How do you protect & get paid for your product videos?

There are various means used by unscrupulous people to steal information products, such as e-books, videos, etc. There are also ways to protect such digital products during the sales, download and usage processes.

1. At the point of sale.

Method of theft: Editing the URL that leads to the payment processor transaction page, e.g., changing the payment amount or currency to obtain the product free or at a lower price.

How to prevent the theft: I know only about PayPal, but I expect other payment processors have a similar mechanism. Use the IPN facility to check the amount and currency paid. Send buyers to the download page only if the amount and currency are correct; otherwise send them to a failure page. This prevents tampering with the payment, but does not prevent reuse of the download page (see next). It requires a little knowledge of program coding.

2. At the point of download.

Method of theft: Displaying the download page without having paid, or by reusing a used payment processor transaction number. E.g., a buyer might tell others what the URL of the download page is.

How to prevent the theft: The download page captures the current transaction number and checks for its existence in a database. If it exists, or there is no transaction number at all in the download page URL, a suitable message is displayed to the would-be thief; otherwise, the new transaction number is added to the database, and the buyer can download the product. This prevents reuse of the download page, but does not prevent access to the product file's URL or unauthorized use of the product itself (see next). It requires a mediocre knowledge of program coding.

3. At the point of usage.

Method of theft: After the product has been downloaded once, there is no way to prevent unauthorized use unless the product is a software program. E-books, videos, sound files and the like can be copied and passed on to others and reused freely. Even original buyers can ask for their money back and continue to use the product.

How to prevent the theft: Either
A) Make the product a web service, rather than a downloadable file, and protect its web page with user name+password access, coupled with a covert computer name check. This is not fully secure, as any computer whose default name has not been changed can access the product with the correct user name and password, which themselves can be passed on freely. It requires an advanced knowledge of program coding.
Or
B) Wrap the downloadable e-book, video, sound file, etc., in a protective program requiring a unique product key, supported by a computer hardware check. This is fully secure and renders all other preventive methods unnecessary. Even if the buyer cheats with the payment, the unauthorized use of the product can be disabled remotely for that user by the vendor as soon as this is discovered on receipt of the payment notification. It requires a very advanced knowledge of program coding. For non-programmers there is software, such as Media Viewer (mediaviewer.net) and MultiMedia Viewer (multimediaviewer.net) that does exactly this.

There are probably other ways to foil downloadable product thieves and pirates, but these are the ones I know and use, and I know for a fact that I've never been cheated.