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Membership Site - Is it worth protecting videos?

by troy23
19 replies
I want to use videos inside my members site.

Ideally I don't want to use Amazon S3 as I am thinking it could be expensive if I had many members. So my next port of call was to upload my videos to YouTube and make them unlisted. I've watermarked all my videos also.

I guess it is not possible to protect YouTube videos so I wondered is it worth protecting membership video content at all?
#membership #protecting #site #videos #worth
  • Profile picture of the author adsassist
    Look up Amazon S3 again. Their rates are very small. For a five minute video, they will charge around 16 cents.

    Yesterday I was in a live webinar with a well known marketer. It was about a new video software and used Amazon S3 to host it. He said when he got the bill for a 5 minute video, it was 16 cents. That's pretty cheap if you ask me.
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Thanks but I've got around 30 videos to upload and if say 60 members were watching I imagine the bill could be quite high at the end of the month.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dustin Lyle
      Yeah, I was going to say....

      I've got about 90 1-minute modules in one of my step-by-step crash courses... My bill on that account is like, 1.40-1.50/month!
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  • Profile picture of the author JHandy
    One thing I would consider is not how much it cost you, but how much is it worth to you. If your site is turning over members that keep you in the black, then it's a no brainer. But on the flip side, if you're running this site in the red, it doesn't make sense. I would chalk it up to the cost of doing business. Also, on another note. Using youtube videos could distract your members from really focusing in on your content. There are by the way a lot of commercials laced in some of them.

    I would also concur that the software I believe one of the members talked about is able to protect your videos from download if you choose to. I know this because I purchased it myself and it works very well.
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  • Profile picture of the author GailTrahd
    I have videos inside an Amember protection using Wordpress/Flowplayer hosting the video on Amazon s3 - It's been working really well for me. I agree with the distraction issue also - and while you may not have any commercials on your videos or related videos after it ends I know that people will sit there considering how you uploaded to YouTube, how to find your other videos, and get distracted that way.

    You can always do a 1 month test with Amazon to see what the bill would be for your site and number of members.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecoverartist
    I have a client who uses Amazon S3. She probably has a terabyte worth of data stored on it and thousands of viewers. It costs her $15/month in usage fees - far, FAR less than what it would cost you in bandwidth and hosting space, and without the Youtube ads.

    I'd recommend using Amazon S3 and Easy Video Player together. It's like a tag team of awesomeness to protect and store your video files.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Gordon
      Originally Posted by ecoverartist View Post

      I have a client who uses Amazon S3. She probably has a terabyte worth of data stored on it and thousands of viewers. It costs her $15/month in usage fees - far, FAR less than what it would cost you in bandwidth and hosting space, and without the Youtube ads.

      I'd recommend using Amazon S3 and Easy Video Player together. It's like a tag team of awesomeness to protect and store your video files.
      Hmm... not sure how she calculated those usage fees.

      1024GB (equivalent to 1TB) @ $0.095/GB is $97.28/month just for storage and thousands of viewers would probably mean some more for bandwidth if I am correct.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    Professionally, I prefer to be in 100% control of my business, so I have my own server and host all of my videos, membership applications, email application, etc.

    Jeffery 100% :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Gordon
    Originally Posted by troy23 View Post

    I want to use videos inside my members site.

    Ideally I don't want to use Amazon S3 as I am thinking it could be expensive if I had many members. So my next port of call was to upload my videos to YouTube and make them unlisted. I've watermarked all my videos also.

    I guess it is not possible to protect YouTube videos so I wondered is it worth protecting membership video content at all?
    I use Custom Video Player when I need to embed Youtube videos and it works great (you have the option to hide the watermark if you wish, and the embedded link will not include the video link). I think it's $97 right now.

    There's no certain way to protect videos both using Youtube or Amazon S3, they will still get around. It will just be less frequent if you do it right, so less DMCA notices to send out for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
    Originally Posted by troy23 View Post

    I want to use videos inside my members site.

    Ideally I don't want to use Amazon S3 as I am thinking it could be expensive if I had many members.
    You've got this bass-ackwards...

    If you had many members, S3 is incredibly inexpensive as your primary hard cost for having all those members.

    Flip the burger.
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    • Profile picture of the author LillySage
      I use amazon S3 and it's never been more than a couple bucks a month...I'd really give them a try!
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Brian - No need to be rude - I'm just trying to understand the process.
    One person on here is saying it is cheap another expensive - so it's not easy to know.
    With hosting/Aweber bills etc I am trying to keep costs down.
    Many marketers have told me it's not worth protecting unless you have something groundbreaking, but I thought it worth investigating the pros and cons anyway.
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    • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
      Originally Posted by troy23 View Post

      Brian - No need to be rude - I'm just trying to understand the process.
      ???

      How was I rude to you?

      By saying you were thinking backwards?

      You are. No biggie. That's why I said to flip the equation around and you'll see that the costs are not prohibitive and there's nothing to fear.

      Sheesh. You're welcome. Carry on.

      Brian
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      • Profile picture of the author troy23
        Brian

        Sorry man - I thought you meant I should go and flip burgers for a living.

        Not heard that expression in UK

        Apologies
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingAce
    Yeah, amazon S3 has low rates. You better check again because I think it's something that you may be looking for.
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  • Profile picture of the author finebird
    If you care about protection - S3 video can be downloaded as easily as a youtube video. To really protect the video - you need your own streaming service, and there are ways to break it as well...
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    If you care about protection - S3 video can be downloaded as easily as a youtube video. To really protect the video - you need your own streaming service, and there are ways to break it as well...


    Well then I guess I may as well keep them unlisted on YouTube for free.
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  • Profile picture of the author vtotheyouknow
    hey Troy, I recently set up 2 video-based membership sites. I've got the perfect solution for ya...

    If you have the funds, purchase S3Media Stream (no affiliation). It's the ONLY video plugin for WordPress that offers TRUE streaming (meaning you can click anywhere in the video and play from there and it only loads what you watch so you only pay for USED bandwidth).

    It also integrates with CloudFront, which is both faster and cheaper than S3. S3 tends to lag with larger video files. CloudFront is money..

    It comes bundled with JW player so you don't need to purchase a separate license.

    And lastly, this plugin also protects your download links so there's no way for somebody to jack your vids unless they did live screen captures, and there's no way to protect against that anyhow.

    Here's an example of this combo in action:

    Important Confirmation Directions

    If you need help setting this up, or just want me to do it for you, shoot me a PM. :-)

    Best of luck- Vic
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Thanks for that Vic.

    I can't find anything on pricing on their site. How much cheaper than S3 is it?
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