Preventing download option for videos

Preventing download option for videos

by Innovix Solution -
Number of replies: 9

Hello All,

I am a newbie to Moodle. May i know how can we prevent downloading video from our Moodle site?We just want to allow the user for watching only.Thank you.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Innovix Solution

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
You can't.

It's nothing to do with Moodle it's the way the internet works. If the data is sent to your PC then you can download it - usually very easily.

I will be as blunt as I usually am about this - if your business model relies on your students not being able to "steal" your videos then it's not a very good business model.
In reply to Innovix Solution

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Walter Byrd -
I think I found a way to do this.
I store my videos on box.com. The service has a feature to put the video within iframe tags to embed the video elsewhere. There is an option to make the video "view only."
This will not make the video absolutely secure from downloads, but at least there won't be a working download button.

I am not sure exactly how this works, but here is a sample:

<iframe src="https://app.box.com/embed/s/6i7fofilvtkcy9vvhqg9i6kpv6y6dlwl?sortColumn=date&view=list" width="800" height="550" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

For this to work, I cannot be logged in to Moodle as admin, and I cannot be logged in to box.com at all. Even closing a tab is not enough, I have to log out of box.com.
In reply to Innovix Solution

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Ram Freedman -
Hi,
I use vimeo to host such videos.
In vimeo paid plans you can set the Domain-level privacy so you will able to host a video only on your site and there will be no easy way to download it.
But as mentioned by @Howard Miller - if someone will try hard enough he will be able to do it (the most easy way will be to screen record it).
In reply to Innovix Solution

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Mohammad Nabil -
for most users you can just hide download button , disable right click ...
this prevent users from easy and ready availble download button
but for complete protection : no way , even if you find a video provider that do it m also who want to download will find a way
In reply to Innovix Solution

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Lucas Correa Pacheco -
I've been struggling for quite some time for ways to prevent videos from being downloaded, and found an extremely easy way to do it (of course, this will not completely prevent the videos from being downloaded, but will help a lot, as most users will not find a way to overcome it).

Just add this after the opening of your video tag: oncontextmenu="return false;" 

When you set oncontextmenu="return false;", the right-click menu will be disabled for your video (while it will still be working for the rest of your site). As simple as that, and no one will be able to right-click and save your video file.

I've never posted to the Moodle forums before, but I thought it could be interesting to share this solution, as I spent a lot of time looking for something and this is a solution that takes 5 seconds to be implemented, doesn't require any changes on the pages' programming, and costs nothing.

Best regards,
Lucas.
Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Lucas Correa Pacheco

Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Interesting solution for disabling the right-click download, and thanks for sharing.

But this still doesn't prevent someone from making a copy of the video. In my case, when I need to copy a video that doesn't provide the right-click, I simply open up Camtasia, go into screen-record mode, capture the video playing on my screen, and when done, I save the captured video. Yes, I tend to do this during lunch or at other times when I am not watching TV.
In reply to Lucas Correa Pacheco

Vs: Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Hemmo Määttänen -
Hi, I tested this and it seems to work but interestingly only if I am logged-in as admin. When I log in as a student, the right-click menu appears again. I wonder if I am doing something wrong?
In reply to Hemmo Määttänen

Re: Vs: Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Lucas Correa Pacheco -

Hi. I've tested it again in my environment as both admin and student, and it seems to be working well. Below you can see a screenshot of the beginning of my video tag. I don't know if this might make difference in this sense, but I'm using the latest Moodle version.


In reply to Lucas Correa Pacheco

Vs: Re: Vs: Re: Preventing download option for videos

by Hemmo Määttänen -
Apparently "Log in as" student is not the same as actually logging in with a student account. Interesting. It works well, in other words. Thanks!