FILES FOREVER PROBLEM & CLIPS4SALE

[Bound2Burst]

Here we are on day 9 of the problems with Files Forever, and we don't seem to be making much progress. Some people are being told that FF is working but that some data have been lost, and that they should contact the person selling them files for help. One may wonder how this can happen when Dreamhost made a promise to store files "forever" (and they've charged me thousands of dollars to do so). Do they not keep backups? I can't get a straight answer. Even if I replaced missing files, those who purchased those titles in the past still would not have access to them because now they would all have different ID numbers.

I think, under the circumstances, that I need to focus my attention more on Clips4Sale to distribute my movies. It is, ultimately, the only reliable outlet for such content that won't one day just disappear (they make far too much money for that, and "porn" is their business after all). I suggest that if you're holding out for a Files Forever fix and a return to normal business, that you might consider purchasing from Clips4Sale instead. I will do my best to keep the prices as reasonable as I can, within the constraints imposed by C4S software which controls minimum pricing for a given length of movie. One area where things would not change quite so much is with movie sets: by combining the files into on big file (not a zip file) I have more control over pricing, and I can charge a price only a few dollars above what I would have asked via Files Forever. This means I will make less because the overhead will be 40% instead of 20%, but I guess I shall just have to live with that.

This change will mean a drop in income for me, and probably quite a significant one. That being the case, I will have to reduce the number of shoot in the months ahead to compensate. This could be the start of a vicious cycle (less new movies, still less income), but we'll just have to see how that goes. Unless customers can embrace buying from Clips4Sale, less new content may become a way of life.

I know some people, upon reading this, will write and suggest other ways to collect payment, such as PayPal. Please note that PayPal banned us 3 years ago so that's out. Almost all shopping carts one might choose have a ban on adult content, so none of those systems would last very long. And no, I will not make Bound2Burst a membership site, ever. I will not accept wire transfers, cheques or cash, all of which mean giving out bank information or geographical information.

If we do get Files Forever back, I will continue using it to sell movie files, but on the understanding that you can't expect the files to stay stored for you indefinitely. Clearly, that's one promise Dreamhost will not keep. You will need to download them and then store them safely on your own equipment, backing everything up to guard against accidental loss.

As for those who have made purchases and can't download them, I will address each of these in the weeks ahead, uploading the files to Bound2Burst for you to download them. That's not an invitation to use FF now, however, because I have no intention of spending all my days uploading files to fix download problems. For now, DO NOT buy anything from Files Forever. If you deliberately do so after this date (25th February 2013) on the assumption that I will bail you out, you're going to be disappointed.

When, or indeed if, I get more information and some kind of solution from Dreamhost, I will let you know via a message on the front page of the website.

[desp_1999]

Hello Dave,

I'm sorry this has to happen to you. I remember the upset the switch from PayPal to FF caused and I hope this change won't be quite as taxing as the previous one.

Thank you for keeping us up to speed. I appreciate the enormity of the task ahead. Personally, I look forward to getting my download of the Gianna set, but I have no issues waiting until you're ready to provide an alternative option. You've always been reliable and customer oriented in the past and I have rock-solid faith this won't change now.

Thanks again for your efforts,
Desp_1999

[Bound2Burst]

[MPee3]

It's really a pity seeing a great website such as bound2burst fall victim to such technical problems. I certainly hope it won't hurt your business too much and that things would get back to normal soon. And I'm sure everyone here appreciates all the hard work you're doing in supporting the customers that encountered problems.

Just out of curiosity, is it not possible to find a good payment alternative? Porn is the biggest business on the internet, and other websites must have faced the same dilemma before. There are so many pay sites out there, surely they have a means of charging their customers. Perhaps with some research you can come up with something better.

[Bound2Burst]

[pcwp]

I know it's dragging on which is bad for business, but have FF totally stopped trying to fix the issue or are they still working on it? Basically, is there still some hope yet?

Edit: just re-read first post, guess you can't get an answer.

Roughly how long do you think you'll wait till you initialise what you've describe, or is it a case of start now and these things will just happen as an after effect, I.e lower sales, so less videos, so even lower sales etc.

Hmm this really sucks it was working pretty well

[WSFanfare]

CCBill, beside memberships, also handles with individual clips for sale. Apparently you can sell movies without restriction for the given sale price, as c4s does.

[cbprod]

Hi Dave, I feel really bad for you and hope things work out. I rally like this site even though I only like certain movies. Anyway, I hope things work out for you because times are tough now.


I wish you the best,
cbprod

[Bound2Burst]

[Bound2Burst]

[fetishman1962]

Hoi Dave, i want to compliment you for the very good service. As a webmaster i know how much
work it is to upload all the files and answering all the people who are waiting.

Thanks again Dave

grtz Fetishman

[Bound2Burst]

[qpeg]

Another one to look at.. used by another adult site I visit so I assume B2B would be fine.

http://surfnetcorp.com/

Also...

http://vidown.com

I understand they (vidown) charge storage fees though.. so having a lot of older movies on there that no longer sell well could be expensive.

Might be a good idea to ask around on an adult webmasters forum.. see where the best value is at.

[desperationfan]

Dave,

It looks like we have some smart people on here who have some good ideas just in case DreamHost/FileForever is not a good long term solution that will allow you to continue to operate anonymously without having to change your overhead aka cost basis. I do like some of the things that Clips4Sale does but I do feel that they do take to much of a cut of the revenue. The thing is that it seems that they like to have clips and not full movies on their site. I am sure it is a different business model for them to deal with that they have looked at and decided it was not something that they wanted to do. It is one thing to host 5Meg files. It is another to host 1GB and larger files. Disk space and bandwidth issues I am sure come up.

Desperation Fan

[Bound2Burst]

[Loo-Loo]

I can say one thing about C4S. Their download speeds are *way* faster than FF.

I have just had 3.5mb/sec from C4S on the Hannah set 1 compilation, which is a 1.1Gb file. The entire file took less than 6 minutes to download.

I rarely had 400kb/sec with FF, and that size of file used to take anything from 40 minutes to over an hour to download from Dreamhost.

[Loo-Loo]

The only problem with the Hannah compilation now it has finished downloading, is that it does not unzip itself into three separate files, they are all together on one file and run one after the other in reverse order to how they are shown on the main B2B page, i.e. Elevator Desp first and Holds It last.

I can live with that, but it may produce some complaints from new users who may think they have only one file when they should have three.

[Bound2Burst]

[Bound2Burst]

[pcwp]

Other than when reported, i have never noticed a problem with the speed of FF. I can't remember what I used to get when I had the privilege of using a fast line (40mb/s) but on an 8 mbit line I'm getting 800-1mb/s download speed, so maybe you've been unlucky when you have gotten your 400kb/s. :S?