galleries vs vids vs HD vids clearly means limiting bandwidth is the key to prevent rippers, but the number of files downloaded.

However, this means that weighting has to be added to the files like
a pic = X
a vid = 10,000X
a HD vid = 100,000X

or just add member monitoring to know how much each member is downloading and have someone actually monitor it:Oh crap

Or the reverse of sorts, have bw capping and when a member caps, have a "monitor" alerted so they can investigate why etc etc to see if it's a new member going in and ripping stuff.

None of these ideas are practical in the real world, so, as you were

I didn't bother to read the full thread but wanted to give my .02

We currently allow 1GB per day. Which should be plenty even for heavy users as we do not offer full HD video yet.

At the moment we have no limits.
But have sure been thinking about it.
I will say after this thread, and looking at both sides I am still no farther ahead.
Great debate and a good read.
thanks for all the info on both sides of this issue.

Bump for responses

These are good ideas. So good that we put them in Throttlebox a couple of years ago. :)
1GB of HD video is not the same thing as 1GB of photos. 1GB of HD video may be reasonable
usae for a session. 1 GB of photos, which is about 10,000 pictures, is obviously way more
than anyone could possibly view in a session. So we divide up different kinds of content -
by default pictures are one category and videos are the other. Than we have both numerical
and GB limits appropriate for each.

What half of the posters in this thread seem to be missing is that we set the limits high
enough so that a surfer COULD NOT POSSIBLY watch that much in one session. There is
no way someone can look at 10,000 pictures in one session. If a surfer joins your site, they
are buying the right to jack off to your content. They are not buying the right to publish your
pictures in a magazine. They are not buying the right to produce DVDs of your content, and
they are not buying the right to distribute your stuff all over the web. They are buying only
the right to jack off to your shit. So to my mind, you are only obligated to let them have
plenty enough to jack off too - not rip 10,000 pics in an hour. That's where all of the counter
arguments completely fall flat.

Half of the posters are arguing against strict limitations which interfere with normal use of
the site. Interfering with normal use would be bad, they say. NO SHIT! That has little or
nothing to do with stopping people who are ripping the whole site, which is what the other
half of the posters are advocating. It's like having some people saying "you shouldn't drive
over 100MPH", then other people replying "it's bad to limit cars to no more than 5MPH!".
I have the feeling that those who are arguing against controlling this kind of behavior haven't
read my posts, because they are saying that they disagree with me, but then talking about
something entirely different than what I'm talking about, or completely ignoring where I
clearly addressed the concern they bring up.

Let me see if I can quickly summarize the two cons (the points that Shap makes),
and the pros (the reasons to have some limits, and why the points that Shap brings
up are easily handled).

1. Con - Keeping members happy helps retention.
Pro- Members are kept happy with the server is fast and responsive,
because it's not being beaten to death by rippers.
Pro - Members are retained when they come back for more each month.
Giving them six years worth of material in the first month only
encourages them to cancel.
Conclusion - to best retain members, give them plenty of content to jack
off off to today, but not enough to last them for years, so they
have a REASON to come back next month.

2. Con - A member who paid you $30 has a contractual right to get everything you
have and do whatever they want with it.
Pro - A member does not buy full rights to distribute your content, use it on their
own site, etc. For $30, they buy only the right to jack off to it. As long as
you allow them to watch a couple hours of video each day, you've fulfilled your
obligation and their reasonable expectation. $30 does not buy them the right
to rip 150 hours of video overnight and then cancel.

Actually you quoted where I compared digital video to digital video - both "digital goods" to
use your wording. Just like online video, the cost of producing hollywood movies isn't the
$1 to press a DVD, but all of the millions of dollars spent producing and promoting the movie.
DVDs have a very small per unit cost, just like online video has a small per unit cost in bandwidth
plus the number and power of the servers you need to meet the demand. DVD video and online
video are very similar in this respect. When you talk about RENTING a DVD, which is what the
discussion was about, it's almost identical to online video. Figure $1-$2 to press a DVD that
will be rented by say ten people - that's 10-20 cents per person - pretty much the same cost
as delivering two hours of high quality video online. So your argument falls completely flat -
the per unit cost of pressing DVDs for rental is the same as the per unit cost for a webmaster.

