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Protection From Piracy

by meauxmoney
20 replies
I am working on a audio product that is a compilation of audio files. How can i protect it from unwanted sharing.
#piracy #protection
  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    It's really impossible to stop people sharing any files that you allow certain people to download. Obviously have a membership site and protect the download links so the download links cannot be shared around. But as for people downloading those files and sharing them with other people, it's almost impossible to stop unfortunately.
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  • Profile picture of the author stoltingmediagroup
    You can't! The industry tried on many levels and spent millions doing so. Didn't work.

    You can try making your copyright (do not share or else) notices huge,
    but if someone is going to share your stuff, they are likely to ignore your notice.

    Even streaming only audio files are recorded and shared.

    There's really no way around it. Except for filtering your customers.

    I.E. Brand name person with good reputation, most likely a no share.
    Kid with no developed conscience as of yet, your product will be on file sharing sites the next day.

    Just weigh not releasing your audios, versus the benefits of releasing them.

    Works for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by meauxmoney View Post

    I am working on a audio product that is a compilation of audio files. How can i protect it from unwanted sharing.
    You can't. Anyone who really wants to share it will just play it over their speakers, record it with a microphone, and hey presto they can do whatever they want with the recording. This is called "the analog loophole."

    It applies every bit as much to any video, text, or graphic content. The only thing you can legitimately "protect" from unwanted sharing is software, and only a tiny few methods actually work at all for that. None of them work particularly well, if a sufficiently large community becomes sufficiently interested in circumventing the method.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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    • Profile picture of the author CyberAlien
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      You can't. Anyone who really wants to share it will just play it over their speakers, record it with a microphone, and hey presto they can do whatever they want with the recording. This is called "the analog loophole."
      Plus nowadays there are plugins for FireFox and Chrome that will download audio or video straight from the page you're on with one click.

      You have to look at it this way: at the end of the day, there are more people who either don't know how to get stuff like that illegally and more people who don't want to do that. There will always be those who do it illegally, but they aren't the majority.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by Chase Watts View Post

        You have to look at it this way: at the end of the day, there are more people who either don't know how to get stuff like that illegally and more people who don't want to do that.
        Speaking as a parent with a nine year old son, you have this exactly backwards. Every day, more people figure out how to do that while still lacking the moral compass that tells them not to do it. You can tell a nine year old something is wrong all day long and he doesn't care until he gets caught.

        My son doesn't play Xbox anymore, for example, because he likes to hack his games and Microsoft banned his account for it. He doesn't respond by saying "oh no, I'd better stop cheating." He responds with "that sucks, I'm going to go somewhere I can cheat."

        Later, he will develop that moral compass and be faced with a choice between "abstract moral dilemma" and "material economic reward," which is historically not being decided in the abstract moral dilemma's favour.

        More and more high school and college students simply do not believe that digital piracy is wrong.

        In ten years, this is the market you will be serving. The rest of it will be gone. You will have customers who have overwhelmingly never known a world without the internet and digital piracy.
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author aizaku
    currently can't be done. think of it as free advertising. If its a video, water mark the hell out of it. if its audio mention your site here and there. Digi books, stamps your logo with links back to your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author kinyash
    There is nothing much you can do and the options available to go after the pirates are expensive both interms of your time and money. Dont waste yourself policing the internet. After all most people believe that those who download from these sharing sites cannot be your customers anyway so no loss for you and actually what happens is you build your name as more people get to know about you and the quality of your products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Social App Zone
    I Love threads like this. The ones that use words like "impossible" and "can't be done"..

    I have spent a bit pondering on this and have come up with a working solution:

    Lock your content on your site, so only those with the rights to listen to the audio can access it.

    Technically what I did was the following:

    1. I encrypted an MP3 with a key ( this could be your visitor's pass key )
    2. When a visitor requests to listen to an audio file, the file is de-encrypted and streamed to their browser.
    3. During the streaming ( which cannot be downloaded ) the de-encrypted file is removed from the server ( not that they could ever work out what it was called or where it is stored anyway )

    I have only spent a couple of hours playing with this. But you can see it in action here:
    Content Encryption Script
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    • Profile picture of the author Danny Woolard
      The problem I see is if your product is popular enough they could simply record the audio themselves and just redistribute the file.

      Lots of software will let you record video and audio of anything that is playing on your computer.
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      • Profile picture of the author Social App Zone
        Originally Posted by denutza View Post

        The problem I see is if your product is popular enough they could simply record the audio themselves and just redistribute the file.

        Lots of software will let you record video and audio of anything that is playing on your computer.
        Pirates are lazy. I think we are talking about a rather specialized piece of audio that the OP does not want running around in the wild, passed from friend to friend etc.

        Content locking is probably the only workable solution, but that takes away the convenience of portable audio.

        If the audio was a fitness routine then locking it away for web based playback would not work. However if it is marketing related then it might be workable.

        As for "Lots of software will let you record video and audio of anything that is playing on your computer" there is a way around that.
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    • Profile picture of the author stoltingmediagroup
      I Love threads like this. The ones that use words like "impossible" and "can't be done"
      Lock your content on your site, so only those with the rights to listen to the audio can access it.
      There are several well qualified people in this thread who say it can't be done.
      I'm one of them. That's not to be all anti "all things are possible"!
      I for one do believe in miracles. However....

      In this case,

      If the persons that you "locked" your content to, with your content encryption gizmo device are able to hear audio "in their ear" then it's safe to assume that he/she will be able to redirect the speaker or headset into a recording device and record the audio. Period.

