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Hi Guys.

Not directly related to sound design, but I am sure this question will help a number of people out. I know that a few people on the board already do this, so rather than ask them directly, I thought it would be better to share the information here.

I know that many people have been working on Sound Libraries, which they intend to sell as a package. I myself have been working on a project this summer which is now complete.

But now I have gotten a little bit stumped. I am not sure how I am going to go about distributing the product. I have my own server space where I can store files, but if I share the link to the files after payment has been taken (I have a googlecheckout account set up and ready), I run the risk of that link being shared out and the library being pirated.

How can I get around this. Can anybody recommended any free/cheap online shop software for intangible (digital) products. Are there any websites already which will allow me to do this?

How about Sound Cloud downloads? Would it work to take payment through Paypal or Googlecheckout and advise clients to setup a Soundcloud account and then allow them access to download each track. Does this way not seem a little complicated?

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  • This isn't going to be helpful to your question, but I'm starting to feel like maybe there should be some sort of collective site to aggregate all these awesome new libraries...
    – Joel Raabe
    Sep 22, 2010 at 12:48
  • I just thought the exact same thing :-)
    – Andrew Spitz
    Sep 22, 2010 at 13:11
  • there is designingsound.org/sfx-independence
    – user49
    Sep 22, 2010 at 19:46

4 Answers 4

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2
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You're actually looking at an e-commerce system and there are two major paths to take. Hosted or Self-Hosted.

You mentioned that you have your own server space so you might be considering going the self-hosted path. However, you'll need to be able to troubleshoot problems yourself and make sure you have enough monthly bandwidth for your downloads. If you are on a web host, they do have limits on your bandwidth regardless of their marketing pitch. Software options would include Zen Cart, Magento, CubeCart, OsCommerce, etc. But you'll need to know how to setup such software on your server or get someone to do it for you.

The simplest method is a hosted service like Fetch. If you want a shopfront for multiple products, you could use an additional hosted e-commerce shop like Shopify. If you're on Wordpress, there are some e-commerce plugins that you can consider.

My advice is to decide how much time and effort you would want to spend on it. It would be wiser to pay for a hosted service so that you can spend more time creating rather than learning to maintain the website.

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Check out e-junkie.com. If you use them for your E sales, they will send out a unique temporary link for each purchase. The link will expire after a certain time limit or number of download attempts.

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I'm sure you can set up a PayPal store that will give the purchaser a link to the zip file, and you can password protect them. Then you can host it yourself -- that's my first thought.

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  • Hi Dave. This was my first though aswell (except using Google Checkout). My plan would be to forward the link to the Zip and Password in an e-mail after payment. I guess my main worry would be people sharing out the link and the password. Am i just being paranoid? I think maybe I am just looking for a better way to do it.
    – Audious Sound
    Sep 22, 2010 at 14:32
  • I guess it's a matter of trusting your customers, and a knowledge that things can and will be stolen. Once it's on someone's machine, there's not a lot you can do to track it down other than watch torrent sites for your own stuff and shut down the ones that pop up. There may be some software out there that can uniquely password every order, but once it's unzipped it's the same issue.
    – Dave Matney
    Sep 23, 2010 at 13:29
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This is basic e commerce and there are lots of options for data delivery & payment, whether its hosted by another company (ejunkie, payloadz, dpd etc) or using custom software or plugins - ask google

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