Protecting MP3 content

[SlipDigby]

I'm creating a website for a rock band. They want their music to be available for online listening. I've created a flash player that reads an external xml file that hold playlist information but now I want to secure the MP3 from downloading.

I've addressed the hotlinking issue but nothing stops a user from finding the url and donwloading it that way. So, my train of thought is to protect the xml file somehow so people can't access it and in turn find the locations of the MP3's.

But how would I go about doing this? Are there any other techniques used in order to do what I want to do?

[Eye for Video]

Yeah that's kind of a problem. But remember, they dont even need to find the location of the mp3s, once they click play, the file is loaded into the temp Internet file and played back from there. Pretty simple to just reach in and get a copy.
YouTube uses a method of giving the file a long, convoluted file name and some crazy, unknow file extension in an attempt to confuse people looking in the cache for the downloaded file. To test this, empty your cache, view a video from Youtube, check the cache. that great big file with the crazy name and extension was what was just downloaded. Copy, rename, give it a .flv or.mp3 file extension and there you go!
Actual streaming video or audio, sends just tiny little chunks of the file and is much harder to capture. It's also a very expensive way to do it, but it works and is used by lots of people wanting to protect content.
There are also several server side methods of prohibiting direct access. Google:
"how to prohibit direct access to certain web site folders"
Good luck,
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com

[aj_nsc]

Actual streaming video or audio, sends just tiny little chunks of the file and is much harder to capture. It's also a very expensive way to do it, but it works and is used by lots of people wanting to protect content.


Maybe it is expensive (I don't know, never tried it) and maybe it is used by lots of people wanting to protect content, but that doesn't make it harder to capture. VMRecorder is available anywhere online with a crack from the appropriate torrent site, thus making it freely available and can capture streaming content faster than you can say 'please don't steal my streaming content'.

To the OP, if they can hear it, they can capture it, the quality may differ than the MP3 file that you have on the server, but people can still grab the material.

If you don't want people to steal it, don't let people listen to it. Play samples of songs or a single song from a CD, but, I reiterate, if they can hear it, they can get it.

[Eye for Video]

I stand corrected!
I should have said that it “usually” works, when referring to streaming audio. Your point of:
if they can hear it, they can get it
is certainly valid, and I wholeheartedly agree.
However, I didn’t say streaming made it impossible to capture, but it does make it more difficult because it requires special software. VMRecorder is not the only one out there, but hey, how many people have ever heard of VMRecorder? And while you and I may know what
a crack from the appropriate torrent site
means, I think we are in the very small minority.
Since over 90% of the type of media described is just progressively downloaded and stored on the listeners machine anyway, even small steps taken to inhibit copying are beneficial.
For example, you could even embed the mp3 directly into the timeline of a Flash .fla. Publish the .swf and now the music can be played in a Web browser but it’s a whole lot harder to download to your Ipod or mp3 player. Create a custom player that loads in the various .swfs instead of mp3s.
Just trying to give a few options….
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com

[SlipDigby]

This is turning out into a real issue of sorting out.

I know that you cannot 100% protect your online content from being stolen, but what I want to achieve it a fairly high level of security in the sense that it deterrs the online-robber and makes it less easy - that way i'm minimising the risk.

For that to happen I need to make my mp3's completely hidden in my code and by that I think I need to completely hide any reference to their url's in my code (playlist xml file).

I'll submit to the cachine of files problem - until I can figure out a way to somehow delete the cached file while it is being played so it is never 100% on the users hard drive! hmmmmm - tricky one that!