Last Updated: 04 Januari 2021. Protecting online course video from being downloaded is not easy. It is almost impossible to protect videos from being downloaded, but with this wordpress plugin, videos embedded in wordpress site can be protected securely. Nobody can download the videos, even using idm, browser video download addon, or any tools.
As an educator, I always want to create tutorial videos. I would like to post my videos in youtube, and I would like to embed it in my own wordpress website. Fortunately, it can be done easily. I have browsed about this topic whether it is possible to protect videos. Most programmers in the discussion said it is almost impossible to protect videos from being downloaded.
for those who are programmers, it may be easy for them to try to code and create video protection, but for me, a non programmer, a shortcut is needed so that I can focus on my work, creating video.
After browsing here and there, I found a wordpress plugin that can protect video uploaded in my own server. here you are: https://preventdirectaccess.com/
and you can see it in action. There is a video in the page that is protected by the plugin. Try to download the video using any video downloader you have. Here is the sample: https://preventdirectaccess.com/protect-wordpress-training-videos/
I tried to download the video. The video was downloadble, but the file was fake, so it could not be played.
So far, I am pretty convinced with that plugin.
so now, I am preparing the content. I am making a lot of videos for my own online course.
I am quite sure that I will make money selling online course without worrying my video from being stolen and than uploaded to youtube.
However, there is still one issue. This plugin cannot prevent from being recorded through screen recording. Nevertheless, I don’t care much about that because I believe it will take longer time and much more effort to steal the video through screen recording.
In the future, the stealer may find another way to hack, break the protection, finally download the protected videos. I believe in that. but, at least, the plugin does the prevention.
What about you? will you use this plugin?
Update 04 January 2021:
Hi.. I have updated this post. Initially, as mentioned above, I recommended using Prevent Direct Access to protect online course video in wordpress.
I have two more suggestions:
First, https://flyplugins.com/s3-media-maestro/
Second, https://s3mediavault.com/
Both of them are recommended by Chrislema
I myself use the first one, the s3 media maestro plugin to protect online video course in my site https://toefl.id
Here is the sample if you want to try: https://toefl.id/courses/toefl-structure-and-written-expression/lessons/skill-1/
I have tried downloading the video using idm (internet download manager), and it failed. Thus, I think it is successful in protecting the wordpress video from download using download manager such as the IDM.
I decided not to use Prevent Direct Access because in order to protect the video, I have to buy two plugins: the Core plugin, that is Prevent Direct Access, and the additional module, that is Protect WordPress Video. I have studied thoroughly about how to use it to protect video. I read it in the documentation. It seems that it takes a lot of steps to do the protection.
Thus,
I decided to use S3 Media Maestro.
Actually, I am also very interested in using S3 Media Vault, but I have purchased S3 Media Maestro, and it’s already good for me.
To have the best prevention to protect your wordpress video, the video must be converted to HLS, and all the three plugins above support HLS video.
After reading the documentation of each plugins, I conclude that the easiest way to have HLS files of our video is using S3 Media Maestro 4.0 or using S3 Media Vault. Both offer automatic conversion using amazon aws feature.
oh..
One more thing..
To use S3 Media Maestro or S3 Media Vault, you have to use S3 Amazon AWS. Don’t worry it’s very cheap. The first 12 month is free as long as you don’t use it over the limit.
in TOEFL.id, I have about 300 students. Whenever it is below the limit, each month is free. However, whenever the so many students accessing the videos again and again, and it is more than the limit, Amazon AWS charges me for the expenses. Surprisingly, it is still cheap. The biggest amount that has been charged to me was $2.68. Very Cheap.
That’s all my update. Thanks for reading.
