When I wanted to set up a photo and video hosting site with the ability to sell stills and clips, Smugmug seemed an excellent choice, and I expected a similar hosting service for video as I had experienced with stills. However, Smugmug offers an excellent opportunity for the piracy of video clips and does not appear to realise the gravity of the situation.

I have had videos online - for sale - for almost a year now and there are a reasonable amount of views of them, but few purchases. Looking at the statistics from Smugmug and Google Analytics, at least 6 visitors have spent between 6 minutes and 30 minutes on the video pages in the last month, which is indicative of download activity (or screen grabbing activity).

I have voted here for video watermarking several times and offered alternatives to watermarking but there has been no progress here for 2 years.

My renewal is due soon and with a large price rise I am not too happy about the situation.

To summarise:
1. Can't watermark video clips
2. Can't restrict display size (like you can in photos) so full HD playback is possible
3. Can't upload a watermarked proxy and then when the file is purchased a clean version is retrieved.
4. The video files cannot be downloaded illegally but screen grabbing software is prevalent.

Heroes, you have a great opportunity to host paid-for videos but please prioritise the security.

Greetings to everyone.
I am a video professional and recently left zenfolio to come to SM.
A big move yes. Bigger than switching camera brands as now I have to mess with code etc etc.
But the ability to sell videos online is the main reason I am here.
But now that I am Im seeing gaps and holes all over this that need to filled.

Mainly in the area of video protection.
I need to be able to tempt my customers to buy.
I assume the best way to do this would be to allow them 1 play of the video, after which to watch again it would need to be purchased.
They get to see the quality of the video, and then cannot show it to anyone again until they pay.
This also prevents them from being able to grab the video by other means.

Sure this cant be too hard to implement ?
How do i go about making this suggestion to the powers that be?

thanks
Grif

This is a really tough idea to implement because you can't really tell if someone has actually viewed a video completely, just loaded. The second part of it that would be challenging is how to keep track of this. If you use a client-side cookie, they can just delete it and watch it again. If you use a server-side cookie of some sort, then you're collecting information about the user.

I think the suggestion is terrific though, and the best place to suggest it is at feedback.smugmug.com

Hi samir
Yes I see your points.
Although for me my video would be very specifically targetted to one person.
Perhaps they would even enter a password to access the gallery.
So a simple one play stat could theoretically be enough.
If they contacted me re a problem at least I have an interested client I can deal with.
Thanks for your thoughts. They are helping me to plan my suggestion better before posting to Sm

I'm glad I was able to help.

One way around your idea though would be to learn that the first play is free. Then you just capture the first play. And if that fails, simply try again on another computer.

Technically a single play restriction is a non-starter. The only method that could possibly work as noted in an earlier reply is for a low res watermarked version to be on display & for the full version to be downloaded when purchased. However since that downloaded version can then be copied I don't see that it buys you much. SmugMug is not the correct vehicle for selling video you need the equivalent of iTunes & DRM.