      A person can not hear something, without being able to record it and share it.

      That technology has not been invented. Yet.
      Signature
      Arnold Stolting - Stolting Media Group
      "I LOVE The Song! The Vibe Is Positive And Firm!" - Kymani Marley. (Son of Bob Marley)
      "Keep Up The Good Work!" Tony Lindsay - Lead Vocalist, Carlos Santana.
      "Very High Quality!" Jeremy Harding - Manager / Producer. Sean Paul.
      "They Are FANTASTIC!" - Willie Crawford.
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      • Profile picture of the author capnpablo
        aiz & Yukon's responses make the most sense to me!
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    • Profile picture of the author meauxmoney
      Originally Posted by Social App Zone View Post

      I Love threads like this. The ones that use words like "impossible" and "can't be done"..

      I have spent a bit pondering on this and have come up with a working solution:

      Lock your content on your site, so only those with the rights to listen to the audio can access it.

      Technically what I did was the following:

      1. I encrypted an MP3 with a key ( this could be your visitor's pass key )
      2. When a visitor requests to listen to an audio file, the file is de-encrypted and streamed to their browser.
      3. During the streaming ( which cannot be downloaded ) the de-encrypted file is removed from the server ( not that they could ever work out what it was called or where it is stored anyway )

      I have only spent a couple of hours playing with this. But you can see it in action here:
      Content Encryption Script
      I too don't believe in the words IMPOSSIBLE and CAN'T BE DONE. I going to look into your solution.
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by Social App Zone View Post

      Lock your content on your site, so only those with the rights to listen to the audio can access it.
      Aaaaaaand what exactly prevents them from playing it through the speakers while recording with a microphone?

      During the streaming ( which cannot be downloaded )
      Streaming is downloading. The file is normally cached on the local machine in the Temporary Internet Files folder, where it can be readily copied and renamed. You can request that a given file not be cached using HTTP headers, but the browser is not required to obey.

      Also consider this: some number of your customers will want to listen to your audios on their iPod while commuting. In fact, this is why most people want audio in the first place.

      So you have just made all those people do one of two things: (a) not get what they want, or (b) circumvent your protection. Most of them will at least try (b), and some of them will succeed.

      Don't believe me?

      Download MP3s from Streaming Music Sites - Wired How-To Wiki

      Too technical?

      Record Streaming Audio - Streaming Audio Capture Software

      MP3 Stream Recorder - CNET Download.com

      Stream Downloader - Download Streaming Video & Audio, Download MMS,RTSP,RTMP(RM,ASF,WMV,ASX,FLV,MP4) stream, Download radio & music stream

      Streamripper - About

      Streaming Audio Recorder - Download

      VSO Downloader: download streaming ? free video downloader

      How many of these would you like to see?

      Yeah, yeah, I know. Your customers don't know how to find these things. This translates to "my customers are too stupid to type 'download streaming audio' into a search engine." (I don't know why you are deliberately trying to sell to stupid people, but so long as we're here, I advise against that.)

      Roughly half of the results for that query are instructions on how to do it, and the other half are software to do it for you. Most of that software is free.

      Bonus: if you type it in the plugin directories for Firefox or Chrome, you only get lists of free software, and it's about three clicks to have them installed and working.

      If they can play it, they can record it.

      Your system makes life difficult for your legitimate, honest customers... and nobody else.

      Incidentally, I just turned some number of people into pirates, because I've explained where they can get software to steal things and how to find more of it. The lack of that knowledge is the only thing stopping some people, and you can't stop people like me from saying it out loud.

      In fact, any problem which can be reduced to "how can I control the behaviour of others?" is an intractable problem, because you have neither the ability nor the right to do so.
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      "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    There is really no way to prevent this. People who want to share your stuff WILL share your stuff. Plus, leeches probably weren't your market in the first place. Your best bet is to establish such a reputation for quality that even the people who share your stuff end up inadvertently bolstering your brand. Your best bet is to knock the ball so far out of the park when you step up to the plate the people will flock to you regardless of how they find you. I am not saying WSO blackhat sites will drive your sales up directly (how can it?). Instead, your brand gets proven and you chug along with updates.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by meauxmoney View Post

    I am working on a audio product that is a compilation of audio files. How can i protect it from unwanted sharing.
    The best you could do is audio branding sort of like a watermark on an image.

    Example, play this audio jungle demo & you'll hear the music + audio jungle every few sec.
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  • Profile picture of the author kencalhn
    in addition to watermarking previews, one potential answer is more in selling it as drip content/over time access, so that your content production is a step ahead of pirates, and keeps buyers engaged. so not selling a 9track cd audios type thing, but membership for 3 months and they get a few new tracks each month; drip content/subscription access also helps reduce refund requests since they're not getting "it" all at one time
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  • Profile picture of the author Mkcoy
    Banned
    Have it so that in order to listen to it they have to come to your premises and listen to it on your stereo only.

    That and coming up with your own music format and player is about the only way of really protecting your music.

    Even then your never further than a few clicks away from an internet pirate.
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  • Profile picture of the author meauxmoney
    So then I have another question, how can i put copyright on it?
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    • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
      Originally Posted by meauxmoney View Post

      So then I have another question, how can i put copyright on it?
      You never really explained whether the "compilation" contains your own audio recordings or... So, the first question would be:
      - who owns the copyright of those files that are compiled into this product?

      FYI: any "brain child" that you make (book, image, video, audio) is automatically copyrighted. You, the creator of the intellectual property own the copyright.
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