.

[Femjoy Michael]

Originally Posted by srockhard

Then complain that your videos and pics are being uploaded and shared all over the place? Is there anyone else that has disabled the abilities to download videos and photos from their paysites?

Great thread op. Lots of insightful comments.
Barefootsies has it right: you must observe your member behavior. Disabling downloads will work for some, and will not work for others.

Our experience at Femjoy.com and Joymii.com
- members DOWNLOAD A LOT
- any disruption in DOWNLOADS was a great pain to members
- we recently re-encoded our DOWNLOADS at joymii and reduced the options. Nobody complained
- streaming has added value because users could watch on mobile devices
- "click here to download" has been a very successful call-to-action for conversions

Joymii is geared towards a cinematic experience with high-quality video so it makes sense people want to download and enjoy in the highest quality possible. Your content may be different.

My experience as a webmaster of a tube:
- "click here to download" was the single best call-to-action for conversions across desktop and mobile
- people pay for premium tube memberships so they can have the ability to download the video, even though they could get a browser plugin that does the same thing (although those are harder to find nowadays)
- one of the most successful adult iOS and android "app" is marketed as a way to "download" videos from adult tube sites.

So I think "download" is a trigger for users willing to pay for this convenience.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by Femjoy Michael

Great thread op. Lots of insightful comments.

Barefootsies has it right: you must observe your member behavior. Disabling downloads will work for some, and will not work for others.

Exactly right.

I am not saying my way is the ONLY way. I am saying for me, this is what I am comfortable with after doing some research. We wanted to see how much of the 1000 videos people were actually watching and if this was giving away too much for $29.95 or whatever the price point was at that time. After seeing that most barely watched 30% of the videos, and the vast majority preferred to steam versus download and watch the same scenes over and over, we changed up our business model.

With mainstream porn, it could be something completely different in the mentality of the user. As I said, if someone complained we would just refund them. However, we made it as difficult as possible for anyone who thought they were going to buy a one month membership, site rip our whole website, and then either cancel or chargeback. This tends to frustrate those folk to the point they just give up. As before, a standard porn patron I prefer to cater too does not exhibit this sort of behavior trying to download everything with site rippers, etc..

Even if it were 1 in 50 or 1 in 10 who complain about it, I would not change because of that. It would have to be closer to 50% for me to go back to a standard wide open website where they can take tens of thousands of dollars in content for $29.95.

[mineistaken]

Originally Posted by Jel

no, I'll compare it to if there were 2 of the exact same netflix, showing the exact same shows/movies, and 1 was streaming + download - but there isn't the porn equivalent, so if there was:

netflix #1 with the shows and movies I really wanted to watch, streaming only

vs

netflix #2 without the shows and movies I really wanted to watch, streaming + download

guess which one I wouldn't NOT join just because it was streaming only?

Thats correct. Just one thing - in this thread's case we are speaking about same paysite deciding to cut download section.
So it's:
a) same paysite with streaming and download
b) same paysite with only streaming and download gone

You already have at least 2 people in this thread who said they would definitely not join the paysite without download option. That is pretty common opinion, I would guess at the very least 10% of members would be like that.

One more note - what you say may be valid for unique/exclusive sites where people would not have alternatives, so they should continue being members (although even in this case I am more than sure some percentage of them would stop).
But for regular/general pornsites that would be bad because there would be other alternatives. Not to mention free tubes that stream videos as well..

[mineistaken]

By the way all the netflix's shows end up on torrents and everywhere else so it does not stop piracy, maybe makes it harder..
If it would stop from your content being stolen than that be well worth it, I agree. Because even if you lose some members due to "no download" thing you would gain even more - those that could not get your content from pirates.
But this would not be the case because your content would still be pirated from streams...

[AmeliaG]

I don't think most members care at all.

But most of the review sites ding membership sites hard for not providing zips and downloads.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

You already have at least 2 people in this thread who said they would definitely not join the paysite without download option. That is pretty common opinion, I would guess at the very least 10% of members would be like that.

