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Hiding the Names of Media Files

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:51 pm
by HubriSonics
Hello,

I plan to begin streaming music on my website in the summer of 2017. I want it to be impossible for visitors to download permanent copies of the music files. I believe that there is a way to hide the names of media files with PHP.

Can anyone recommend a tutorial on how to do this?

Regards,

HubriSonics

Re: Hiding the Names of Media Files

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 12:28 am
by virtualmike
You can make it difficult, but you cannot make it impossible. If your server streams bits to another device, you cannot prevent its recording those bits.

Re: Hiding the Names of Media Files

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:15 pm
by drew.phillips
virtualmike wrote:You can make it difficult, but you cannot make it impossible. If your server streams bits to another device, you cannot prevent its recording those bits.
+1

At the end of the day, whether or not you hide the source file or not, you're still streaming the original content to them which is pretty much the same.

You can hide the sound sources outside of the document root so they can't be directly downloaded, and serve them from a script that requires some sort of token that's only valid for a short period. But nothing will prevent someone from getting a copy if they want.