Every week I have the opportunity to talk to people about exciting new online course concepts. It really is incredible the amount of industries and niches out there that can be served with an online course!

During these conversations there are some individuals who express a great deal of concern over their course content. Specifically, they don’t want people to steal it.

They often ask questions like:

• How can I prevent copy and paste?
• How can I limit a user account to just one individual?
• Is there a way to prevent recording of my videos?

And the list of concerns goes on.

First, this is totally understandable. People spend a tremendous amount of time getting their course put together that you want to protect their hard work. It’s human nature.

But there is something you should realize, and I think by understanding this important concept you will save yourself worry and stress: it’s almost impossible to prevent one of your customers from stealing your course content if they really want it.

While you can implement measures to discourage such behavior rather easily (i.e. copyscape to prevent copy/paste, this plugin to limit log-ins to one IP address, etc.) there is nothing you can do to prevent someone from clicking “print screen” on their keyboard. Similarly, you cannot stop a third party screen capture or recording program from running.

Accepting this reality of the digital world will allow you to move onto more business critical components for your online courses. Placing your energy into your offering is actually a way that adds more value to your courses that can never be stolen!

For example, a good online course is more than the content, it’s all about community. Your community and culture cannot be ripped off.

My advice is to keep your efforts towards adding value. Sure, implement some security settings here or there but don’t obsess over it. In the end, if someone wants to steal something they usually find a way to do it. The good news for you is this is a very small minority of people.

Look at it this way: if people view your content as good enough to be stolen, then that means you’ve created some very good content! 🙂