You do not judge what members/surfers do according to what a webmaster or industry vet would do. They are completely different behaviors and to plan your business according to this philosophy is fodder.

Would you lost some surfers? Maybe. However, just because a bunch of tech savy webmasters claim it's so, does not make it absolute nor is it an indication of what the greater world does. I learned this long ago, and it's been reinforced a thousand times over.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by AmeliaG

I don't think most members care at all.

Correct. If you have the content they want that gets them off, they do not give a shit.

Originally Posted by AmeliaG

But most of the review sites ding membership sites hard for not providing zips and downloads.

Again, that is a webmaster point of view. Not one of the true mass customer we cater too.

[srockhard]

Originally Posted by AmeliaG

I don't think most members care at all.

But most of the review sites ding membership sites hard for not providing zips and downloads.

But also most of the review site owners are good guys that are reading through this very thread (hi rabbit ) and surely they'd like paysites as we know them to continue putting up more good adult sites one would assume.

[The Porn Nerd]

My feeling on this - and I can speak from running 32+ paysites, with thousands of videos in the various Members Areas - I offer downloads because I want my Members taking their time to enjoy the scenes. Everyone (and everything) moves so fast these days, click click click!! If it takes them awhile to download a scene or three then they will stick around for longer than a day (theoretically lol).

But another reason is bandwidth with streaming. Piracy? Yes it concerns me but guess what? A Pirate is gonna know how to rip a streaming vid ANYway so fuck it. I do what I can DMCA-wise.

[srockhard]

Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd

Piracy? Yes it concerns me but guess what? A Pirate is gonna know how to rip a streaming vid ANYway so fuck it. I do what I can DMCA-wise.

Just pretend that 100 of your members just randomly download 3-4 of your videos throughout their membership. They cancel. And someday they decide to upload the file to a tube site. On another hand you have 5 guys that rip your entire site with all 50 videos and start selling/sharing everywhere.

If you enable downloads you are setting up your site to fall victim to both of these unfortunate situations. If you only allow streaming and put forth efforts to discourage downloading of your content then you will likely only get fucked by the true pirate because I don't think all those members are trying to steal your content even though they still do it without blinking an eye and by going with scenario #1 you could protect your content up to 50% better ....don't say "fuck it" because that is why this shit keeps getting worse. Make changes!

[fuzebox]

A lot of members are "collectors". A lot want to download all their favorite scenes and cancel. You'll piss those guys off.

I ran my paysites for 5 years streaming-only. I get complaints, but I estimate the amount of complaining members is at or below 1% of my total signups. On top of that, I've only ever issued a handful of refunds for it. I've also never seen one my scenes on a tube or torrent site. Could be that I'm too small for anyone to have ever bothered, but I'd like to think that eliminating all content downloads helped in a small way.

That being said, on my new network I am going to experiment with allowing downloads but throttling the amount of files per day. Some of these niches people really like to collect, and they pay and come back for it.

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by srockhard

Doesn't it make you cringe when you see the same subscriber signup for 3-4 days every 3-4 months?

Multiple signups from the same member? Doesn't make me cringe, makes me smile at that CPA.

[bluebook18]

Originally Posted by sandman!

i would never sign up to a site where i could not download the content

same here

[INever]

Lately I get the feeling I am just a rat in a maze designed by Google…..

[rsc]

You can't really compare netflix streaming vs pornsites streaming.

Netflix content is really a one time watch - or a season of something and its watched in its entirety from begining to end which makes streaming a perfect choice.
Its also a living room event often with a family so theres no waiting about for big downloads

Porn on the other hand is a solo event and tends to get skipped through, rewound etc to the viewers favorite part and no matter how good your streaming set up is, those with slower connections will struggle with that which kinda kills the mood dont ya think?

The collectors thing fuzebox mentions is also a massive plus point for the die hards and many have things very well organized on the PCs and filed neatly.

