DRM : yes or no?

[jorgebianco]

Hi, everyone!

I'm wondering what do you think about the usage of drm to protect your video files.

To be fair, I start giving you my own experience.

Initially, I had no drm. At a given moment, our videos were almost everywhere for free and our sales had dropped noticeably.

From july 2006, we implemented drm.

Now you still can find our old videos for free, but the new ones are really hard to find. I combine drm with a continuous sweeping of our videos in blogs and forums and an active policy of having them quickly removed.

Every now and then I receive mails from angry customers who yell that they will never join my site because I use drm. But: is it really a good business to sell a suscription to one of those customers so that they download my entire site for 28 dollars and then leave? I think it's not.

Enter Alexa ranking and take a look to Sean Cody. His traffic has dropped to almost half in the last 12 months ... which is the time around which they decided to give up drm.

And it makes a lot of sense, who would pay for something free like the air. I could list right now non less than 10 sites in which sean cody vides are published for free within the following 24 hours of being published in their site.

There is, though, one undesired victim: the mac users (around 10% of traffic according to google analytics). But I have no solution for them, so far.

Let me know your thoughts about this issue.

[derekt]

Many are NOT using DRM anymore. SeanCody.com was one of the very first that used DRM technologies, they no longer use it.
We used DRM with xxxdto.com. After a very short period of time we got rid of it.
Those that use DRM now is VOD / PPM styles such as AEBN or any streaming media payperview source.

DRM is hated by consumers and many will not stay as a member.

[derekt]

Enter Alexa ranking and take a look to Sean Cody. His traffic has dropped to almost half in the last 12 months ... which is the time around which they decided to give up drm.

If you do use DRM, you will lose over 50% of your members or possible members.

Secondly, Alexa is not all that important. I suggest doing a google ranking on the site. Alexa is only reported by those who use the Alexa toolbar. Data is transmitted from a site to Alexa by use of the Alexa toolbar.

[Ethan Masters]

I agree with Derek... First off... Alexa is a dying dinosaur which has no relevance in the current standards for SEO and marketing for sites.

Secondly... DRM, in my honest opinion from talking to website members and owners is that it all comes down to trying to keep your products from being stolen and posted on other sites, forums, etc. There are several sites out there that are still really bad about having DRM on everything and on top of that, the license expires after a certain period of time, so even though i paid a monthly membership, this video i downloaded is going to be worthless in 32 days when it expires. That just doesn't seem fair to me. Use a flash interface for your movies if you're concerned with piracy and give the members of your site a little less hassle with worrying about DRM. Just my opinion

[gaybucks_chip]

Well, first off, 100% effective DRM doesn't exist. If someone really wants your content, they'll get it regardless. But good DRM can make it more difficult to rip your content, and so all but the most dedicated people will give up.

I think a lot of people assume that DRM is synonymous with Windows Media DRM, which is totally not true. Windows DRM, like most Microsoft products, is a total piece of shit. Tons of problems, doesn't actually meaningfully protect content, pisses customers off.

However, the concept of protecting content itself is not inherently bad. There are some solutions out there using Flash or Quicktime that are nearly transparent to the user, work relatively reliably, and reduce (but don't eliminate) piracy of content.

We haven't yet found a solution that we like, but there are some that are "up and coming" that I think will be reasonable possibilities within a year, maybe sooner.

[jeremyroddick]

What is the new and more accurate Alexa?

I agree with Derek... First off... Alexa is a dying dinosaur which has no relevance in the current standards for SEO and marketing for sites.

[jorgebianco]

I agree with gaybuckchips. Drm, even when far from being perfect, is always better than nothing.

I don't think it's unfair. I do think it is VERY unfair to give away the whole content of our sites for ever, for just a monthly suscription.

I did not mention it in my first quote, but besides drm I use pennywize to limit the daily download to 3 gigas. It's more than reasonable for someone who simply wants to have a good time and jerk off, but will keep away those who want to download our entire content and then dissapear.

I know there are some alternatives to drm based on flash and quick time but I don't know where to find out more about them, any suggestions?

Thanks

[basschick]

i don't think you are agreeing with chip - his sites don't use DRM. he likes the theory but not how it works at this time.

frankly i don't care about fair or unfair. i care that it lowers retention, less guys who cancel will come back and rejoin, which can be a major loss, and causes the site to make less money. there are reasons sites like corbinfisher and fratmen stopped using drm.

if you have enough updates, your members will never be able to download everything because there will always be something new - and that means retention and rejoins. but the guys do love to download and play later, and having watermarked videos will also bring ex-members back from time to time if they like the content.

you are going by the assumption that the same people who download videos off bittorrent are potential buyers. i know some guys into free stuff, and they wouldn't join any site either way - they're dedicated freebies.

