Protecting PDF Downloads

  • Resolved mjrichie

    (@mjrichie)


    4 years, 5 months ago

    I’m trying to setup a store for folks to buy a digital coloring book, and it seems like WooCommerce is the best option. I want people to be able to print without any challenges, but I want to create some barriers to sharing the file digitally. Are there any options to prevent people from sharing the download link once they’ve downloaded the pdf?

    I imagine I’m wanting to have my cake and eat it to here, but any suggestions either within WooCommerce or otherwise are appreciated.

    Thanks for reading!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • In a word, “No”. You can limit the number of downloads easily enough but when a simple file is on a buyer’s computer, it can be shared easily.

    Hi @mjrichie,

    It is true that once the file has been downloaded, the customer could use the PDF pretty much any way they want to.

    However, you can protect the files while they are still on your server. That would keep users from giving the links to others to download themselves. One way to do that is to require users to be logged in to download files. WooCommerce has an option for that at WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Downloadable Products.

    download

    You could also use a service like Amazon’s S3 which can use links that expire. The user can still download directly from their account any time they want, but the URLs change every few minutes which prevents their sharing.

    https://woocommerce.com/products/amazon-s3-storage/

    If you have any questions, please let us know.

    Cheers

    We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved – if you have any further questions, you can start a new thread.

    – Joey

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Protecting PDF Downloads’ is closed to new replies.