Having both is the obvious choice to keep both sides happy. Download only is less good for mobile and tablet users as Apple devices are stuck with factory storage and devices could get filled up very quickly yet the users favorite movies can be stored onto mobile devices for a later viewing when there is no internet.
Streaming for mobile devices is certainly the way forward and while they are becoming more popular by the day, there are still huge numbers of desktops out there.

As for piracy, anyone who downloads it to then upload to torrents will have the know-how to save files from streaming however protective you make it.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by fuzebox

A lot of members are "collectors". A lot want to download all their favorite scenes and cancel. You'll piss those guys off.

True. However, my first priority is to myself and my business. Not to the collector.

Originally Posted by fuzebox

I ran my paysites for 5 years streaming-only. I get complaints, but I estimate the amount of complaining members is at or below 1% of my total signups. On top of that, I've only ever issued a handful of refunds for it.

Right. There is not any mass hysteria, it's a few people or a small percentage who complain and they either adapt or your refund them and let them be on their way. While I can understand both sides of this argument, my first priority is to do whats best for me as a business owner.

Originally Posted by fuzebox

I've also never seen one my scenes on a tube or torrent site. Could be that I'm too small for anyone to have ever bothered, but I'd like to think that eliminating all content downloads helped in a small way.

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by rsc

As for piracy, anyone who downloads it to then upload to torrents will have the know-how to save files from streaming however protective you make it.

You are not going to stop everybody. An online porn site is no different from your house. No matter how safe you think you are, a thief could still break in if he so chooses and they are willing to take that risk and spend the time doing so.

Using this argument that you can't stop everyone so do not even bother trying it asinine to say the least.

[Tdash]

I wouldn't mind stream-only paysites charging $8-10 per month. Anything higher than that =

[Shap]

It's 2014. You have to give the customers what they want. You have to enhance their experience not limit it. You have to think bigger not smaller.

[NewNick]

The answer is very simple - test it.

See if it works for your site.

Run 50/50 until you see a pattern of sales and rebills, check your costs and the piracy implications and make your decision.

Whatever you do don't make your decision based on a gfy thread.

[Romainz]

Originally Posted by Shap

It's 2014. You have to give the customers what they want. You have to enhance their experience not limit it. You have to think bigger not smaller.

Look at the behavior of most customers, they see a scene they like they'll def be looking on tubes to find it first. Then if they dont find it some will be ending at looking for something else or you just got a new customer. Simple as that i really dont get you people trying to defend the *free full* content lol, you get your own uniques stuff make sure you keep your own unique stuffs. Wont you have more loyal customers at the end of the day knowing your the only one who can offer what they wanna watch ? My

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by NewNick

The answer is very simple - test it.

See if it works for your site.

Originally Posted by Romainz

i really dont get you people trying to defend the *free full* content lol, you get your own uniques stuff make sure you keep your own unique stuffs. Wont you have more loyal customers at the end of the day knowing your the only one who can offer what they wanna watch ? My

[Shap]

Originally Posted by Romainz

Look at the behavior of most customers, they see a scene they like they'll def be looking on tubes to find it first. Then if they dont find it some will be ending at looking for something else or you just got a new customer. Simple as that i really dont get you people trying to defend the *free full* content lol, you get your own uniques stuff make sure you keep your own unique stuffs. Wont you have more loyal customers at the end of the day knowing your the only one who can offer what they wanna watch ? My

I believe you don't understand the mentality difference between paying members and non paying.

have you ever joined a site because you loved it and wanted to be a member?

Have you run both free and paysites?

[k0nr4d]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

Don't you limit your customers base?
1. If I was a customer I would definitely want to watch it on my computer not live. No way I would pay for streaming only. What if I want to enjoy it at my cabin where is no internet etc? Or on my tablet outside my house/office where wifi is not fast enough and I do not want to pay premium for mobile internet. Just random examples.
2. Many people don't have fast enough internet to stream high quality video.
3. Not sure if its that difficult to pirate from the stream.

If you are masturbating to a 4 inch screen while sitting on the toilet, you need to take a step back and a good long look at your life. No one has THAT little time that they should need to do that.