Hi, here’s another rant :D
After my recent initial purchase, despite the concern I had, I’ve decided to buy the latest Hypers’ Pack both because I want to progress faster through micros and found it very well organized but to the point. It hasn’t even been a week since the course was released and I can already find threads on poker related forums where people are openly discussing buying the course and sharing account. This is obviously possible since the videos don’t have any DMR and while I’m a huge adversary of DRM in general I really feel like HUSNG.com should do more in order to protect both me, as a fully paying consumer, and it’s own business.
The DRM on games/software doesn’t work cause it only impacts paying consumers and everyone else is free to dl a DRM-less version. Even though it’s very easy to download a pirated version of anything in reality it’s a product of a fairly small group(s) of people (The Scene), everyone else is just leeching their work. So the point I’m trying to make is that imposing a DRM would serve its role as I’m sure most of the poker community would have no idea how to bypass those restrictions.
I’m not going to talk about whether (and to what extent) it’s beneficial for HUSNG to implement the DRM cause I guess it’s fairly complicated topic with many factors to consider so I’m not going to say how I know everything how the owner(s) should run their business. Instead I will focus on the consumer’s point of view.
Poker is a complicated game and no video is going to make you a winner just by watching it. The courses you sell are more of a guidelines, you still have to put hours of work to progress through the stakes and I’m fully aware that most people won’t do it. So why do I think that many people (not fully paying consumers) watching those is such a huge deal? Because knowledge is worth more the lesser people have it. While I still think the above, about people not putting enough effort, holds true the reality is you don’t have to put that much work (due to the charts and how videos are constructed) to make a huge improvement assuming you were really bad at those games. Since it’s so easy to buy and share those courses the value of information they provide diminishes substantially. I paid a full price for the course but it’s been less than a week and the info is already out there in the open for substantially less. Now, I’m not saying I’m not happy with my purchase but it will take me some time to make it back on the stakes I play while those who bought them for much less could be already moving up or buy a Coffee Hud for the price difference. So it really feels like husng is leveling, at least some % of field against me (and other fully paying consumers).
So yeah, that’s basically what I wanted to say, I obviously doubt this post is going to make a 180 degree switch on husng DRM policy just cause you have one dissatisfied consumer but I really hope you can see my point (feedback?) and writing this wasn’t a waste of time. But who knows, HUSNG has changed its business model recently, so while the lack of DRM is probably a conscious decision, doesn’t mean it’s not an option.
To further illustrate my point. The seller has information to sell, he values it at X and that’s the price I bought it. Yet he doesn’t impose any restrictions on how its spread, what people have access to it so after just a few days the same information is available on a black market for anywhere from 0.2-0.4 X. From my point of view this has a huge impact on the true value of X, now it’s worth less than the official seller asks, let’s say 0.5-0.7x since I will still have an edge on everyone who still doesn’t have it and those who do but didn’t really put much thought into it. So EV wise I feel like I should sell the information as well so I can be break even on my purchase.
Thanks for the feedback, I do value it.
It is an issue I have thought of quite considerably. The conclusion drawn thus far, has been that when I helped with many training sites to remove copyrighted sharing and torrents, the most torrented videos (by far), were Cardrunners videos, and at the time one of the only sites that used DRM.
There were also some major complaints from legitimate users about the DRM.
If there existed a better solution, slightly less invasive to users, and slightly more effective at protecting sharing, recording, distributing, I would probably implement it, as there is value in protecting a product that can help users make money (unlike say, the entertainment industry).
Though it would likely cost some money, and the cost of your video pack would cost more as well (though you might be OK with that given the problems you identify with sharing).
I hope your example of reselling was just a bit of a quick example, and nothing serious though. You have to remember, those that do not respect enough to pay, are often the type of people looking for a shortcut to winning. They are often the type that will not put in serious effort towards learning from the videos either, they will take a shortcut.
For example, if a person can save $200 by ripping off HUSNG.com and the author and not care about the long term availability of training or respect of the creator, then that person is also likely to take shortcuts everywhere else. Why watch the video when he can just look at the chart in the video? Why watch the video twice when he probably understood some the first time? Why wait for a better spot to bluff when his emotions want him to win the pot right here? Why wait for a better hand to shove when he wants to steal the BB 6bb deep with 72o? I think you get my point. The man who steals a candy bar from the store is not exactly the one you have to fear will rule you one day.
We do police as much as we can, but it's a full time job running the site. Perhaps we will actually hire someone to police the torrents and sharing. I've had sites taken offline by their registars and hosts in various countries, including Russia this year for reselling our content without permission and refusing (initially) to take it down.
I don't like having to do that stuff, it doesn't please me to work in such a negative area of the industry so much, and to deal with all of this all the time, but it is something that needs to be done.
If you have some information on sharing and discussion on forums, we've never failed to remove anything like this, and removing public discussion does help. So if you could email me, rypac13@husng.com, and help turn me onto some of the areas you've found, that would be of great service.
Believe me, I'm working hard to make sure you get top content and that file sharers are minimizes. I haven't found any site that has a solution yet though, even the DRM sites seem to have videos shared all the time.
Hey, thank you for your response. By example I wanted to illustrate how the value of the information I bought has dropped so fast. Perhaps some people will still say that 200$ for the pack is a steal, no matter the sharing but that’s exactly why I didn’t use the exact price point for me it doesn’t matter whether it’s 200$ or 2K. Just wanted to emphasize that the value of the pack has imo dropped from its starting point.
As for the site I discovered I’m afraid going after them is quite pointless. I said talking openly about sharing but to be honest that was just a simplification. It’s usually enough just starting a thread or discussion about a video pack/husng or any other video training site where people share their skype contacts (via PM or in public) so they can “discuss” those, so it’s fairly obvious what’s going on. Not to mention this forum is heavily moderated and the mods didn’t do anything about it. Anyway, I don’t really think it’s a right approach going after those people, they will find a way to communicate no matter what.
Here’s an idea, obviously nothing too serious since you have probably put more thought into it then the stuff someone can come up within 5 minutes. How about a temporary DRM solution? No idea for how long but even a month could be a good thing. I think my biggest concern is how fast everyone else can get the pack and as there is no dedicated scene for poker releases, at least no open one the videos wouldn’t get torrented fast enough. Sound kinda silly, even to me, cause it’s not like we’re trying to protect some groundbreaking poker theorem going public but this would still give the early buyers some sort of exclusiveness on the information they have paid for.
Removing it from public discussion is actually very helpful.
Yes, things go on privately, but many people won't bother searching hard for something they are willing to pay for if it's not right in their face. Whereas, if they see a forum thread, they might think "well, it's so easy and open and available, I'll just ask to be shared."
Also, many forums don't moderate heavily except based on requests/reports.
So it would really be a big service to help us out here. Every forum will remove discussion once requested in my experience.
As for the DRM, that is one idea. But we need an affordable solution that is not too invasive. If we have 10% of users not understanding how to do this, and potentially getting angry, then we're using a lot of resources on DRM + causing people to not buy future videos.
Also, we need effective protection. Like I said before, Cardrunners was DRM protected, yet they had the most torrents on the internet of their videos when I used to help sites remove torrents. The worst case would be implementing something that our users hate, that costs a lot and is ineffective.