Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Webmaster Discussion
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#1

ok, so I have the crazy idea, but maybe it is not so crazy. If you do not have DRM then there are crazy members out there whose goal is to download all your content for either their own personal use or to illegally post on tube sites. This is how it goes:

There are jerk out there trying to steal all content for a trail offer of $3.95, stay up all night on cocaine or crystal meth downloading all your content then cancelling before the recurring membership kicks in and then spread your content for free all over the web!

What do you all think? It gives me a good reason to keep DRM!

#2

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Yes it is true. Most of them fly to work in black helicopters. But if you wear a tin foil hat they have a much harder time executing their diabolical plots.

I have one thing to say about this and then I am gonna shut up on the topic. If YOU want to keep DRM on your content and everything in your soul is telling you it is the right thing to do then do it. You have heard the arguments for and against ad nauseum. You do not need anyone’s permission to keep or drop it. You have heard from sponsors large and small as well as from affiliates that really do have gold bricks in their yards like in the affiliate promo areas and those that couldn’t buy a 12 month subscription to Time magazine.

You have to decide.

#3

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Since you’ve started at least two similar threads, you better keep up the DRM protection. No matter what others say, you’ll keep being suspicious (and probably will be forever). I am not blaming you for that, but it tells me that you really don’t want to drop DRM, which you shouldn’t if that’s how you feel.

#4

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Yes, I agree here. Collin, you’re a noob and far too volatile at the moment to allow surfers a free-for-all in your member’s area.

You have been on one side of the business for a long time, and now, you’re starting to see other sides of gay porn. So why not keep the DRM and protect your content while you learn about running your own site. It would be a shame, in a year’s time, to look back and say, “Gee, I wish I hadn’t done that.”

Collin, you seem to be in panic to make “it” happen overnight. You need to relax. This is going to take some time. World of Men is not going to make you a fortune overnight. You’ve had some drama involving your move away from the Gunz program, and you retired, (and threw some mud on your way out the door) then you unretired, and now you have a new site. It’s going to take some time for all of this to settle down and you need to be a bit more patient.

Further, if you want webmasters on these boards to promote you, it’d be a good idea to spend some time here talking to them about other things that matter to them. This is not just a resource where you pump your product, this is a community where you form relationships. You don’t just pop in here, ask your question and leave. Well you can, of course, and you can also just read and never post on this board; but I think you’ll find it much more rewarding if you work the room, as it were. Interact with the people here, offers your ideas and suggestions for their questions, and help others out. You’ll start to build relationships that will benefit you in the long run.

I certainly would like to get to know you better, but I don’t have much chance since you pretty much run in here and “dump your load” and run off again.

Stop. Breath. It ain’t going to happen as fast as you want. Relax. And enjoy the journey.

Michael

#5

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

[QUOTE=WORLDOFMEN;60045]

What do you all think? It gives me a good reason to keep DRM![/QUOTE]

I’ve told you this on another thread. The most successfull sites and content producers do not use DRM and have none of the problems you are posting about. They seem to be doing extremly well.

But as they others have mentioned, use DRM if that makes you feel better. But don’t think it will stop anyone from “stealing” your content.

Isn’t your real problem the fact that your content is offered for free as a gift when you buy DVDs from GunsBlazing? Isn’t that much more of a serious issue than some myserious people on meth?

I do think you have to change your view on members though, there is nothing more important to you than the people who signup and subscribe to your site. Without them you have nothing. Treat them well and make sure they are happy. They are not your enemy.

#6

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;60047]Yes it is true. Most of them fly to work in black helicopters. But if you wear a tin foil hat they have a much harder time executing their diabolical plots.

I have one thing to say about this and then I am gonna shut up on the topic. If YOU want to keep DRM on your content and everything in your soul is telling you it is the right thing to do then do it. You have heard the arguments for and against ad nauseum. You do not need anyone’s permission to keep or drop it. You have heard from sponsors large and small as well as from affiliates that really do have gold bricks in their yards like in the affiliate promo areas and those that couldn’t buy a 12 month subscription to Time magazine.

You have to decide.[/QUOTE]

I have to agree with what Alex said.

(It seems like in your heart you want to keep DRM, someone once told me to always go by my gut feeling…)

#7

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

I was working for a big european affiliate program from 2004-2009. We already dropped drm at the beginning of 2008.
Since then sales went up and our support girls got 50% less mails :slight_smile:
As Bjorn said, it’s most important to keep your members happy, those guys who want to steal your content have the knowledge to do it anyway.

#8

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

DRM for wmv never worked for me. I launched in September 2005 and by July 2006 I had stripped it out of all my films. Somehow I don’t think it was just evil crack-heads signing up because I dropped DRM - and from there onwards my sales soared.

