How not to allow file downloads

I am using Astharoth's  Audio Player which relys on the file upload plugin to upload mp3's.  Does anyone know of a way to not allow the downloading of mp3's?  Some of my users are artist who would like to allow their music to be played on my site but not downloaded.

  • Well sort of.

    You could set up an elaborate streaming server like the big players do.

    But that is a huge amount of work and any way, there are programs that capture streams to file.

    You could also just create a file object that does *not* use the file plugin.

    Really easy to do, just write a plugin that creates its own file class (see how the file plugin does it).

    Your users would still in principle be able to guess the access URL (which your music player would need to know internally), but it would be much harder to figure out.

    I've done that for a few clients now.

  • Hey, great I'm glad you responded.  I have another question for you.  I really would like to use your get_multimedia plugin which may solve another problem for me.  I am using elgg 1.2, I have installed and configured all the prerequisites for the plug-in but when I enable it, nothing happens.  I think this plugin could be used to meet my mp3 and flv upload needs.  Any thoughts? 

  • In all fairness... it so very easy to copy a music stream with Audacity and the like... This program captures the output of your sounddevice on the PC... if users can hear your music, they can make lossless digital copies.

    So,  whatever you do will not solve your issue just raise the bar a little.

  • Understood Tom.  But to reduce my legal liability, I cannot allow the mp3's to be downloaded from my site.  If a user takes it upon themselves to use something like audacity then its on them not us.