I agree with gaybuckchips. Drm, even when far from being perfect, is always better than nothing.

I don't think it's unfair. I do think it is VERY unfair to give away the whole content of our sites for ever, for just a monthly suscription.

I did not mention it in my first quote, but besides drm I use pennywize to limit the daily download to 3 gigas. It's more than reasonable for someone who simply wants to have a good time and jerk off, but will keep away those who want to download our entire content and then dissapear.

I know there are some alternatives to drm based on flash and quick time but I don't know where to find out more about them, any suggestions?

Thanks

[derekt]

From Experience....

Every new piece of technology that's brought to the internet, there is always a hacker right there behind them breaking in. and 9 times out of 10 they succeed, and the other 1x, they work at it and work at it and work at it until they get it. And they will. They know what the hell they're doing.

And then once that hacker gets in, he's going to be so happy and excited about it, he's going to go to one of these domains hosted out of Scandanavia or somewhere and he's going to post how he did it! And then the public and the world is going to see that, and they're going to save that, and next thing you know... you poured all that money down the drain. WHY! For a buck and to protect your videos from being stolen.

Why fight it, it's going to happen. And when it happens, there's nothing to do about it.

We used to have DRM. We averaged some low numbers. AS SOON AS we posted that our videos are downloadable and DRM Free, our numbers tripled! Memberships by the hour!

It's all about updates, good content, and how you presence yourself.
We actually just bought a CMS. Once we get it up and running we're going to be adding one new video daily in Flash, Quicktime, and WMV.
Currently, we update 3 times a week, and we haven't had a member cancel in months! AND we even raised our membership prices.

If you don't have a video to update with, add a image set, you can get one from Ounique for $6.00. At least you have that update.

Your going to spend more money and more wasted time fighting it than you will making money. Think of it, you probably lost an hour just reading through all of this about protecting your videos when you could have gotten $100 worth of members who will stay and rebill in that hour.

Now if your worried about someone sharing it with someone on a tube site, etc.
THE ONLY WAY you can legally protect yourself is by filing for a copyright on that motion picture. Put it on a DVD, send it to the United States Copyright Office, Send them a $45.00 check, keep a copy of the signed registration, send it UPS with Signature Confirmation, the total your looking at is about $60.00, and then if you find it out there, the ball is then in your park. You can send DMCA's out until your blue in the face, but if they refuse to take it down you don't have a leg to stand on. And if they have assets, take them to federal court and sue them for several thousand per infringement. I think it's $25k per infringement.
Here's the new registration form: http://www.copyright.gov/forms/formco2d.pdf

[Rich]

i never liked movies that i could not watch after my membership was expired i thought it was like cheating because i paid for membership access to see the movies when i wanted to

[vaqueros]

you are going by the assumption that the same people who download videos off bittorrent are potential buyers. i know some guys into free stuff, and they wouldn't join any site either way - they're dedicated freebies.

That's what I always think when I read the posts regarding content available via file sharing (torrent, emule, etc.). I think those people will never become customers, no matter what. It's like thinking that if only the bank develops a better security system, the bank robbers will turn into bank customers. I suspect the motive is as much "getting something for free" as it is a generic lust for porn. There's probably a lot of feeling that one is beating-the-system, sticking-it-to-the-man, and so on.

File sharing may be irritating but I wouldn't consider it lost revenue because the revenue was and never will be there with those individuals. A bigger concern should be content that is stolen and then posted in traditional sites (blogs, galleries, etc.) which are readily accessible to the general public rather than the hardcore computer nerds who know how to configure firewalls, open ports, and all the other stuff that goes with file sharing.

BTW, no offense intended against non-pirate nerds, I'm a programmer so I automatically qualify as a computer nerd myself!

[Lee]

There seems to be a big migration away from DRM over the past few years, almost as many companies who were so quick to jump on the DRM bandwagon are dropping it as quickly as they signed on for it.

It actually is a shame to because DRM in and of itself isnt a bad thing, i do however think that those companies who abused DRM technology yet again turned a valuable tool for content owners in to a technological pariah that surfers want nothing to do with.

I guess if you truly abuse anything for long enough, its going to come back and bite you in the ass, unfortunately the DRM providers should have had some kind of safe guard in place to ensure that paysite owners were not abusing their system, just because you CAN do something with a peice of technology, that doesnt mean you SHOULD.

Regards,

Lee