Re: Media Protection and other stuff

Paul Westbrook wrote:
> Hello,
>    I like what we did for the NetjukeTiVo project  
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/netjuketivo
> 
> We created a playtrack.php script that is used to play the tracks.

[snip]

I've been meaning to suggest something similar that I'm using on a GeekLog[0] 
plugin to do music distribution (and collaboration).  The only thing to add to 
the technique below is the option of download vs. streaming.  In the end it's 
up to the browser to do the Right Thing, but a

   header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($filename));

will usually work on most browsers.

There are a few other advantages to using a script instead of assuming an 
web-accessible music directory:

* Filename Customization:  I've found that people have a wide variety of 
preferences for how they organize their music by filename, but since you're 
generating the filename on the fly, there's no reason not to have it follow a 
substitution string stored in the user prefs.

* "Day Passes":  Add an URL argument for an authentication token which would 
allow anyone to download that particular track within a preset time limit[1], 
so you could give out limited access to friends and family, without the need 
for a login.

* Transcoding:  If you've got CPU to burn, it'd would be relatively easy to 
reencode files on the fly (cached?).

The only real disadvantage is that it requires the music repository to be 
accessible from the web server, but that's usually the case.

Any thoughts?

[0] http://geeklog.net

[1] I have a very simple algorithm for this, using MD5 (or SHA1 or whatever). 
    Email me if you're interested.


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