I am so inclined ... Are there any books in particular that you would recommend?

Yeah recommend one of these books you have read man. All ears.

Those fucking hotlinkers are getting a damn pain in the ass.
In May I had about 300 or 400gigs burned by those damn fuckers.
Dude your lucky you don't live in my town.
Don't say shit like " I am not responsible blahblah"
Bullshit!
Nowwhere you guys say that hotlinking is illegal and not allowed.
If one of your members has hotlinks on his site you should take him down right away.
it's that simple.
But no your a coward and hide behind your "I'm not responsable"
Some webmasters take your links down fast after you mailed them but with some fuckers it takes days.
Well I have everything logged and the assholes hotlinking and allowing people to hotlink my movies will pay the bandwidth bill or I will seriously hunt them down.
I'm done with hotlinkers.

that has got to be one of the dumbest things I have heard all day!

Hotlinking is hotlinking is stealing no matter what the size :321GFY

who the fuck are you kidding? I ran 4 MGPs and never had one fucking hotlinker on them. It is no problem verifying that the clip plays on the same domain as the site submitting the gallery. You are as guilty as they are for allowing them to get away with it, and you do it because they bring you cash. :321GFY

Hi,

For any webmasters that run movie sites & are concerned about hotlinkage, I have created a site for banning url's on xxxmovieforum.com forums.
http://www.xxxmovieforum.com/Webmaster/bannedurls.html
just submit your site & will make sure that it will be listed.

Thank-you,
Stephan
:(

out of curiousity, xxxmovieforums do you have an example of legitimate content that is posted on your site? could you show an example where there is a practical application for your site other than stolen material? btw, thx for the popup chain of 'porn password' sites and such. you can really tell that you're running a classy operation.

haha

you're just doing this to shut up a handful of people, what about the other 99% of people that dont post on here or dont read this thread? you're still responsible for all the others.

ok so you're telling your users that they can hotlink anyone but people on the list? it should say "DO NOT HOTLINK ANYONE OR I WILL DELETE YOUR FORUM". its quite clear that you support hotlinkers, you just backed our accusations up even more.

I said it once, I will say it again, "? I ran 4 MGPs and never had one fucking hotlinker on them. It is no problem verifying that the clip plays on the same domain as the site submitting the gallery. You are as guilty as they are for allowing them to get away with it, and you do it because they bring you cash." :321GFY

Or even more important why should we have to go through that effort to avoid being ripped off by your users!! Though eventually if everyone submitted their site you would be shut down cuz one one is going to post on your site if they can't post stolen material! Show us how serious you are and post that url on every webmaster board and on your site so when ppl find out they've been hot linked by your users they know how to avoid it again! You should also post on your site that users caught are liable to pay bandwidth charges!!

Literally, 99% of the stuff on those forums is hotlinked.. how about that xxxmovieforum? Just visit any board, and under every post youll see a hotlinked movie. Dont try to shut us up because of your page which has a list of 5 links.. your boards on your domain on your hosting are hotlinking - YOU are responsible

:mad:

:mad:

Okeyday! I'm only experienced in ASP, thus can't offer much in the way of PHP; but it is very powerful and a damn fine serverside option.

I chose ASP because of it's option to write in [the default] VBScript. This is a big plus if you know a bit of VB/VBS, and besides that, it's a bloody easy to pick up since it makes full use of plain english syntax.

Books;

ASP: Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 by Wrox Press. Aimed at the new ASPer this is a good one to add to the bookshelf. (this is only an option if you are on a windows box OR otherwise have ASP support (via a third party ASP parser ie ChiliSoft on unix))

PHP & MySQL: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL. This is a top book (or so I hear).

There is [ofcourse] a plethora of other great books available but I couldn't comment on any others.

Obviously, you don't need to buy a book at all; some of the best information about serverside coding is found on sites like;
www.codeproject.com, www.visualbuilder.com, www.webmonkey.com, www.w3schools.com;
ASP only: www.asp101.com, www.15seconds.com, www.brainjar.com, www.4guysfromrolla.com, www.activeserverpages.ca, www.haneng.com, www.aspemporium.com, www.asphole.com, www.ultimateasp.com.

The new coder may find it a little daunting finding the information they need - this is where printed publications can have a definite advantage.

Also sitepoint.com & sitepointforums.com is a great webmaster resource site and board. Great place to post questions about all aspects of webdesign. Has a thriving PHP, ASP and MySQL user base to turn to when you're stuck.

If you're only interested in protecting your files and are running on windows however, I can offer a solution which I will write in ASP that checks referrer headers. Very basic and I know you can spoof referrer headers but I don't foresee linkers posting spoofing software along with their dirty links :oP

Cheers

:mad:

Thanks Raymo ... Much Appreciated

Well it is mostly about the "right click save target as" issue.
For left click you can setup protection.
If they leftclick on a link to a movie and are not on my domain they are taken to the paysite but most of those hotlinkers just do right click save target as and as far as I know there's nothing you can do against it.
Fuck the hotlinkers and the cowards who say "I'm not responsible".

No probs dude.Wha? Are you saying surfers can still download your content if they save target as [thus not sending referrer headers]? That makes no sense - access should be granted if referrer is your domain. All other request should be denied; 'save target as' falls under this category as it doesn't send referrer headers at all.

What exactly is the problem?

Pirates are always going to be ripping off movies and bandwidth ... you can't stop boards like this ... it's completely useless ...

Besides the ASP/PHP solutions ... people may want to take a look at DRM ... Digital Rights Management with Windows Media ...

The files are encrypted and, from what I can tell, pirates can't crack them ... much less hotlink to them ...

CCBill's got a deal with DRM Networks (I think CCBill actually owns them) ...

