Paid member download limiting?

[tortus32]

Is there a way to limit how much a paid member can download per day?

I'm looking for software that is either free, or has a one time purchase price. I don't want to pay $60 a month or more for this.

I contacted CCBill and amazingly they don't offer anything like this.

Thanks,

Bill

[Simon]

This is one option, has either a one-time price or a monthly fee, your choice...

https://www.bettercgi.com/throttlebox/

HTH

[Ramster]

ccbill would have nothing to do with that, they only process your sales.

Your CMS should do this for you. Your CMS runs you members areas and should be tracking everything so if anything it would be the script to control member downloads (but not all CMS do).

[tortus32]

Thanks guys. I'll look into throttlebox for sure. Like I said, I did ask CCBill and they don't offer anything for this, which I did find very surprising. I thought they were one of the, if not, the top company in their field.

[Ramster]

Originally Posted by tortus32

Thanks guys. I'll look into throttlebox for sure. Like I said, I did ask CCBill and they don't offer anything for this, which I did find very surprising. I thought they were one of the, if not, the top company in their field.

As I said above, ccbill is a credit card processing company. They do not run your members area. Yes they have a password file for allowing member access but that is where it ends. You do not use ccbill to input your content or run your updates so ccbill has no idea what you have inside your members area without looking.

What CMS are you running?

[tortus32]

Originally Posted by Ramster

As I said above, ccbill is a credit card processing company. They do not run your members area. Yes they have a password file for allowing member access but that is where it ends. You do not use ccbill to input your content or run your updates so ccbill has no idea what you have inside your members area without looking.

What CMS are you running?

Well in that case I guess I'm not running any CMS - I do it all myself manually. I use coppermine galleries to organize the photos, but that's about it.

[raymor]

You do not need to be running any CMS for Throttlebox to work on your server. All you need is the ability to make changes to the site's VirtualHost (i.e., not a shared IP). You may consider our package deal of Throttlebox (limits bandwidth), Strongbox (for preventing password abuse), and the Annual Support Contract. If you have any questions, we'd be happy to assist in any way we can.

[tortus32]

Thanks - I will definitely keep that in mind!

[tortus32]

I just noticed hostgator - who I'm hosted with - offers these CMS packages:

Drupal
Geeklog
Joomla 1.5
Joomla
Mambo
PHP-Nuke
phpWCMS
phpWebSite
Siteframe
TYPO3
Xoops
Zikula

Which one of these would be best in your opinion?

Thanks,

Bill

[Demamma]

http://www.jonasjohn.de/snippets/php/dl-speed-limit.htm

there you go.

[MadCat]

Note that he isn't asking about download -speed limits-, he's asking to limit the total number of bytes a given user can download, if I'm not mistaken.

Personally, I think that is a horrid idea, for the simple reason that if a user ends up hitting his limit on day 5 of his membership, he sure as hell isn't going to be rebilling the next month; surfers want to get what they paid for, after all.

Throttling download speed, on the other hand, is much better, but you also don't want to throttle too much, because a pissed off surfer is a non-rebilling surfer.

[tortus32]

I'm actually just looking to create a daily limit that is reset every day, so that each user can download a certain amount per day. I agree that an actual limit per user that just ends period would be horrible - lol

How does that script work? Would I have to have a script like that for each and every file I have on my site??

[Simon]

Something to consider. Are you going to very clearly tell the surfers, in a way they can absolutely not miss before they sign up for a membership, that there are daily download limits? (Does that even sound like a good reason to join a site to you?)

I'm not sure why you're interested in doing this, but there may be a better way to achieve the result you really want, unless of course what you really want is just to limit your members enjoyment of your content in whatever way they choose.

Are you having a big problem now with too many members logging in and downloading the whole members area? Is that, or something like that, what's driving your interest in limiting how much your paid members can download each day?

Remember that not everyone uses a member area the same way. Some will login every day to enjoy content online (and those members want to see new things added regularly or they'll cancel). Others will login every so often and download a bunch of content to enjoy offline. And yes, some will try to download everything they can soon after they join. But unless you clearly state how paid members are and are not allowed to access the content, those members would be well within their rights to believe they can do whatever they want for the next month once they've paid their money.

Done wrong, your plans can cost you more in lost members than any perceived 'loss' you might incur from members downloading content they believe they have a right to download.

Just my opinion here of course.

[tortus32]

Originally Posted by Simon

Are you having a big problem now with too many members logging in and downloading the whole members area? Is that, or something like that, what's driving your interest in limiting how much your paid members can download each day?

Yes! I would set the limit pretty high, probably above what the normal user does every day. I just don't want users downloading the whole damn site every day. I have seen this in use before. One site that I signed up for was www.amateurallure.com - and the site said nothing about daily limits, but you were limited to something like 1 or 2 video downloads a day. I really saw nothing wrong with that as it seemed fair. That's not what I would do as I really don't have many videos anyway - my site is mostly photos.

[Useless]

I suggest that you purchase Strongbox to make sure that the people who are downloading a lot are really your paid members and not using shared passwords, then leave it at that. I wouldn't suggest limiting paid members in any manner. No matter what you do, your content is perishable and it will get passed around.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by tortus32

One site that I signed up for was www.amateurallure.com - and the site said nothing about daily limits, but you were limited to something like 1 or 2 video downloads a day.

I've seen a few sites(retained pretty good) that show maybe approx. 30 quality videos for download per day, and then rotate through their entire catalog adding/dropping videos each day.

That way there is plenty for the surfers to keep coming back to, and it doesn't put your whole catalog available at the same time for the site rippers.

[tortus32]

I like the looks and cost of Strongbox - I'll definitely go that route.

Thanks guys!

[MadCat]

One way to get the same effect is to put some download -speed- limits in place. For images you want to put a relatively normal limit on it, like, max 20kb/sec (depends on size), but force it to be only 1 concurrent request. For thumbs, you want 4 concurrent requests. Also block out all user agents that are not a regular browser.

There are also apps like Strongbox that, IIRC, will see if a user is acting "weird" (e.g. being a bot ) and will temporarily block them.

Actually limiting the amount one can download is, IMO, the best way to get a surfer to charge back or not rebill. (At least, I know it pisses me off if I've found the perfect thing to download, and it won't let me due to some 3-a-day limit, makes me cranky and not interested to come back later either).

Just my 2 cents

[tortus32]

Originally Posted by MadCat

One way to get the same effect is to put some download -speed- limits in place. For images you want to put a relatively normal limit on it, like, max 20kb/sec (depends on size), but force it to be only 1 concurrent request. For thumbs, you want 4 concurrent requests. Also block out all user agents that are not a regular browser.

How is that done? I'm a novice when it comes to coding and such. Is that something that can only done through applications like strongbox, or is that something I can do on my own?

[MadCat]

You can do it in the Apache configuration with some rules but that only catches user agents. Most of the time, the folks downloading your entire members area in one gulp are also the ones clever enough to spoof the user agent

So yeah, you need software

Or just say "fuck it", maybe raise your prices a little, heck, let people download zipped galleries and movie sets, and not worry about it anymore. As long as income > expenses, no?

[tortus32]

Ok thanks! Looks like Strongbox is my best option.