And by “never worked” I mean people had managed to strip the DRM out of my films and they were on torrect sites! Rather than focusing on what the few might do like some paranoid person, I chose to focus on making great films to keep people coming back and getting out their credit cards. And building a brand that people like, trust and can relate to also helps - it encourages them to do the right thing and pay for content rather than finding it free somewhere else.

The choice is yours though and you need to make it and get on with life and work. You can always change your mind.

#9

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Why don’t you try something like Throttlebox - Intelligent Bandwidth Control where you can control how many MB they can download in a day. You can set it to like 5GB for 1 day and they won’t be able to get all your content the first day.

Jimmy

#10

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

If that is your concern, there are definitely other ways to at least stay on top of it. We anticipate a certain amount of theft of our product and we do our best to catch it and shut it down. In the meantime, all of our content is stamped so we do get some “advertising” bang out of it.

The theft of your content can consume you if you let it.

We have made a lot of mistakes and while it may have cause set backs here and there, it hasn’t shut us down and we have continued to grow.

Do what you think is best and move forward.

#11

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

This is so true. I would rather fall asleep worrying about how to make my members happy than worrying about who is stealing from me.

#12

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

I use www.phantomfrog.com and trial members areas! I give the surfer content for the trial price but I don’t let them have everything. I show them everything else that is available once they have upgraded.

You will get everyone that was going to upgrade anyway to upgrade in a few minutes and members that were going to only take the trial still only take the trial. However you pick up a lot more trial to full members this way as they upgrade right away instead of watching everything and canceling the trial.

This also had 0 effect on my chargebacks and refunds.

I went from 30% trial upgrades to over 70% after using a trial members area.

I have had 1 complaint in 3 years of doing it this way. Free loaders that are trying to leach all your content on a trial go away!

I use Phantomfrog to limit the daily download by bandwidth usage per member. There is a realistic number that a normal user will download in a day. its not 500 videos either. I have only had 3 or 4 people in 3 years say “hey I need to see more videos and it has told me I reached my limit” I simply went into my phantom frog account and reset thier bandwidth and they were happy!

If you use the tools that are available you can do lots of things to protect your members areas from people using download software to rip your whole members area and guys using a trial to download all your content

If your interested in learning how to do this contact me [email protected]

I can show you how I do it.

#13

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

If anybody can teach you how to do something it is Tanker.

#14

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

I think some site owners spend way too much time obsessing about their content. Anyone, who is serious about “stealing” and distributing your content illegally, isn’t going to be deterred by DRM, it is easily removed. In the days, when certain big sites had DRM, I saw their content all over the place and reported it, which I still do.

As a former(and future) site owner, I understand your concerns. As an affiliate and webmaster of 10 years, who interacts with visitors to my blogs daily, I can say that I always give preference to sites without DRM. It is what the people who pay our bills want.

As others have said, though, you have to follow your heart and learn from any mistakes, or ill-guided decisions.

Your site used to do quite well for me and I look forward to reviewing and promoting the new one.

Good Luck!!!

#15

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Some good advice here Collin. I would certainly listen to it if I was in your situation. If you’re going to keep DRM on your content, fine. Do so. I will be totally honest though and say that Gunzblazing content doesn’t sell as well for as it could due to DRM. I’m convinced of it. They really feel that using DRM deters thieves and as others with lots of experience as site owners have said already, DRM does not keep your content from being downloaded, put up somewhere else and resold. It’s fact. DRM can be cracked.

If I were concerned about trial members downloading all that they can from my site before they cancel their rebill, I’d put a daily download limit on each member and let people know why. A small percentage of your members are probably thieves or corrupt. The majority are true fans who love your content and that’s why they’re there. Tell them what’s going on and treat them well. They’re the ones who are worth the effort, respect and space in your head.

My 2 cents worth. All the best with it Collin. Sincerely.

#16

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

i wouldn’t worry about trial members - i’d remove trials and then no more worries about what trial members download. while a large site in a network of similar sites may rebill enough to make a trial worth while, it’s not worthwhile for a smaller site imo. some really good selling sites sell very well without trials - better, in fact, than sites with lower cost trials. just take a look at successful sites like blakemason.com and the nearly legendary seancody.com, which don’t use trials, sell very well and don’t use drm.

#17

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

I have a number of sites I watch for stoel content, but since we have DRM, its mainly ripped from DVDs…Thanks for your advice!

#18

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Hi Bjorn!

Well, since I terminated my DVD distributorship with RSS I have no control over the stock that they still have (it was a 50/50 split of stock) Not all of their giveaways are my products though. I am monitoring a good amount of sites where my ripped and uploaded DVD content is and, believe me, I send out Cease and Desist letters and get my content down ASAP since I send them my Copyright documentation and Trademark.

#19

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Thanks buddy, I figured I better keep the DRM!

#20

Re: Are evil members using trial offers to steal and post your content?

Thanks man…After seeing what is stolen out there I just can’t imagine removing DRM, it’s hard enough monitoring my DVD ripped content.

Thanks for being a supporter!