PAY SITE Owners - Need your suggestions
 

1) if you're allowing your members to download the video to their computer - how do you protect those videos from getting copied to multiple computers ?

what's the latest DRM methodology that is used ?

2) for pay site owners - how do you restrict the access to the one who purchased it ? Do you use any specific narrowed down approach to provide access to the ONLY one who purchased your membership ?? how to stop him from providing his login credentials to couple of people?

What methods do the popular websites use?

Can't help with question 1. Personally I just stream, but it's trivial to download streaming media. I have seen sites such as salierixxx.com that use an encrypted rtmp stream which cannot be downloaded with a simple browser flash downloader plugin, but it still isn't safe from users recording the stream while it plays. (there may be other ways to hijack it but they are not simple or readily available if indeed they exist) On the other hand I found the streaming quality on that site to be terrible, most likely because of their encryption, with a 300mb cable internet connection I could not get smooth playback in HD and cancelled my membership because of that, even though I love Salieri. So it seems to be a choice between pissing off your users and having your shit stolen.

Personally I try to push an interactive experience with live camgirls and content produced by and featuring them, so the user can talk to the model live if he likes her content. I won't say it's easy or even that it works at all, usually by the time I get content together the camgirl is tired of camming and moves on, but it pays the bills and live interaction is not pirate-able.

For your second question a lot of people use strongbox if they are that worried about it, personally I am just happy to see the memberships rebill and don't stress over who the user is or are. Paying memberships are not easy to get or keep so I try to fuck with them as little as possible.

I agree with pompousjohn. We stream only, although we know downloading is possible for the few that are tech savvy. As for the second question we monitor stolen password sites and take the users out if we find their passwords are public. Sometimes it's their fault sometimes not. We keep an eye on sales and retention and if it back slides we look for reasons why.

less than 0.1% use wireshark... methods may posted on private/public forums.

thanks guys.

One of our clients had these questions.. I tried to explain her the best way to go about and she didn't agree.. so had to create a thread and show what people out there think.. ( mainly other pay site owners. )

Please keep your thoughts posted here.

Question 1: ANY video can be downloaded and thus pirated. So it really doesn't matter if you stream or allow downloads. The only metric I care about is which way helps with rebills (more $). With my specific business model I personally find letting Members download the videos = stronger rebills. That's just me. (We also have feeds that stream-only so really it's a mix of the two.) But it ties into...

Question 2: I use ProxyPass for both password management and security. With ProxyPass there's a single signon which is helpful if Members have access to multiple sites in your network. But the big advantage is it will block Members who use too many IPs to login (sharing their password or using a proxy) and if a Member downloads too much in a single day (20gig, which you can adjust to your needs). Anything over that they must wait until the next day. ProxyPass is also cheaper than Strongbox if you run multiple sites as I do.

Hope that helps. Best of luck.

Indeed, use proxypass on your websites:
mod_proxy - Apache HTTP Server Version 2.2

it would be awesome if there was a system where, when a user downloaded paysite videos, his username was inserted into the video as a watermark in random frames. would take some pretty fast transcoding, unless it was a format that allowed to insert a watermark on a single frame rather than try to render it to the entire video. The user might never know, but every time a video ended up on the internet you'd know who to ban.

we both stream & have unlimited download from our movies. With over 600 vids, all are exclusive. So if we see them anywhere, then we have dmca, take down. Most tubes are good these days. Of course, there's no stopping the customer handing the download to friends, but then this happens with dvd or any other movies these days.

Content is king, keep shooting new scenes, make them different & higher quality all the time & people come back :thumbsup

Definitely allow and don't restrict members from downloading what they want. Strong Box is good but I personally prefer Phantom Frog.

I have ran paysites for countless years, worked at ModelCentro, a platform for paysites so we see alot of user comments/complaints. I have also tested both ways. And people want downloads and will not stay signed up if they dont get them. They pay enough to get the content to download, simple as that, you can only stream so high of quality as well.

This is the rule, you never cater to the smaller percent. You never cater to the people ripping you off.

