Protecting Files On Website

I have a digital music distribution service in which we give music to radio stations and DJ's, Press, Etc. I was wondering if there is a way I can protect the .mp3 files so that people cannot download them other then people on the message board (phpbb) that they are on

 

If not protecting files then if you have info on how I can track where these links were downloaded from would also appreciate help on that we are just looking for ways to make sure these music files are only downloaded on our website for legal reasons

 

1. create a file call mp3.txt
2. Enter the urls of each mp3 into the mp3.txt and save

http://mymusicsiteurl.com/1.mp3
http://mymusicsiteurl.com/2.mp3
http://mymusicsiteurl.com/3.mp3
http://mymusicsiteurl.com/4.mp3

3. Rename mp3.txt to mp3.m3u
4. Upload the mp3.m3u to your website and call it into your browser.

note: This is not the best way to secure the location of your mp3 files. But maybe this might help you or others in the future.

 

or if there is a way to hide where the direct link is coming from so people cannot post the link onto other websites is what I am wanting

 

You can use readfile() to read the file from a secret directory, and output it via your script, so the original URL would be unknown.

<?php

readfile('Path/to/file.mp3');

?>

PHP:

 

put all mp3 files in a folder below your web root directory (e.g. below public_html) then serve the files through PHP

this way you can make sure that only authenticated users can access the files, since there is no direct link available so the user will have to go through PHP to get it/them.

You could probably track IP addresses etc through PHP too.

 

This is great. I wondered this myself, thanks

 

so how do i set this up do i need a certain script?

 

even I saw a website using a redirect which would work but dont know how to do this since I am posting the music using a modified phpbb forum and cant post php coding into the posts