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General discussion

Download Service

Sep 2, 2007 2:14PM PDT

instead of buying a DVD or CD, a person would have an option to download the video or audio, my dad owns a record shop and just got permission from some small indeendent lables to offer downloads of their CDs, how can we provide this service without it getting abused, and only allowing persons who have paid to access it, i've seen other sites do this, one site gave the buyer 30 days and two download attempts to get the file.

the cheap way would be to upload to rapidshare and give the buyer a password but my dad doesn't want that.

Discussion is locked

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Billions invested in this issue so far.
Sep 2, 2007 10:38PM PDT

Not to sound harsh but this area has billions (of dollars) invested and no one has cracked this nut.

Your rapidshare idea is not too bad.

Bob

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thanx
Sep 3, 2007 2:28AM PDT

much appreciated

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OK, from the top of my head
Sep 3, 2007 7:47AM PDT

This would be an easy, unresearched way:

* The user goes to your site and pays... could be via a paypal link, or e-commerce system, etc

* When they pay, they get a thank you email with a link directly to the download file

Problem: What if they share the link or forward it to others?

Fix: The link could change every day.

Or: You could setup a forum type of thing, very basic, so when they pay, they get a link to login with the forum (either register and pre-setup a login), and once they do, they see a link with the download there.

You could then either (a) have the users account expire in X amount of days, (b) only allow 2 logins, or (c) limit the bandwidth that account X can only download X MB's which would be equivalent to the file size.

Just an idea... I'm sure there is an easier way out there.

~Sovereign

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ok
Sep 4, 2007 3:55AM PDT

that sounds good, i would like to do that esp. the download limit n maximum bandwidth, how can i do that?
the problem is with the link, by changing it everyday, wouldn't the file needed to be re-uploaded every time as well?

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Link
Sep 5, 2007 11:02AM PDT

You wouldn't have to re-upload it... it would just change the path, but the file would remain on the server.

And how can you do that with the bandwidth/download limit?

Well, it depends on what you are going to use. You could find an open source script that ties in to your existing website, or you could have a forum designed for simply that. Many forums have download plugins, and some come with features where you can set the download limit/bandwidth for each user. You could also conduct a search in google, hotscripts or such for "downloads scripts" and then whatever language you would like them in... PHP, etc.

~Sovereign

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i found a service
Sep 5, 2007 2:48PM PDT

sendspace, they say i can set download limits, expiry limits and i can change passwords to files anytime i feel like, am gonna try them

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Okay but...
Sep 6, 2007 5:12AM PDT

How do you make sure that once someone has downloaded the file that they don't share it with all of their friends or put it on a free download site?

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You can't
Sep 6, 2007 8:30AM PDT

But you have to figure out if it's more profitable to distribute downloads or DVD/CD's ... and if people are going to give it to their friends... they could either copy the CD or make a CD. So since one can't do anything about this risk, why provide this as a reason not to offer the download?

~Sovereign

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DRM
Sep 6, 2007 4:11PM PDT

Digital Rights Management but we wont be using it, i've heard the horrors of it, we just wanted an easier way to get the product out there and to cut waiting times.