The percent of buyers out there is miniscule, youre dreaming if you think you can change that to be a ton more, you need to treat buyers well. You do not want to take downloads off the table because some people who wouldn't be signing up are torrenting your stuff. Especially when downloading is the norm. You give less, you get less. How you deal with free content is by giving more and working twice as hard. Not pulling back and giving less and investing less. Thats how you spiral much quicker

To answer your question. Dont bother dealing with piracy, send dmcas where you can, if youre paying for people to do it for you, its probably not worth it. Focus on your product. Your lack of sales is probably due to your content and the way you do things. Not because of piracy. If youre so big that youre being pirated a ton, its probably because youre huge. You aren't going to be downloaded by everybody if youre small. Like most of the industry, you accept that when youre that big, people will be looking to get your stuff cheaper. but by then, you will be big

Remove the infringers from google, send the occasional dmca if you want. Dont waste too much time. If theyre on that site, theyre not buyers. Removing from google helps the most

I wasted alot of time doing it and it took me a long time to realize my time was wasted and was better spent on bettering my products

Wisdom. :2 cents:

If you're worrying about what everyone else is doing (including with your content), then you're not worrying about how to make more money or improve your product.

It's no coincidence that a lot of the companies who spent countless man hours worrying about piracy rather than improving their product, user experience, etc., no longer exist.

If a member is paying for it, give them a streaming and download option. If you're that worried about piracy, don't put it online as it will happen at some point.

A bit of new information: NATS can now be used as an OpenID Connect server.

This can function as the authentication mechanism for your members area. To use this, you will need an OpenID Connect client in your members area. We recommend the mod_auth_opendic apache module for this. You can find more info in our wiki:

Open ID Connect

Mod auth openidc

Most (like nearly all) legit users who download have absolutely zero plans to share your content with others.

Rather than locking your content with DRM or only having streaming methods, focus more on making sure people with stolen credit cards and other suspicious warning signs don't sign up (easier than it sounds to enforce this) and continuously monitor user activity and take action against the small percentage of legit users who try to download way too much.

In our experience, 95+% of users don't even access 50GB a month and amongst the >4% that do access more, only a fraction of that percent enters 'cutting losses by terminating their subscription' territory.

Do folks in this thread tend to use the Proxigence ProxyPass solution and find it works for them?

Ding, ding ding... it isn't just you. We tried doing just streaming for several years (waaaay back) and it hurt the rebills (and trial conversions) of sites that did not have downloads. We also tried doing downloads for first few weeks of release and still, members did not agree. We then allowed streams and buried the downloads below. Members were happier and reviews got better. We also tracked what they were clicking on throughout these phases and we found that it was a very small segment that was actually downloading anything. It was just the illusion that they couldn't "own" the videos they paid for also the review sites were negatively impacting opinion.

I use ProxyPass from Proxigence for all my paysites and have for years now. It really does help with cutting down on Members mass-downloading and sharing (tho it does upset some Members who use proxies as they get blocked after a few attempts). Well worth it tho!

Bit of an update since this thread is an older one: Members can now both download and/or stream the exclusive content from each paysite in the Network. But for the "Bonus" content - the daily updated and rotated non-exclusive 'generic' clips only used for Members Areas and not promotion - it's stream-only.

We have monthly and yearly Members and it's always the non-recurring one-time Members who try and download the most. We throttle them like crazy tho. LOL

This here is super important.

One of those 'inconvenient by design' features that other paysites owners should take note of.

this is existing.
a few weeks ago there was even a thread about it here - just can´t find it anymore.

Not sure about downloads but there are companies (samples below) that offer forensic watermarking - which can't be removed. So, in case the video is pirated, the watermark can be extracted and the uploader identified, though the solution is quite costly.

https://pallycon.com/forensic-watermarking/
https://www.contentarmor.net/solutio...g-premium-vod/

I bet the sole fact that a user can be identified and disclosed with all consequences for him, is probably enough to deter them from pirating the scenes. :2 cents:

There are video platforms that offer encryption, watermarking and other tools but those watermarks are probably just video overlays that can be eliminated by experienced thieves.

