CB Vendors are literally GETTING STOLEN of Thousands of Dollars...

True.

But you can protect an entire folder with your robots.txt file. And then create a blank index.htm file in that folder. And then within the folder name your actually download page something hard to guess.

Again this is just another step to take.

There are so many other ways people get stuff though.

And robots.txt files don't stop everyone from crawling at times.

You gotta be kidding me...MANUAL WORK??? NO WAY!

Yes, but what's to stop buyers from passing on your download link once they get it? You'd have to be constantly changing the download link... manually - wouldn't you?

Sylvia

My email would be requesting a refund.

Ditto.

I was getting thieved right and left before I installed DL guard.

Now, it's set up so even if I were to post the download links here, you couldn't get 'em (I tested this, and it's true).

Yep, I could post my download links on this forum, and you still can't get them.

Yeah, DLGuard is the best way to go, but as a quick answer to the person afraid of people checking out your robots.txt file, you can get the same effect by typing just part of the folder/filename.

Like

User-agent: *
Disallow: /fol

Would disallow /folder, folder.html, and anything else starting with "fol" - so because of that, you do have to be a little careful, but most CB merchants only have a couple front end pages anyway, so it's usually not an issue.

CB should offer inhouse DL protection, it's common sense.

Yeah, but why waste money buying a swiss army knife when all you need is the tweezers?

I fail to see how either of those products can prevent determined piracy of information products, Thomas.

Above are two great ideas but from a customers standpoint I am not to crazy about buying something that logs into a server to check whether my copy is legit or not.

Whats happens when that server goes down or company goes out of business?
Any protection systems that claims to allow you to revoke a license requires the software to check with server.

Face it all a cracker has to do is replace the code that checks for this and bingo their goes your protection.

Not saying that you shouldn't protect your protects but not at expense of customer. Microsoft can't protect their stuff what makes you think you can..

Thanks Ritoban,

The thread still has meaning and I've been wondering about a way
to discuss this very same thing without revealing the code to it.

Here's a few suggestions I've got to protect your download pages...
I hope I'm not hijacking the thread by posting this information but
take it if you will.

1. Use images instead of text - because there are certain words
that these pirates use to get to your download page.

For exactly what words those are... it's a little troublesome but
I can reveal what those words are ONLY to existing CB vendors.
Will need a PM though.

If no one wants it, that's fine too.

2. Use a blog - fill them up with words like "Download link" and
stuff that would usually appear in download pages.

This is setting up the needle-in-haystack strategy where you hide
the actual download link by throwing in a lot of download links to
other stuff.

The pirate will have to take some effort to find the link that he
wants and if you do it right in your blog... he'll give up eventually.

Besides, this gives you a good excuse to use viral marketing.

3. Send by email - like what Allen Graves suggested, sending
it by email.

One way that I'm using is to totally remove the download page...
I send the download link via e-mail and the only people who
can get it are those who join via the list.

One way to encourage people to do that is that I state that
I give free updates/upgrades to the product so they need to
opt-in.

This helps to build a list as well (an opt-in buyers list is $$$ if
treated well)

4. Robots.txt - coding your robots.txt

This is something that I don't really like to do because if you
don't know what you're doing and you make a mistake, it
might cause the search engines to NOT come visit your site
or index your site totally.

I've seen that happen before with a friend's site. All he did
was to misplace a comma and his whole site was "forgotten"
because the robots.txt tells the search engine robots about
instructions to follow... he had unwittingly told the search
engine robots to never come back.

5. Use other media - pretty much like the first one of using
images.

Difference is that you can provide a little more entertainment
value and/or give the impression of overdelivering.

People just like to see more media used to transmit information.
Video or audio will do just fine.

6. Get DLGuard - Almost everyone here already knows the
power of DLGuard and it's a good way of protecting your products.

If you're selling information products, investing in a good script
to protect your download links is like hiring a good security guard.

A cheap one is like hiring security guards that go to sleep or
slack off when no one's looking. They have some kind of protection
or deterring factor but if someone's intent on stealing and he/she
has some basic skills, he'll get the download link.

Plus, I do believe Sam Stephens updates his DLGuard often...


Hope this helps.

Asher

Wow, I never realized this. Thanks so much for the heads up. I'm just about to launch a prodcut on CB, and the advise on this thread has helped a lot

I'm actually creating a product coming out in January and I was quite concerned about this.
I actually was more freaked about people buying and passing out the DL link.
You really can't stop this unless you want to go through all the headaches around security. For the most part I think people who are buying your product don't really know how to do those major keyword searches in google. That is the simple truth of the matter. Now the ones who do they are not going to buy your product anyway and will go to all lengths to get it from you, maybe buy it and ask for a refund. So honestly if this is stopping you from creating your product don't let it, because the majority of people who buy will buy and be content with what they have.

So lately I have been more concerned on getting the product out there and doing a few no follow scripts.

It is better to have your product out there than not to, because of fear from theft.
Keep working on getting your product made because in the end, that is your toughest hurdle.

Hi Arsde,

Thanks for your interest in DLGuard!

Yes, you can set a DLGuard membership area to 1 payment, and then your customers will be able to login and view your videos streaming from your membership area.

There isn't a way to 100% protect video files, but this will certainly do a lot to help. It comes under the same theory as protecting PDF's - do as much as you can to protect them (without causing headaches for valid customers).

cheers
Sam