Limit Streams and Stop Sharing

Updated

How to Stop Paid Lessons Being Shared or Saved in MediaShield2:05Chapters and transcript

Included in Free.

Account sharing is the commonest leak. MediaShield limits how many videos one account can play at once, and can cut off an account's active streams.

Why use it#

One paid login stays one viewer at a time, so sharing a password costs the sharer. You can also cut off an account you suspect.

Before you start#

  • The limit applies to logged-in accounts on Standard or Strict videos, because those start watch sessions.
  • Guests are never counted. With no account there is nothing to share.

Set the limit#

  1. Go to MediaShield > Settings > Access.
  2. Set Max Concurrent Streams. The default is 2 and the lowest allowed is 1.

A viewer who starts one more stream than allowed sees "Too many active streams. Please close another video first." The mediashield_concurrent_limit_reached action fires so you can log it.

How a stream stops counting#

  • The player reports every 30 seconds.
  • A session with no report for 5 minutes stops counting toward the limit.
  • Closing the tab ends the session straight away.
  • An hourly job marks sessions with no report for 10 minutes as finished.

Cut off one account#

There is no button for this yet. Send an authenticated request as an administrator:

POST /wp-json/mediashield/v1/session/revoke-user
{ "user_id": 42 }

This ends every active session for that user and fires mediashield_user_access_revoked. It stops current streams. To stop future viewing, also remove their role or access in your membership plugin.

Find the sharing#

  • Viewers shows each account's videos watched and last active time.
  • With MediaShield Pro, suspicious-activity detection flags accounts seen from several locations. It records rows for you to review and does not email you.

Next steps#