: How to avoid MP3 downloading sites from using my files? I have a WordPress site where I'm gonna host files such as MP3s. The thing is I know if I don't do anything, MP3 Crawlers like mp3glu

@mp3jca

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@Chiappetta492

I once went for a solution which was simple, but effective:

// You place this in your index.php
session_start();
$_SESSION['is_user'] = true;

// And this in your download.php:
session_start();
if( isset($_SESSION['is_user']) ){
// Download magic here
}


A crawler often doesn't set a session, and for those that do often don't store it to the next url.

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@Gloria169

To stop hotlinking from any website just add this to your htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)example.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp|zip|rar|mp3|flv|swf|xml|php|png|css|pdf)$ - [F]


more info Here

UPDATED:
It worked well for me when I hosted mp4 files

UPDATED: this is what I used for my website and it seemed to work well. Other websites could not stream my videos at all. This is not just for blocking other websites to use your files. I just want to show where the bit of code you are looking goes.

Options -Indexes +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^watch/([^/]+)/? view.php?id= [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^([0-9_-]+)/?$ index.php?id= [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z-]+)/?$ search.php?q= [NC,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /search(?:.php|)?q=([^ &]+)
RewriteRule ^ /%1? [L,R]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?mysite.com [NC]
RewriteRule .(jpg|jpeg|png|mp4)$ - [NC,F,L]

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@Angela700

I would not depend on the referrer.

The easiest way is to make a set of rules with IP addresses you want blacklisted as well as user agents you want blacklisted and if a remote user matches any of the blacklists, then they will receive the not-authorized page. Below is a template you can use. replace the set of three x's with digits for the IP address and the slashes are next to the dots to make them literal. Also, change secretmp3folder to the folder where your MP3's are stored.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [OR]
...
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
RewriteRule ^/secretmp3folder/(.*)$ - [R=403,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^badagent$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^terribleagent$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^insaneagent$
RewriteRule ^/secretmp3folder/(.*)$ - [R=403,L]


Another thing you can do is when advertising the download, make the link to it a special page that sets a cookie then redirects the user to the download.

Here's an example. (keep in mind I'm excluding common HTTP headers and I'm only showing content within the body tags)

The advertisement page:

<p>Download any of these songs</p>
<a href="download.php?mp3=song1.mp3">Song 1</a><br>
<a href="download.php?mp3=song2.mp3">Song 2</a><br>


The download.php script the links link to:

<?php
if (intval($_GET['DOWNLOAD']) != 1){
$file=$_GET["mp3"];
setcookie("candownload",1,time()+86400,"/","example.com");
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved",true);
header("Location: example.com/path/to/download.php?mp3= .$_GET["mp3"]."&DOWNLOAD=1",true);
}else{
if (intval($_COOKIE["candownload"]) != 1){
echo "Access denied";
}else{
header("content-type: application/ms-download",true);
header("content-disposition: attachment; filename=".$_GET["mp3"],true);
echo file_get_contents("/path/to/".$_GET["mp3"]);
}
}
?>


The script isn't 100% perfect since some things needs tweaking depending on where the MP3 files are on your system. But the idea is when someone clicks a downloadable MP3 file, they are taken to a redirect page and at the same time a cookie is stored on the clients computer to identify them as a client. then after the redirect, the client is validated as a client and the download immediately begins.

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