Piracy..

There are some emotions I have a hard time keeping to myself, and tonight I need to speak to you as sincerely as possible about something that deeply affects me: the piracy of my training courses.
It’s the kind of event that makes me seriously reconsider certain features of the site — the kind of thing that suddenly kills my motivation.

I’ve been lucky so far, with clients I thank from the bottom of my heart for their honesty. They’re the ones who have kept this site running since December.
There have been several thousand payments made on the site since the launch of the premium offer. And among these thousands of clients from around the world, I’ve only had two who were dishonest.
Well, only two who made it far enough to upload the courses to download platforms or pirate forums. In the meantime, there were several dozen PayPal frauds, but those accounts were quickly traced and shut down.

The Cat and Mouse Game

It’s sad to reach a point where, after every large payment (€90 or €150 per year giving access to downloads), my first reaction isn’t “Cool, thank you so much!” but rather “Quick, I need to check if this payment and member are legitimate…”
And that’s where almost everything gets decided. I’ve done my best to minimize the damage, but it’s too late now.
Someone has been faster or smarter than me — and now has most of my premium courses sitting on their hard drive.
Thousands of people also own them, but they purchased them legally. The difference is that this one did it to satisfy growing demand on pirate forums.

I’ve been monitoring these forums for several months. Until now, I’d been lucky — even the moderators seemed to be on my side, defending small independent creators.
But nothing lasts forever — especially luck in that game. A few hours ago, one of my premium members decided to upload most of my premium tutorials — if not all of them. I guess we should thank him; after all, he’s making a lot of people happy! A quick Google search, and months of work will soon be freely available online.

A Small Structure

The problem is, I’m not Envato, Videocopilot, or Adobe — and this kind of piracy has a real and significant impact on the site’s revenue.
This website has cost, and still costs, money — tens of thousands of euros invested over the past 4 years in development, design, redesigns, redevelopments, translations, servers, streaming, management, sound design, new instructors, etc.
It has also cost, and still costs, time — a lot of time. Recording tutorials is honestly the fast part. Providing customer support, ensuring each purchase goes smoothly, helping customers with issues — that takes time.

Since January 2012, the site has had over a million visits, 40% of which come from non-French-speaking countries. That means writing a lot of emails in English — and since it’s not my native language, it takes even longer.
I’m not telling you all this to complain, because I love this job — it’s a real privilege to have been able to dedicate myself entirely to this site for 9 months now, taking on only two external professional projects since January.

The premium version was launched in December 2011, introducing paid tutorials for the first time. I knew it wouldn’t be easy after three years of completely free content. The site generated revenue for the first time, which was reinvested into the complete redesign in May 2012.

I know some people complained when the Premium version launched, wanting only free content. My answer is simple: that’s just not possible — at least not at this pace.
In 2011, I published only 4 tutorials. Four in an entire year! In 2012, I’ve already published 24, including 11 free ones.

And yet, some people still complain every time a new premium tutorial is released (and strangely, they never say thank you when a free one comes out).
Honestly, that bothers me a bit because I want all members to feel happy to be part of this site — but these comments have never discouraged me.
Most readers understand why the premium model is necessary — it’s what has brought real momentum back to the site.

At some point, I had to make a choice: continue doing freelance client work (which pays well), or make sacrifices on income to try living fully off my passion — creating tutorials.
It pays less, but it’s what I truly love doing. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to do both. A 30-minute tutorial doesn’t take 30 minutes to make, and client projects will always take priority.
That’s often why the rate of free tutorials is low on other platforms: you can’t make a living from them, so it’s not a priority — which is understandable.

I’ve had the privilege of making it my priority, but now I’m starting to doubt its long-term sustainability — at least in its current form.

Moving Toward the End of Downloads

This is something I’ve seriously considered since the very beginning of the premium section’s development.

I know that many people need to download tutorials locally because of poor internet connections.
Unfortunately, I can’t keep offering plans that allow someone with a hacked PayPal account to download the entire site’s content.

So I’m thinking about switching to a 100% streaming model, with far fewer payment options than the current nine.
Some won’t like it, but it’s the only way I can see to keep this site running for many more years.
I’m imagining a simplified system with just one type of premium subscription, giving access to all tutorials in streaming format, plus downloadable project files — but no more local tutorial downloads.
The credit system would unlock streaming access and project files for each tutorial.
I’m also considering simplifying payments even more — keeping just one method (either subscription or pay-per-tutorial). I still need to think about it, but it will unfortunately happen in the coming weeks.

For Current Customers

For everyone who already has download access, or who purchased tutorials using the credit system, nothing will change. You’ll still have access to your downloads.
This will only affect new customers and new tutorials.

In Conclusion…

I always knew it was only a matter of time once I made downloading the courses so easy. And sadly, all good things come to an end.
The next step — moving to 100% streaming — will be another difficult transition, and I’ll probably lose many customers. But I believe it’s a necessary step. I’m truly sorry for all the honest users who will get a lesser service because of a few bad actors… but that’s the world we live in.

In any case, I’ll continue doing my best to offer you high-quality tutorials, and I want to thank once again everyone who makes the growth of this site possible.