- Hey y'all, it's Aurelius. In this video, I'm going
to teach you three ways on how you can protect
your digital download such as PDF documents,
media files or anything else that can be digitally downloaded. Each of these ways has its
pros and cons and flaws so there's no one solution
or method that does it all. So if you do add maybe
two of these methods or perhaps even three of these methods then it's even better. Let's go onto method number one, which is using a PDF
protection tool such as PDF2Go. So go to PDF2Go.com and then where you go is
to the Protect PDF option. So if you go to all tools, there's an option to click on Protect PDF. From here you simply drag and
drop your file right here. So this option is for PDF
documents specifically. So let's say I've got
this ebook right here that I want to protect or
password protect specifically that'll upload it as you can see and then while we wait for that, we can just choose a
password that we want. So this password will be
used to unlock this PDF. So let's just put in
password for this example. You're also given a few other options such as prevent printing,
copying, or modifying so we can select all of that. And then there's a specific password if they wish to print, copy or modify. So we enter a password again. And the option that PDF2Go also offers is this rasterize option. Essentially, what it means is if you have this PDF document, people can really just
copy and paste the text and the images onto let's
say a Word doc or Google Doc. So in order to stop and
prevent that from happening, enable rasterize which will
then convert those pages into basically pixels or
images rather than text that they can copy and
paste, so enable that. I think that's a great measure
if you don't want your ebook, let's say copied and pasted. Once you're set with all
that, click on Start. Once you've hit that Start
button, it'll then do its job of basically password
protecting the PDF document. Once that's all done, click on Download and here's the downloaded PDF file. If I try to open that, it'll
ask me for the password. So you can see right here it's asking me what the password is for this document. So I'll enter the password in. And as you can see, now it is unlocked. A little warning on a caveat
here by using this method, people who do have the
password can easily unlock it and decrypt it, all they need to do is go and use one of these tools like PDF2Go and then go to Unlock PDF. Basically all they need to do is just drag and drop that exact
password protected file and then putting or
inputting that password that they know of. And then that'll do basically
unlock that file completely. So then there'll be no prompt for a password for that particular PDF. So it kind of defeats the whole purpose of protecting a PDF with a password. But if they do go through those links and if they desperately want to unlock it in a way where there's no
more password protection and then they illegally
share it amongst their people then you really can't stop it. But again, they do need
to know that this method or tool exists in order to
unlock the PDF document. Now, with that said, there
is another method I'll share with you method number two and that is to use another
service called DocSend.com. DocSend allows you to
send any kind of document to your students, your email recipients or your customers with
a specific unique link. And then you can actually
track who has downloaded or access that particular link. Here's what the backend looks like. If I go to content, I can
then create a new link or I can just upload a new file. Let's use this ebook again as an example but you can upload pretty
much anything on DocSend but before I jump into DocSend, I wanna note that DocSend is a paid tool, which is $10 per month paid annually. There is a free trial if you do wanna give it a try for 14 days. So if you do wanna protect
your files and it is essential, then this may be a good solution for that. With that said, let's now
protect one of our documents. Let's go back and then
upload this particular file. So I'll click on Upload Content. DocSend also allows you to
upload signable documents, add URL or upload and extract the zip but I'll choose upload files
and folders from my device. I'll drag and drop that specific
PDF document right here. And then I'll click on upload. Now that it's uploaded, you
can see that it is processing and once it's processed, what
you can do is add a new link. So there's a specific link that students or customers or email recipients can use in order to access that specific file. I'll click on Add Link. Now I'm going to create
a new account for this. So let's say it is for my customers or it is for the marketing
team or whatever it is. You can just name it right here
to describe the organisation or company perhaps in
here, I wanna put in staff. So I'll just create a
new account name Staff. And then do I require email to view? I can check that or uncheck it. So it's up to you whether they need to enter a valid email address or not, you can also allow downloading or not. And there's an expiry date too. So if you have a specific date when this specific document needs to be downloaded by it, you can set that. Also offers password
protection and access control. You can allow certain viewers
with specific email addresses with that, and even going a step deeper with viewers must verify their identity via a secure link sent to their email prior to
accessing your document. In addition, you can add a watermark if you wish to do so, but once you're done with the settings, click on Create a link. Now I'm given the unique link. I'll just copy that. Now, when I try to open the
document in a new browser with that link, I am prompted
to enter my email address. DocSend allows you to
track who has downloaded and visited the link
you can see right here. So if they do enter their email, we've got a record of all of that. As an example, I entered my email address to access that PDF file. And now I can see under
activity, visitors. I can see last seen at this time. And total time spent and number of visits. What's also great about DocSend is that it integrates with Zapier. Zapier allows you to
do all sorts of things, integrating as a kind of a middleman tool to connect with another app or tool. This can be a powerful combination because once you integrate DocSend with let's say your shopping cart system, any customers that purchase
through your shopping cart that information and that
data can then be passed on through Zapier then to DocSend which then can be used to validate whether a customer really
did purchase or not. The third way to protect
your downloads is to gate it with some sort of membership
plugin, script or system. One in particular I can
mention is WishList Member which is a highly popular
membership plugin. It plugs into WordPress which is the most popular
blogging platform out there. It offers one click content protection so they can create certain pages and then protect it with
the right membership level. So if they don't have a
certain membership level or if they didn't purchase then they won't get access
to that specific download. So this method may be a
little extreme, especially if you basically wanna
offer the digital download right away after someone purchases. But if you do want to
take that extra measure and protection, I guess you
can use a membership plugin like WishList Member. If you really want to protect
your digital downloads, you can gate it with a membership plugin in combination with something
like DocSend to then protect and create unique links
for your digital downloads. And by using a membership plugin, you can see who has logged in, who has access specific pages
and then restrict access if you do see or find someone
that is a little suspicious. And then you have, those are three ways and methods on how you can
protect your digital downloads. If you found this video
helpful by all means, hit that Like button, subscribe and turn on notifications too so you don't miss out on future
tutorials, just like this. Thanks so much for watching and looking forward to sharing
the next video with you. (upbeat music)