Example:

https://www.muvi.com/video-on-demand-vod.html
https://help.muvi.com/help/player/ad...to-videos.html

Downloads (if offered) are probably not watermarked, though this service is still interesting.

:winkwink:

You've been holding that in for 2 years?

.

You mean 6 ...

Spot on word for word!
My experience tells me the exact same thing. Improve the product, test what rebills, let them download and basically dont let the freeloaders frustrate you or allow them to eat into the time you spend finding paying customers and retaining them

Well, I was going by the last post before you, not the one you actually replied to.

But if you want to be exact, then yeah, you've been holding that in for 6 years?

;p

.

Nice dead thread bump, I have done this with my developer since before this thread was first opened, in 2015 (Developed in 2012 originally) - I have a dedicated server (600-800$/month) that only renders videos after a user has requested it, and inserts a watermark that they will never be able to see or know about. Long story short - it's no longer worth it. I have kept my mouth shut about using these kinds of techniques and always have pirates identified every time they signup.

By the way - the moment you ban some account that is sharing the content, they will signup again immediately with another carded account and a new ip. Good luck. :thumbsup

Thanks for your input to this dead thread... :winkwink:

I've had some good reviews from customers about https://autograph.xvid.com/

Seems they don't allow porn. :Oh crap

https://autograph.xvid.com/tos/

WE tried everything BUT pirates always defeated the system,. We now have excellent DMCA take down service. In my view the only way to go :thumbsup

Don't use DRM, your members will hate you for it, especially for mobile, which is likely going to account for about 85% of your traffic or more. There are watermarking solutions that can embed member info in the files on the fly, but like everything else tailored to adult, it's ridiculously expensive and way out of most peoples' budget.

We have a site that doesn't allow downloads, and we handle streaming through vzaar (which is now dacast), but we still have a major piracy problem because they can screen record. No level of content protection is any more effective than the 1 person out there who can circumvent it.

Your best bet when it comes to the video files is to accept the fact you will be pirated, and do what you can to mitigate it (see below). Pirates WILL steal your content, and you won't be able to stop them. You also have to keep in mind the actual cost of dealing with piracy measures, in which we've spent 100's of thousands over the years, and weigh whether or not focusing on piracy is cost-effective. Hint: It's not. People who are visiting these piracy sites aren't going to pay for your site.

For access management, we use a 2fa service called Login3 https://login3.modthree.io/ that works far better than other solutions, such as Password Sentry (which we used for years prior to Login3).

Outside of restricting access as much as possible, you need to target search engines for DMCA. If they can't rank, they can't maximize on their file locker pennies, and eventually, they'll move on to softer targets. Well, most of them will.

Does it affect rebills a lot?

We allow users to stream and download. It helps with rebills.
To protect members areas we use a custom script which it's pretty secure.

Hope it helps :)

Not at all. The site also updates daily and has many things implemented to keep members engaged on the site, so it balances out.

:thumbsup

I believe that if the content is unique and the price is set accordingly people won't mind streaming.

Do you use floating watermarks with user info to further protect the videos?

Like here:

https://www.safestream.com/demo

I don't do that because I find the user info part too 'Big Brother' and creepy for me. I would cancel any site that threatened me like that assuming I was a criminal or pirate.

I know that's not the intent but that would be my paranoid reaction. LOL

The price for this particular site of ours is actually quite a bit higher than the standard subscription price, but, we're able to charge what we charge due to the exclusivity of the content and the update schedule.

Yep we use Proxypass and Link Sentinel (both from Proxigence). We also use their single sign on module PSSO which is handy if you want to have a single login to multiple members areas

As for downloads, i think you have to offer downloads these days but dont use DRM. The most you can do is watermark your videos with your URL using something like FFMPeg

Has anybody looked at the stats of how many users download vs streaming ??

Its something i plan to setup on our network but just not got round to it yet. Easy to do though.

Im guessing there's a lot of users that wouldnt want to download (eg mobile users or guys that just dont want the wife to find their porn stash)

For my various sites it's around 60/40 streaming vs downloading. But this can be tied to (I assume) the use of smart phones and tablets. Desktop and laptop users tend to download and save while the mobile users stream. That's the basic breakdown for my Members.