Making some hyperlinks that are none downloadable/right-clickable

[acrobat]

Hiya folks, I got some really good help here a couple of weeks ago, and I'm hoping for one more bit of help.

I'm making another website, this time for myself. Its just a personal, private, website, so I'm just using Frontpage and Layers, because I don't need any search engines to find it.

Anyway, I need to put some songs on one of the pages so people can listen to them. But I need to do it so people can listen to them, but not download them.

I am not very good with web design, so I need to do it the simplest way possible. I know you can do it with Macromedia Flash, but I have no idea how to use Flash, beyond making simple animations. But I could use that if someone told me the exact code. But my one thought would be to have the links take the user to a new .html page, and have the song attached to the page using the background music option in Frontpage.

That way, the person can click the song link, and it takes them to another page and plays the song, but if they right clicked the hyperlink, it wouldn't let them save as. (It would just save the .html page if they tried).

I'm not sure if this would work though, and if it would really protect the songs from people downloading them. So anyway, I am hoping someone could suggest a way of doing this please, or perhaps letting me know if my sneaky way would work.

I have seen some good websites that do exactly what I want to do, but I'm pretty sure they use Flash, or they have some kind of fancy media player built into the website, and that is out of my league really. I just need to do it as simple as possible.

Thanks in advance. I will monitor this page incase I need to give any more information.

[Corey Bryant]

So you want to embed an MP3 I take it? If so, Windows Media Player Stand Alone might be the one. Or maybe Safe to add Video will help out some.

[VanessaJW]

Would you not be better just doing a MySpace thing for what you need? if you're not that interested in doing a proper website, I don't mean that to sound insulting, I just mean if you're using Frontpage then you're obviously not doing this as a web development learning experience as such, but just somewhere about you for your friends and family, so the MySpace templates should allow you to do what you want to do, re. the music?

[acrobat]

Thanks guys, I will have a look at that stand alone media player.

As for myspace, thats what I've been using so far. Its quite good but it does have its downsides. If I want to change the files, it can take 24 hours or more until the new files are available to be streamed. I also read some bad things about how easy it is to hack and steal people's usernames and passwords. Also, it limits you to just 4 songs unless you pay and register which I'd rather not do seeing as I have my own domain and own webspace.

So I just liked the idea of having the stuff on my own domain. I will check out that media player link anyway.

[Corey Bryant]

When you upload new information on a website, and then you view it, you might be viewing a cached copy. If on IE, you can try F5 or CNTL-F5 to get a fresh copy from the server

[acrobat]

Hi again. That windows media player addon worked really well! It looks really nice and I've got it set up so it plays the songs in the right order and it has no options to download them - just as I wanted.

One problem though, is that it puts the songs in a /media sub-folder on the web server. I noticed that if you type in my url, and then add /media and type in the name of the song, it lets you download the song. I need to stop this some how.

The only way I can think of, is that I maybe need to some how protect that folder? And stop it from being accessed. Either with a password or some other way.

Could anyone tell me the best way of doing that please? I dont mind using java script, but I would ideally want to do it as simpley as possible - yet secure.

Thanks in advance! I am happy to nearly nail this now, but I have to secure that folder so people can't download the songs.


-----------edit----------

P.S. Just a reminder, I am using MS Frontpage to make this site, so that limits my options slightly I think. I did find a link on the internet which suggests telling frontpage to turn the folder into a "sub-web" and then you can make Frontpage password protect a sub web. It all sounds a little complicated, but I could do that if all else fails.

If anyone can think of another way of protecting a folder though, please let me know.

[Corey Bryant]

Glad it worked out.

Originally Posted by acrobat

One problem though, is that it puts the songs in a /media sub-folder on the web server. I noticed that if you type in my url, and then add /media and type in the name of the song, it lets you download the song. I need to stop this some how.

How did you get the URL? Did you know the URL or did you look at View source to get it?

Originally Posted by acrobat

Could anyone tell me the best way of doing that please? I dont mind using java script, but I would ideally want to do it as simpley as possible - yet secure.

JavaScript won't really help. You can try using an ASX file - which is a text file that contains a link to the media file - but it seems you are reliant a lot on Frontpage.

Originally Posted by acrobat

I am happy to nearly nail this now, but I have to secure that folder so people can't download the songs.

Don't put it on the internet if you don't want people to have them. There is always going to be a way around it. It sounds like you want a DRM solution.

And example of an ASX file is

Code: Select all

<asx version = "3.0">
  <entry>
    <ref href = "mms://www.example.com/filename.mp3"/>
  <Title>Title</Title>
  <Author>Author</Author>
  <Copyright></Copyright>
  <Banner></Banner>
  </entry>
  <Title>Title</Title>
  <Author></Author>

This might have changed some but it worked for one demo that I did

[acrobat]

Thank you. I will have to research those asx files to find out how I would use that.

I didn't realise this would be so hard to do. I have spent the last few days trying to figure this out and haven't really found a solution. I was just about to give in and use myspace instead, but when I loaded up my old myspace page (which is mainly blank and I never use it), it had somebody elses face in my profile and a hyperlink to their profile on my page... So it seems someone hacked my page. So I'm definitely not using that now.

Besides this asx file, the only other option I could think of, would be to use Flash. I have seen a few websites from bands who have music online, and its somehow embedded in a Flash tool which plays the music. Whether the folder containing the files is hidden or not, I don't know, but I doubt it. But atleast with Flash, they could have the files in an obscure folder. The windows media player plugin seems to put them in a /media folder which is quite obvious. It also shows the name of the mp3 file when it plays it, so it would be very easy to download if someone wanted to.

So I think I might have to pay someone to make a Flash applet for me, because I only know how to do very simple animations with Flash. Either that, or I will have to find someone to make a full asp solution or something, or whatever Sony, Itunes, etc... use to secure the music they sell.

[snow]

Do you know if you're on an Apache server? .htaccess might be the way to go if you are...

[acrobat]

I'm not sure to be honest. All I know is that its a windows based server (so not linux or whatever), and that it has Frontpage Server Extensions.

I did try looking on the web server website, to see if they can password protect a website for me, but it cost wayyyy too much. I'm not sure why it cost so much.

P.S. I got a "Free Flash MP3 Player" off the internet that I'm thinking of using. Only really because I'm running out of ideas though.

[bruno89]

cant you just take the song out of that folder and have them in were you pages are? that way they cant get inot the songs....

[acrobat]

I think that would be worse, because like that, someone would just have to type in the url, and then type / and then the name of the song.

I think I am just going to use Myspace anyway. I'll just have to put up with 4 songs and hope that account doesn't get hacked.

I found an encryption program that would do what I want, but its $30. No big deal, but I will give Myspace a try for a while anyway first, and then I can always buy that program sometime.

[VanessaJW]

You see? If you'd just listened to me in the first place, you wouldn't have had to waste all that time

[acrobat]

haha true

I actually learned a lot this past few days though.

The main reason I didn't want to use Myspace, is because I logged in to an old account I had, and there was someone elses picture in there, and a hyperlink to their page. I'm not sure if I was hacked or what... but I could still log in so I just changed the picture. I suspect something else happened, but it did get me worried.

I'm going to give it a try for a while anyway. There are a million bands on there with their music too, so hopefully my stuff will be able to hide amongst them all

[VanessaJW]

Yes, some good friends of mine have a band and are on there and they've been very happy with Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/worldtreemusic

I just noticed though that they have their own separate site which they link to from there which is quite frankly hideous (sorry guys, but it is!), they should have just stuck to Myspace. Maybe I'll offer my services there