Re: FN-FORUM: Preventing saving of swf files

date posted 30th January 2007 16:41

Hi Dominic,

What I'd do is this....

Within the embed data, have the src attribute pointing at a dynamic
file with id relating to the object, such as animation.php?id=.
Note how it's not an .swf link.

Create a MySQL table with the id and actual path to the .swf file so
for example:
id = 1, file = file1.swf
id = 2, file = file2.swf

Create the animation.php (or other named) file to read the file from
the server directly and output the contents. This should be the same
as just using the file in the first place.

Within animation.php though, do a check on the HTTP_REFERER field
within PHP or other equivalent language. If the referer is the actual
video page, go ahead and open/output the .swf file. If it's not (ie
some user trying to access the file directly) then tell them to take a
hike.

This usually works for me and puts off the typical content thieves.
At no stage is the file's location ever revealed, only the content of
the file. And even then it can only be accessed via the inclusion of
it from a page on your site. Hope it makes sense at least.

Cheers,
Rich.

On 30 Jan 2007 17:08:25 -0000, Dominic Raywood
[EMAIL REMOVED] wrote:
>
> And finally Esther...
>
> I am not au fait with swf files and haven't used flash at all. What I
> need to do is embed a flash file on a website, but make it impossible or
> at least very difficult for someone to then save the file to disk and use
> later. I know that those with the nouse will do it anyway, but most
> people aren't that clever.
>
> Is there a method or tool that you can use instead of the usual
> and that will play the animation, but make it difficult to get at
> the file.
>
> My client will be providing e-books as part of a learning site and doesn't
> want people to then be able to save the files and pass them on to friends
> who haven't paid for membership. I know they could simply share a login,
> but if the membership allowed a set number of files to be accessed per
> month, that would hopefully stop that. They want to make the membership
> very inexpensive, but unless people use it fairly, then that is a
> non-goer.
>
> Any flash wizz-kids out there?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Dominic Raywood
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