The reason that people who rent one video aren't allowed to take home a basket full is quite
simple - they want you to keep coming back the next time you want a movie. RETENTION,
we call it. If for $5 you could walk out wiht as many DVS as you wanted, people would go
to the rental store once, take home a shitload of movies to copy, then never return to the
video rental store again. The video store rents you a couple of movies at a time, then the
next month if you want to have another movie night you have to pay again - retention.


I absolutely agree. Do you promise them lots of good shit to jack off to?
That's what I would promise them. Do you promise to help them set up
their own site by providing them all of the content they need for their site,
which they can download overnight? I wouldn't promise them that. I would
promise them a good supply of hot bases to jack off to, and then I'd give
them plenty to jack off to and a little more, in case they want to jack off
four times that day.

but if you rent out the dvd from the store no one else can rent out that dvd until it comes back. The time it is out is a fixed property
digitally distributed goods where i am downloading a copy has no such restriction.

the key difference is that the video store explictly tells you that you can't just go in and take as many movies as you want for $5. Even the monthly plans like the blockbuster express limit you to 3 at a time.

They deliver exactly what they promise. nothing more and nothing less.
They also tell you upfront.

do you explictly tell them the download limits (like the video store does in there system)
right on your tour.

Do you say explictly or do you just expect them to get it on their own.

An infered promise is still a promise, a lie by ommission is still a lie.

do you give them a full refund if they say i wouldn't have signed up if you had put that on the tour.
or do you tell them tough you should have read the TOS.

it like the scummy sales person who buries some abusive conditions in the fine print.

Just as slimey and underhanded.

Do you explicitly say on your tour "rip the whole site in a few days and then chargeback if you like"?
Come to think of it, I've never seen a sign in any DVD rental store that says "price are per movie,
not unlimited movies". People walking into the video store know that a sign stating "video rentals - $5"
means $5 PER MOVIE because that's what's reasonable. No sign is needed. When you buy a car, you
expect that the car will drive - that's what cars are for. You don't expect the car to have unlimited speed,
able to go 500MPH, because that's what jet planes are for, not cars. The dealership doesn't need a sign
saying "this car will not go faster than 120MPH".

Similarly, porn sites are for looking at while jacking off. Porn sites aren't for downloading tens of
thousands of pictures to use to build your own site - that's what content providers are for. If you give
the customer good stuff to look at while he jacks off, you've held up your end of the deal. On the other
hand, if you give the customer all 20,000 images in one day, giving him everything you've got for a $3.95
trial, all you've done is shot yourself in the foot by making sure he has no reason to ever come back.

Really, would you REALLY feel like you ripped someone off if they joined your site and downloaded
five hours of video every day? You really think THEY are the ones who got ripped off because
they wanted to download 150 hours of video each day and then cancel after a week? If so, if you
REALLY can't tell when YOU are the one getting ripped off, I have some great stuff to sell you.

http://rogersvideo.com/
please show me that site that says $5 with no qualifier because i have never seen it
even those companies that offer an unlimited days (no late fee) like rogers still define it as per movie.


sure it does the odometer has an upper limit if bought a car with 500MPH on the odometer i would expect it to be able to go that speed.


and how does telling everyone that the limits exist stop you from getting any of the customers who are ok with those limits.

it doesn't the sole purpose of deliberately hiding that fact is to get someone who expects the ability to download all he wants because that was what he was promised to give you there money.

The whole arguement about not taking unprofitable customers is handled by being truthful with your customers in the sale message. Those who have the "unrealistic" expectation will simply not buy period.

Your trying to justify being dishonest by claiming that the expectation is unreasonable. But the problem is that the expectation is unreasonable because your being dishonest.

Well, I can see what GG is saying - tours saying xxx thousand images, xxxhours of video etc etc, join now. So someone joins, decides to rip the collection for offline viewing later and cancels within 1 month.

He got what was advertised and paid 1 month for it.

However, he would get blocked by all these measures, which is false advertising, since it wasn't stated he wasn't allowed to download all this content however/whenever he wished.

