Creating Non-Downloadable Audio Files

May 18, 2008 8:39 AM

How can I create non-downloadable audio files for a website?

I've recently been tasked with putting audio files on a website. The brief includes making sure the files are unable to be downloaded.

Has anyone got suggestions for methods or experience with securing web-based audio files?

posted by panboi to computers & internet (18 comments total)

You know, of course, that all audio files put on your website will be able to be copied by someone with only a modicum of technical savvy, right? So even if it is possible to prevent the actual files themselves from being downloaded, someone with recording software will be able to record any sound being played by their computer.

(I'm thinking of recording software such as Freecorder.)
posted by jayder at 8:50 AM on May 18, 2008

You might be up against unreasonable specifications.
How concerned are they about distribution? I mean, you can try a streaming service like [shudder] real player - but you're going to alienate a lot of people. Of course, there's nothing stopping me (or anyone else) from recording the audio that I'm listening to.

Perhaps you should find out how much the authors of the brief really know about the Internet, and how concerned they are about different types of distribution and why - once you have a bigger picture view, you may be able to find a solution.
posted by terpia at 8:54 AM on May 18, 2008

You mean in such a way that you can listen to them in your browser but not download? That's impossible. There will always be some way of capturing the network traffic of a stream. How difficult do you want to make it?

1.) Flash-based mp3 player, such as that used in podPress. Download difficulty: if you can read HTML source and javascript, you're in.

2.) Flash-based mp3 player with embedded mp3. Download difficulty: you must have Flash (the application) to extract the mp3.

3.) Streaming server. This forces the end-user to install a plugin, which may be a hurdle. The downloader would need to do a lot more work in this case.
posted by mkb at 8:56 AM on May 18, 2008

Before you move forward, please make sure your client/boss/whatever is fully aware that anything put online can and will be downloaded. All you can do is vary the degree of hassle for people to download the audio.
posted by xotis at 9:03 AM on May 18, 2008

Has anyone got suggestions for methods or experience with securing web-based audio files?

As mentioned above, security as such is impossible. Are you in the music industry? If you are, your best "security" against theft is simply to have them streamed and at such a lossy bitrate (i.e. 96 kbps) that theft just isn't worth it. In this way, the audio on the website will act for sampling purposes and encourage the person to want the crisp sound of lossless/higher bitrate sound (the 320kbps of a CD).
posted by tybeet at 9:03 AM on May 18, 2008

Flash based mp3 player ftw. Majority of people won't know how or bother to extract it from the streaming flash, it's how youtube and myspace and so on make due.

I'd still like to echo my fellow commenters how it's technologically impossible, tho.
posted by pmv at 9:23 AM on May 18, 2008

Flash-based audio players will deter users from listening to your files. Limited or busy bandwidth causes these to play back in short hiccups or not at all.

That isn't a problem if your boss/client doesn't care if people listen to them, or prefers that they don't, but if the success of your project depends on people actually listening to these audio files, then don't use Flash or a streaming server.

Plus what everyone else said. If your users can play it, they can save it. Making it marginally harder for them just leaves a bad impression.
posted by gum at 10:00 AM on May 18, 2008

I nth the suggestion of a flash based player. It's probably your best bet here.
posted by dragontail at 10:03 AM on May 18, 2008

Another option would be to massacre the audio - insert a beep every minute or so. This is annoying as hell, but it takes serious dedication to nullify the effort for anyone wishing to do so. Make sure that the beep is slightly random to make any automatic reverse-editing more difficult.

But even just coming up with these suggestions make me feel all sticky and dirty. Tell your boss not to be an annoying tard; obscurity harms more than piracy, at least when I look at what I've listened to online and then bought lately.
posted by monocultured at 10:25 AM on May 18, 2008

If you're going with a Flash-Based mp3 player, I'm a big fan of Wimpy. It's a flash application that's fully customizable as far as aesthetics, and it calls the mp3s from another folder on your domain and streams them, instead of having them embedded in the actual .swf. It makes for a much faster load time, and a few extra hassles for anyone wanting to download the songs bad enough.

Coupled with other peoples suggestions (low bit rate seems like a smart idea), this is what I'd go (and have gone) with.
posted by pedmands at 10:45 AM on May 18, 2008

Flash or aspx windows media streaming.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:07 AM on May 18, 2008

Whoops I meant asf. More info here.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:11 AM on May 18, 2008

Flash-based audio players will deter users from listening to your files. Limited or busy bandwidth causes these to play back in short hiccups or not at all.

Wow, I seem to have fallen through a wormhole to 1999. Flash audio is fairly effective these days- there's actually this little site that delivers both audio and video through flash at the SAME TIME!! It's called youtube.


anyway, everyone is right- flash makes it challenging for non tech savvy people, but of course not impossible- the relevant term i believe is "analog hole" - meaning that what can be seen or heard can always be recorded. At the most extreme case where recording from the sound card was somehow blocked (i think Vista does this?), they could always point a microphone at their speaker.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:33 PM on May 18, 2008

drjimmy11 - I often turn flash off on my browser. Lots of flash is poorly done and a waste. If you're audio was only available via flash, then I'd probably skip it.

Go back to the client and explain that this requirement puts them far outside the standard of internet practices. Anything you do here is likely to annoy users.
posted by 26.2 at 1:48 PM on May 18, 2008

Wow, I seem to have fallen through a wormhole to 1999. Flash audio is fairly effective these days- there's actually this little site that delivers both audio and video through flash at the SAME TIME!! It's called youtube.

You really should get out more! I've used hotel and academic and coffeeshop Internet in at least two dozen places in three countries in the last two years. YouTube doesn't stream effectively in more than a handful of the places I've worked. If you look at folks in Internet cafes looking at YouTube, they're clicking Mute > Start > New Tab, and then they go do something somewhere else until the file finishes dribbling in. I just download it and play it off my desktop later . . . um, don't ask me how.

I'm glad you have a nice connection.
posted by gum at 3:03 PM on May 18, 2008

If I can hear it, I can record it. I don't mind flash players, but they can be flaky - can't hear the audio if the player isn't on the screen, can't get it to play for more than ten seconds at a time.

I really like the Metafilter Music method, tiny flash player + mp3 download link.

May I ask why the files are not to be downloaded?

Oh, and please don't use realplayer. Ugh. It has never worked well for me over multiple computers over multiple years.
posted by tomble at 6:06 PM on May 18, 2008

[a few comments removed - you are not as funny as you think you are]
posted by jessamyn at 6:13 AM on May 19, 2008

Use a flashplayer and (if we're talking songs) use 30 or so sec excerpts. Fade in and out. This way you can keep the bitrate at max ensuring high quality without running any risks. I have done this myself.
posted by SurrenderMonkey at 9:55 AM on May 19, 2008