How To Let ONLY Paying Customers View Special Videos?

[Yourvirtualworld]

I want to allow paying customers ONLY to view special videos within Zen Cart. I'm already able to embed videos within Zen Cart Product pages but currently have no way to restrict access. After viewing much older threads on related topic I found some possible solution(s) but I'm not sure there are better ways to do this in 2012. See below:
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From http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com/e...erce-site.html

QUESTION: Hi All,

I've been asked to help design an eCommerce site for a friend of mine. We're playing around with Prestashop at the moment and finding it very very good. Basically he imports a product and wants to sell direct to customers on one site, and to people in the trade on another. What are his (our) options with regard making a site (Prestahop or otherwise), and requiring people to login before they can see products or prices (so as customers can't view trade prices).

ANSWER 1: Another option is (and many do this) is to have 2 sites on the one domain. (well 3 actually)

You can have the main site ie: www.yoursite.ie with links to the other 2 sites - retail.yoursite.ie & wholesale.yoursite.ie

So, after setting them up your retail customers can go straight to the retail site and your trade customers can go to the trade site where prices will only be shown after they register and are approved as a trade customer by the Admin (site owner).


ANSWER 2: From http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...+protect+video

the reply was; Far as I know, there's no way to do 'product by customer' in Zencart yet.

Considering how easy it is to install and copy a template to Zencart, if I were going to do what you've described, I'd install a separate installation of Zencart for each wedding in it's own subdirectory (/millerwedding) and give the guests a password for that site. You'd only have to style it once, and copy the template to future sites. One-product carts are pretty easy to design, anyway.
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Given that these responses date from 2006, is there a better answer in 2012?

[Yourvirtualworld]

I can't determine through searching Google, the Forum, or the ZC User Manual whether Zen Cart permits multiple simultaneous login instances using the same login and password. I'm setting up a ZC store that permits paying customers to watch videos within Product Pages. I don't want a customer to share login details so that other non-paying customers can view these videos simultaneously from other computers.

[lat9]

I just signed into one of my sites using the same login credentials using FireFox and IE-9 with no issue (which sounds like it might be an issue for you).

[Yourvirtualworld]

Thanks for reply. Your empirical test doesn't test logins from different IP addresses. What do the experts familiar with ZC code and features have to say?

[DrByte]

Zen Cart doesn't prevent simultaneous logins to customer accounts.
If a customer shares their password with someone else, that's up to them. Just like you sharing your gmail password with someone else.

[Yourvirtualworld]

Thanks DrByte! Do you know of any means/tactic available to deter shared use of login data in order to receive information and services that have not been paid for?

[Yourvirtualworld]

I'm setting up a ZC store that permits paying customers to watch videos within Product Pages. I don't want a customer to share login details so that other non-paying customers can view these videos simultaneously from other computers. Since Zen Cart permits multiple (read no limit) logins with the same ID and password from different IP addresses, what solution(s)/tactic may exist to deter guests from acquiring information or services that they have not paid for from a Zen Cart store?

[gilby]

I'm setting up a ZC store that permits paying customers to watch videos within Product Pages. I don't want a customer to share login details so that other non-paying customers can view these videos simultaneously from other computers. Since Zen Cart permits multiple (read no limit) logins with the same ID and password from different IP addresses, what solution(s)/tactic may exist to deter guests from acquiring information or services that they have not paid for from a Zen Cart store?

Be aware that locking down to a specific IP won't work either.
My laptop when mobile gets a different IP address on every page viewed.

[RodG]

My laptop when mobile gets a different IP address on every page viewed.

I call BS on this one. :)

A different IP address everytime you reconnect to your provider, yes, quite possible, even probable, but a new IP for every page viewed, I think not.

Cheers
Rod

[DrByte]

I suppose you could write your own plugin to store the customer's IP address and customer number and time of login in a new database table when they login, and have it delete it when they logout or after a predetermined length of time. Then when new logins happen, check to see if you've already got that customer number in the table of logged-in users. You'd have to also build some garbage-collection logic in case your customers don't log out, since you won't want to lock them out just because they didn't intentionally log out, hence the need to store their login time. You might even want to make it update the time every time they click a link on your site, so you know when to consider them logged out.

That's one way to tackle it anyway.

You might consider shortening it and not preventing simultaneous logins, but preventing simultaneous viewings, by only tracking that information when they attempt to view something, and pop up a suitable message if it's found they're already viewing.

Or you could tackle it backwards: if someone starts viewing from another computer, kill the playback for the first computer. That way whoever's doing the sharing will quickly stop since it's seriously inconveniencing their own enjoyment. Of course that would require streaming the content instead of allowing it to be downloaded as a typical video file can be.

Those are a couple ideas you might consider.