Personally, I don't have a problem with a member ripping the entire 22TB collection if they can as fast as they can, since they paid the membership for it. What I do have a pb with is the vast majority doing it to spread the content elsewhere, not just for their own viewing pleasure.

I dont agree. Even if you buy a pair of jeans from a reatil store, there are T's & C's on the reciept or at the till and so on. What I hate are consumers who cant be bothered to "read" the contract they are entering into. Any paysite that slapped all their T&C's in bold and in complete detail all over their tour wouldn't last a month BUT we have the T&C's linked to on every page including the Join page.

The other pet hate I have is members emailing me asking how to cancel. Why would anyone commit to "signing on" without "reading" the join page to know how to "sign off". beats me.

Anyhow, we reduced our DL limits to 5gb a day, again, all slapped up in bold on our T&C's and so far no complaints. Even had a couple of emails from members apologising for exceeding....

The point is at the first stage of a complaint, unblock but reitierate the limit. That way the customer is happy you unblocked them but is clear what the limits are. With todays broadband speeds, you can pull massive amounts of data in no time. DL limits make complete sense to me..

we are talking about 1 major term and condition, which the tour contridicts in it "selling message"
so all we are talking about is changing a line from download now to download 5 gigs per day max

oh as to the no complaints do you really believe people will complain vocally they will simply quit .

some of our sites have over 2000 movies, the tour only shows the latest 20 movies or so which any surfer would still be able to download that same day. No where in any of our tours do we say download everything in the whole site today. That would be insane.

As for download limits being one "major term and condition", I dont it's that big a deal. We maybe find one account blocked a day. I would have thought more important terms and conditions would be those that relate to content distribution, password security, customer information confidentiality, site uptime and so on. Do you honestly have all those majorly important T's & C's plastered all over your tour/s?

For some people. DL limits are a big deal. To me they are not. My customer base is steady and we have enough customers to know that overall. DL limits are not a big deal in the long run. To the punter that signs up for $19.95, cancels the rebill the same day and then expects to pull the whole site in a month, they probably could still do so....but at 5 gb a day

Your hosting bill should be only a few % of what you make in gross these days. BW is super cheap, 30000GB is like 100Mbps, right? That costs $350 at choopa. So you either pay too much for hosting or your password protection script doesn't work good enough.

Most of the paysites have no limits, don't they.

so if i live in a state or country which doesn't automatically accept click thru liciences i have the right to distribute your content free and clear

of course not because that would be a violation of the copyright act and that the default position is that i don't have such a right

likewise the copyright act explictly says that your exclusive rights are subject to fair use (backup included) so the default position IS having the right download everything (otherwise backup would be irrelevent)

you can't have it both ways.

hiding the fact that you are restricting their EXPECTED fair use rights, is slimy and underhanded, just because your customers don't realize that, or let you get away with it doesn't make it right.

= assumption.... assumption is the mother of all fuck ups waiting to happen

It's getting off topic. I think DL limits are a good idea, you dont...simples.

geez
30000 gb is nothing

I think your host is taking you for a ride

I can suggest a host for you but if you spoke to shap he probably already did

i have 2 suggestions for you:

- stop discussing with gideon, it's useless

- check your BW prices with your host, everything over $10 per mbit is too much and i guess you could get something like $5 to $8 - at some hosts even less

why the old bump?

22TB is a lot...
Few consumers have that kind of drive space I think (or the connection to download that much).

wrong i don't care one way or the other about download limits

if you tell me upfront on your tour and i believe your content is worth enough to put up with those limits so be it

it the scummy slimebally action of HIDING those download limits in your TOS that i object too

Thanks, Advice taken :-)

Ditto. I'm waiting for him to sue Netflix because their site advertises "over 100,000 DVDs".
He doesn't realize that's 100,000 DVDs TO CHOOSE FROM. He thinks they're going
to mail him all 100,000 at once, it seems.

they don't hide anything

they don't pretend you can get them all at the same time and then hide a 1 at a time limit in their TOS.

http://www.netflix.com/

right on the front page

DVD by mail
(1 out-at-a-time)

http://cdn-0.nflximg.com/us/layout/s.../v2/v2_hiw.jpg

i can't believe how far you will go to justify the scummy practise of baiting and switching your members with a Hidden condition.