How to stop people from downloading an online video for offline playback?

Question

I have a problem, something I'm sure a lot of video sharing companies might have. I want to start a small business by offering online video-based training courses on Microsoft Office and other office software in my town on my native language. The problem is, I'm planning to start offering cheap suscriptions for all-access to all the videos, maybe $for 5 dollars a month to get more people interested...however, I know my target audience, and I'm sure they will quickly resort to wanting to download the videos to stop paying, and who knows, maybe even share them on some site and make them public ruining my business...

My question is, is there a video format, or a way to embed, I don't know, a video file so that it cannot be downloaded for offline playback? Maybe using flash files in some remote server? I don't know...I just need a way to play videos on a web browser, that won't allow any form of downloading for offline playback and distribution. Please help guys, I'm kid of struggling to make enough money to pay for college already.

[edit] Thanks for all the information everyone...It seems there is no right answer for this, so let me rephrase the problem.

I'm going to be dealing with people with little to no knowledge of advanced computer usage. My target audience consists of 18-23 year old college students that only use their computers for Facebook, playing candy crush, watching youtube videos and doing their homework. I know most of them are now aware of how to download videos from the internet, but their knowledge is very limited (and by that, I mean sites like KEEPVID.COM or youtube-mp3.org). Most don't even know screen capture software exists, or how to get it, so I'm hoping to use that "naive" characteristic to some use.

So ok. I CAN'T stop my videos from being downloaded, but is there a way to, as I said, make it harder, say...stop sites that download the actual video file hosted/embedded? I don't mind if you can still download the video with some tricks, I just wan't my target audience to have a hard time figuring it out. Right answer goes to the most useful answer, since there is no right answer.

Solution

If there was an easy, good working solution to this, then Hollywood would already have used it. There is none, since the person has to receive the movie in order to see it. You can do this in two ways:

1. Unencrypted. Works always. No hassle for the user.
2. In a proprietary/encrypted format, along with your own player. You will have to provide that player to the person who needs to play the video. So you will need to make something (and keep it updated) which works on all devices your clients will watch the video's from. (Windows, OSX, IOS, Android, ... possible several other operating systems).

The last is a lot of work and that will be broken in time. It might also fail to work on business computers where the client has insufficient rights to install a custom player.

So basically, there is no one, good solution.

The best you can do might be to watermark the movies so that you can trace who leaked it take them to court. (Or at the very use the threat of that to prevent people from doing that in the first place).

Comments

[heavyd]

The client has to be able to download the video in order to play it, and a malicious client could just keep the download. Your best bet is to look into DRM solutions, which are annoying, but necessary in your business.

[Louis Waweru]

@sgcarcia People always figure out a way to rip Flash streams. I think you'd be better off with Silverlight.

[daxlerod]

Even if you find some magic software, they can always record the screen with a camera.

[MonkeyZeus]

Your best bet is to figure out how the likes of HULU and Netflix keep people from downloading their stuff. But like @Louis said "You're better off with Silverlight"

[ganesh]

True. Or a framegrabber between the graphics out and the monitor.

[ganesh]

@MonkeyZeus 1) Silverlight is slowly on its way out. 2) Lots of testing for silverlight for Android, silverlight for OS X, silverlight for IOS, ... Decidedly not fun.

[Louis Waweru]

@MonkeyZeus The reason for my comment is that it's pretty simple to rip the Flash-based Hulu videos now, but I don't think anyone has figured out Netflix yet, since they use Silverlight.

[Michael Kohne]

There is NO WAY to completely prevent people from pirating your video. There's always a way for them to grab it. I'd suggest doing one or two videos, sell them without DRM, and then see how it goes. You can't stop all the pirates anyway, and if you can make money on the deal, then the fact that some pirates are getting a free ride may not be as big a problem as it at first appears.

[MonkeyZeus]

@Hennes Yes I agree, I was mainly trying to point out the futility of this endeavor

[MonkeyZeus]

Yes @Louis I understand and agree with you (I was under the false impression that Hulu also used Silverlight). The moral of this discussion is that if content is viewed on a computer/computing device that is available to the mass public then it is as good as Pirated

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Protect video file using DRM

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Difference between Content Protection and DRM

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

How can I explain why DRM cannot work?

[LawrenceC]

Your business model is flawed. Give the video away and put ads on it. Find/work with vendors or others who may want to put ads on it. Or, produce the videos for free and use them as advertising for consulting or one-on-one training services. Or try a donation model - i.e. position your subscriptions as an extended donation (you might even be honest and say you need it for help with college tuition). Just some thoughts.

[MonkeyZeus]

What technology do you plan on using? Do you have any programming experience?

[sgarcia]

I have very basic coding knowledge, I'm just starting as a software developer. I know some java, C# (.NET), some SQL and I had quite a lot of experience as a Flash animator as well as Actionscript 2.0, but I'm willing to learn whatever it takes asuming I can get it done in 1-2 months. I'm very new in terms of knowledge of video technology, so sorry if I sound ignorant.

[MonkeyZeus]

You don't sound ignorant, we just keep commenting our thoughts and ideas because this type of question generates a lot of discussion. I did a Google Search for "secure video playback" and members.wpacademy.com/… came up so it might be worth looking into or finding similar free-ware.

[Shekhar]

A lot of people make quite a lot of money from youtube channels, which is free for everyone to use.I suggest you look into that, it gives you more peace of mind, reliable delivery mechanism and more popularity than a paid content.

[sgarcia]

I was kinda expecting that answer...and yes, if there was a way, it's kind of obvious they would have done it. My question now is, is there some sort of work around to, I don't know, give people harder time downloading it? Or a way to host a video so that popular video downloading websites won't work (Example. Keepvid.com). Also, about the creating my own propietary video format, yeah, simple solution I tought before, but requires a LOT of work so I won't be doing that sadly...And about the Unecrypted, what do you mean by that??? any tips of how I can google some tutorials on doing this?

[ganesh]

There are lots of ways, but all of them are flawed. Either they can and will be broken or they require really restrictive measures. The last will stop a lot of people from using it. (e.g. download and install a player. SMS to a number to get a playback key which works for 30 minutes. Install the key in the viewer and quickly view the video.)