How To Sell Online Courses Securely: 10 Ways To Secure Your Courses

This post talks about how to sell your online courses securely using 10 powerful security bolstering tips.

A popular website in the marketing niche, Ad Age frequently posts thought leadership content for its paid subscribers. 

However, it is a common sight to find that same content with a different title on some other website. 

This is the definition of blatant plagiarism and has been the bane for digital content creators. The issue of plagiarism is even more critical, if you are an online course creator. 

You don’t want some random students to mooch your premium courses without paying, right? 

Roshan Mathews, an online teacher, had a nightmarish experience recently. He spent months creating content for his upcoming copywriting course. 

After completing the course, he uploaded it on his website that had limited security features. Within a week’s time, he found copies of his course loaded freely on the e-junkie website.  

So, in this post I will help you to understand what Roshan could have done differently and how to sell your online courses securely.

Why Is Security Important For Online Courses?

So, from Roshan’s example, I am sure you know why security is important for your online courses. Here are the 3 main reasons to emphasize security. 

Hacks and Attacks 

There is no reason why hackers hack. It is not always for money, it could be for the fun. Recently, an online school in Mumbai had to shut down due to unidentified hacker attacks. 

Piracy

This is important to protect your course from internet pirates who share your course on sites like Udemy. Read about: pirated courses on Udemy

Reputation management

People sign up for your online course because they trust you and your brand. Now, when they find your courses elsewhere, it is your reputation that takes a big hit.  

So, if any of these factors scare you, don’t be. Let us discuss how to resolve this issue. 

How To Sell Online Courses Securely? 

Get copyrights

Before you make your course live, make sure you get it copyrighted. 

Copyrights give creators legal rights over their contents and its monetization. 

You can copyright every element of your course including images, videos, infographics, text and PDF. 

Copyright your course and save it from getting hacked. Visit myonlineca website for details 

Make passwords mandatory 

Make it mandatory for learners to view their courses after sign in using a secured password. 

Allow them to create passwords with alphanumeric characters. This step reduces the chances of hackers from stealing your courses.  

Try different course formats

Some content formats offer better protection than others. For example, a PDF document is much less prone to piracy than standard website text. 

For content like eBook and audio files, you can opt for Digital Rights Management (DRM). 

Alternatively, you can also choose to upload the content on a web server that will encrypt and store them for you. 

Disable “copy”

You don’t want people Ctrl + C’ing content from your course and Ctrl + V’ing it on to their local disk. 

Luckily, you can easily disable this copy feature. Doing this can reduce theft by about 75%. 

Choose a secure video hosting service

Uploading your video content on your own website may not be the safest option. 

Your website may lack the security and encryption features that other online academies have. 

The good news is that many companies offer video hosting services for monthly and yearly packages. 

Vimeo, Wistia, and Amazon S3 are some of the most trusted video hosting service providers that you can make use of. 

Or you can simply opt for an LMS like Learnyst that gives all the above features to its customers. 

You can be at peace knowing that your videos will be safe behind a code that is almost impossible to decode. 

Watermark everything

Watermarks are essential to protect and claim ownership of the content you create. 

You can simply add your brand name or logo to your course content. This applies to everything from simple presentation slides to videos. 

In the unfortunate event that your content gets stolen and republished, people will at least know the original creator of the course. 

Be on the lookout for duplicates

You can keep an eye out to see if someone is plagiarising your courses using Google alerts.  

This free tool will track new content based on the keywords and terms you choose and mail you a list when something new is published online. Know more here: How to use google alert to prevent plagiarism

How Can Learnyst Help You Sell Courses Securely?

As an all in one platform for online educators to sell their courses, the following are the security features we offer you: 

Copy-paste disabled 

None of your content can be copied by an individual as copy-paste functionality is completely disabled in Learnyst’s course player.

Provide high security to your contents

We stream your videos and PDFs using DRM encryption. This prevents hacking, as hackers will get non usable form of content. 

Screen recording and screenshot protection 

Students using your academies mobile apps won’t be able to take a screen recording or screenshot. 

Single device restriction for mobile 

As password sharing is common among students, your academie’s mobile apps have device restrictions. So, login is restricted to a unique mobile device. 

Note: In case, the student loses their mobile, they can let the admin know. The admin can then update the new device from his/her end.  

Parallel login restriction in web 

A student cannot login from multiple browsers from on a laptop or desktop at the same time. 

Enable OTP for login

You can configure an OTP to be entered every time a student logs in. This helps you verify student authenticity. 

Watermark videos with student details 

Your students phone number /mail will be watermarked every time they watch your videos. This prevents them from taking screen recordings of your videos from desktops as their identity gets revealed

Time signed URL

Each URL associated with your course will only be available for a specific period for people to access. 

Track student login devices 

You also have the option to track the number of devices a student uses to login. The system can alert you if a single student logs in from multiple IP’s in a single day. 

Paid and private courses 

Course access can be restricted in two ways. 

• Paid courses: Only those who pay can access your course 
• Private Courses: Only those who have permission to use the course will be able to view it. 

Hope you learned how to sell online courses securely using these 10 security bolstering tips. Now it is your time to try out these 10 tips.

So, what are the next steps? 

At Learnyst, we help you with the entire process of course creation to marketing, creating your own branded online academy.

If you already have course content ready, signup with us and get your online academy free for 14 days.

You can create your own branded online academy, upload, sell, and get 100% course sales credited to your bank account during this 14 day trial period.

So, go ahead. Create and Sell Courses online and make 10X revenue within months.