Can people download embedded videos from my website?
Yes. Here is what raises the effort.

There are three routes, and none of them needs a download button. The first is the file address: MDN documents that a video element exposes the absolute URL of the media it chose to play, which anyone can read with the tools built into a browser. The second is the browser’s own save option on the video. The third is recording the screen: MDN’s Screen Capture API page describes a standard method that asks the user to pick a screen, or part of one, to capture as a stream, and it documents no way for a page to exclude itself from that capture.

Here is how that applies on uncompressed.io. The web player streams the file you uploaded through a signed playback address that lasts up to 2 hours on the watch page and up to 12 hours in an embed; the film’s own share link does not expire. The player is a plain video element and does not turn off the browser’s save option. So a determined viewer can save or screen record a film from an embed or from its watch page, and turning the download switch off removes the button, not that ability.

For a film that has to sit on a public page, Embed only with the download switch off is the setting that asks the most of a would-be copier: no watch page to share, no button to press. It is still a visibility setting, not access control. For a film that only needs to be watched on its own page rather than inside yours, Password adds a gate instead.

The vault is a per-film switch on every plan, Starter included. Turning it on takes the film dark on the web: no watch-page player, for you as well, no embed, no stable file link, no download (the download switch is forced off), and it is left out of the review room. Vaulted films are reviewed in the compatible macOS app. Vault includes encrypted local playback, supported capture restrictions, visible session identification and invisible per-person forensic marks in the macOS app. These are distinct controls; forensic detection depends on the recovered copy. These controls reduce risk; they cannot guarantee that footage never leaks or that every leak can be traced.

So the decision is simple. If the film belongs on a public website, embed it and accept that it can be copied; embed a cut you can live with losing and keep the master off the page. If losing the file would cost you a release or a deal, it does not belong in an embed, and the vault is the right tool. If a copy has already surfaced, the leaked screener checklist covers containment and takedown notices.