Two very different approaches to the question no doubt. But it depends very much on the site and what it has to offer. The quality and cost of the content is key here. Otherwise every singe dvd would sell for the same cost of a rental. Our VOD test sales have been pretty amazing. Many of the people that want to buy the videos are members. If they were to download and keep them for free inside a members area, that would not even be an option. Don’t want to join a site, then just buy the videos you want or elect to watch them once. Many of the plans we have would not be effective with unlimited free downloads. Our ‘dream’ customer is one who joins the site, uses it as a complete preview tool to then select and purchase the supersized files from the digital downloads store. 27% of members responding to our poll indicated that would be their plan. If each of them only bought one video per month, that is a huge increase in revenue equal to a sale made by an affiliate. All done on the inside.
This benefits affiliates as well. They will be able to make revshare off the same materials that they can promote to all those people who won’t join a site ever.
It all depends on the business plan. Nothing is done without a reason. I doubt that Sean Cody made this choice ‘on the fly’.
Everybody has a different plan. I’m just sharing a bit of ours to express why some folks make the choices that they do.
I have to disagree on this one. Some of our updates have cost over $5k, yet we still don’t use DRM. Some sites spend very little and still DRM the content.
It’s all about how one approaches the business. Our goal is to provide the best user experience for our customers under the membership model. We don’t use DRM, have never emailed our members, our members have never seen an upsell in the member’s area, and we do no X-sells. It’s just our business philispohy.
When our competition started a VOD site, instead of following, we offered a higher quality download in our members area (DRM free) at no additional costs to our members. The result? Increased retention.
Many webmasters talk about how “protective” they should be of their content, yet few have been on both sides of the fence and seen the results. We have been protective in the form of DRM. Been there, done that. Will never go back. Being protective of our content has hampered our growth in the past and it’s just something that I don’t want to happen again.
I guess if one has the business model of bringing in a customer and try to upsell to VOD or download, then the model of unrestrictive downloads wont work. But for a site like ours who business plan is to sell memberships and retain customers it’s working really well.
I am sure I will regret this post later, as somewhere at some point, there will be a paysite that decides to open up their content a bit more and then another and another. Pretty soon they will realize what they were missing all along - increased growth that they never thought possible.
i have a couple friends who join a new site and watch video after video after video after video. admittedly they are str8, and tend to join sites with very high quality content, so each video is around 800mb or more, and at those sites they often pass 5 gig in a day. they’ve had their logins turned off till the next day automatically at some sites and at others the download speed starts to slow after a certain point.
I agree with it.
From what I understand Sean Cody is the most stolen from content out there. I think there are groups dedicated to downloading and sharing all of Sean Cody’s videos. They have to protect themselves from a massive loss due to constant cheaters.
Im suprised they have such heavy videos on their site. Why dont they convert them into a lighter format? Or just go with flash movies so most people cant steal.
[QUOTE=MrMax;13532]I agree with it.
From what I understand Sean Cody is the most stolen from content out there. I think there are groups dedicated to downloading and sharing all of Sean Cody’s videos. They have to protect themselves from a massive loss due to constant cheaters.[/QUOTE]
But isn’t that like saying black men are more likely to steal so we’ll treat all black men as criminals. Just because a lot of people steal Sean Cody videos doesn’t mean Sean Cody should treat all of their members as thieves. They should go after the places that are peddling the stolen videos.
I’m sorry if I’ve bought a Sean Cody membership, I expect to be able to take as much of their content as I want. I bought it, I’m entitled to it. And if you’re forcing me to maintain a membership to watch it forever, then why can’t I have it when I want it.
It’s this kind of heavy handedness (if it’s really happening) that earns us all disfavour in the eyes of the surfers.
I guess it all comes down to opinion. We have a download limit - 15GB within 12 hours - then a 12 hour block. BUT - the member can fill in a form and ask for the block to be removed sooner… and we always do that, whilst simply asking them to take things a little slower in future!
15GB is around 60 high res films for us, so it’s pretty much guaranteed they are using a DL manager, something we prohibit in our T&Cs. But a good humoured message nearly always gets a matching reply… “I guess Health and Safety laws mean you have to slow us down due to fears of getting sued over RSI!!!”
but how does it help protect them to cancel members? there’s no way to know when you cancel a member whether he’s a thief or not - he could be a guy who hates to wait, so he sets up several downloads at a time so that when he’s done he can just watch video after video. i do this myself when i review sites and i know plenty of guys who do the same.
[quote=MrMax;13532]I agree with it.
From what I understand Sean Cody is the most stolen from content out there. I think there are groups dedicated to downloading and sharing all of Sean Cody’s videos. They have to protect themselves from a massive loss due to constant cheaters.
Im suprised they have such heavy videos on their site. Why dont they convert them into a lighter format? Or just go with flash movies so most people cant steal.[/quote]
15 gig in 12 hours is more than reasonable - and you don’t cancel the members.
[QUOTE=basschick;13541]
15 gig in 12 hours is more than reasonable - and you don’t cancel the members.[/QUOTE]
For me I disagree on that. In my opinion if someone is downloading that much in that short of a time, then they’re using a download manager and that’s not cool.
I agree with you on not canceling them. I would red flag them and send them a nice note asking whats up. And if they keep doing it then I would cancel them off. Im running a business and theyre leeching from me, so theyre not quality customers I want.
In the end I think the answer really is to just use flash movies. Some of my favorite sites used flash and while it pisses me off that I cant download the content, I always come back and renew because they have the content I like.
Its also good for compatibility because most people can watch flash movies.
i see some paysites that recommend members use download managers for their own convenience and even link to free ones. i guess they figure it’s cheaper for members to replay their favorite videos on their own computer rather than burn bandwidth.
i believe that there are scripts to detect download managers.
btw, if it pisses you off to not be able to download the flash videos, i imagine your members would feel the same way - and that would hurt retention unless the site is a microniche.
[quote=MrMax;13545]For me I disagree on that. In my opinion if someone is downloading that much in that short of a time, then they’re using a download manager and that’s not cool.
I agree with you on not canceling them. I would red flag them and send them a nice note asking whats up. And if they keep doing it then I would cancel them off. Im running a business and theyre leeching from me, so theyre not quality customers I want.
In the end I think the answer really is to just use flash movies. Some of my favorite sites used flash and while it pisses me off that I cant download the content, I always come back and renew because they have the content I like.
Its also good for compatibility because most people can watch flash movies.[/quote]