I've been checking their pricing and it's getting relatively affordable ... Just FYI

:mad:

meh...why should it bother you if boards like this operate if you're not open to attack? If everybody takes care of themselves there will be no content left to target.

This is, after all, a thread about xxxmovieforums linking somebody, not the board in general.

Regarding DRM - isn't that a little over the top considering the same thing can be achieved for free with serverside scripting?

i dont think it helps out people paysite conversions too much when some people put it on message boards for free :2 cents:

:mad:

<b>beemk</b> true, it likely affects paysite operators indirectly.

<b>Brown</b> what's up?
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Sorry if I wasn't clear ... All I was saying was that people have to protect their content and bandwidth ... trying to get pirate boards to "reform" is useless ... Even if you shut them down they just set up shop elsewhere ...

Good point about DRM, although do the ASP/PHP solutions prevent copying of the content as well as preventing the hotlinking?

I just mentioned DRM for those who may not want their movies copied ... it does seem to be effective in that regard ...

OH! In that case we're on the same page.

No, serverside [scripting] solutions, thus far, can only deny malicious linking. Once downloaded, the surfer has the content in as regular file.

DRM definitely has it's uses for certain applications, but you'd have to seriously think if you wanted to implement it on your website. For example some paying members may be unimpressed if they can't download their content at work on a phat pipe and bring it home with them...that sorta thing.

In essence, on the other side of the coin copying has it's legitimate uses too.

BrownBear, whats up with the :mad: ? bringing up the ol post count, eh?

Anyway, I contacted a forum owner at xxxmovieforum - and guess what - he doesnt even know about your page saying dont post these domains!

:mad:

Nice ass ! Can I kick it ?



:Graucho

That's what I figured ... as far as server side scripting is concerned...

As far as the copying issue ... I do a lot of phone sex/webcam with big spender pay-per-minute customers ...

I also show them videos that they can't copy ... and the vast majority --- particularly my best repeat customers --- don't mind at all ... as long as they know that's part of the deal ahead of time ...

I'm not convinced that restricted copying hurts business that much ... I know of a lot of other successful pay sites that do it as well ...

The beauty of DRM --- assuming it works as advertised --- is that the customer can download the content and view it personally whenever they want --- but, of course, within certain time constraints and without the ability to distribute it elsewhere ...

Personally ... I'm not going to let my content out there without some protection ...

This whole thread demonstrates that piracy is getting out of control and I think it's reaching the point where webmasters are losing a ton of money ...

"Fair Use" would be great if customers only used the content for that purpose ... But they don't ... All it takes is one bad customer who will give it away to thousands and, by then, you're losing a ton of money ...

So, for me, DRM ... or something like it ... is the only viable solution ...

mmm food for thought.

Did you consider both the nuisance of users having to download (or stream; however it is) the content again if they want a second look? On your side of things this means expanded bandwidth charges.

Assuming the encrypted data isn't cached at the client's end, that is.

I am under the impression you don't deal with images, but have you looked into this kind of protection for jpegs?

Easy problem to sort out, get everyone to boycott ISPrime untill they remove his site..he will then find a new host and we then email them and get them to do the same..that way he will burn in eternal hell...

Well ... I haven't had a chance to actually use DRM yet for various reasons ...

But from what I understand, if set up properly, DRM can give you several options: Streaming or downloads where you set the parameters ... either the number of viewings or time limits when the content expires on the computer. So, I assume you can control the bandwidth situation ...

I'm only familiar with the video/audio applications ... and I think it can be used with books and such ... but I've never heard of it being used with jpegs, although it might be possible ...

Perhaps this link could help answer your question ...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/drm.asp

big surprise there. the guy running this site will never give a fuck about anyone or anything else but his money, he knows _exactly_ the kind of operation hes running and hes not kidding himself. if you can, sick the lawyers on him. otherwise don't bother paying attentiont to anything he says. he'll just show up once a month and offer some stupid psuedo solution to pretend hes trying to appease people, just like any other scammer.

Ah great. Thanks for the link, it looks very comprehensive. Haven't looked at it thoroughly but I think there probably is something for jpegs. There must be, since it's got everything but the kitchen sink... my new project only deals in pics so it's got nothing to offer otherwise but interesting nevertheless.

I had a thought. As pirates are always going to be ripping off movies, I'm thinking the smartest and most cunning will find a solution to the encryption (they always seem to, remember the inception of DVD? It was touted as unbreakable. Guess what, somebody broke it in their spare time.). There is so much misspent talent out there, nobody can ever claim an uncrackable anything. If it's internet transportable, it'll never be iron clad (hmm this analogy seems quite fitting, as <i>really</i> effective protection is very heavy). Since it's not only a ripped bandwidth solution, it's also for copyright, as stated above. In this case, as you said, all it takes is a single customer to let it out to thousands - as long as they have the brains and the means to crack it.

Let us all know how you go if/when you set it up!

Actually ... I've only seen one crack for DRM ... and that was for audio. The pirate actually had to pay for the audio track to crack it ... something pirates absolutely hate and usually refuse to do ... LOL

The audio crack also involved a dozen pages of extremely complicated decryption instructions that other pirates would have to follow to get the same track he did. From what I understand ... those files won't play on other computers without the decrytion key ... hence the need for the detailed instructions ...

I've never seen an effective DRM video crack. In fact, I just saw a post on a pirate board today stating that the so-called video "cracks" didn't work ...

Also, DRM is supposedly setup to easily change the encryption if any cracks occur ...

Based upon what I've seen to date ... I'm pretty comfortable with the security on DRM. Sure ... there's always some risk ... but as long as it remains a major hassle for the most sophisticated pirates ... that works for me ...

Besides ... as this whole thread demonstrates ... video files (particularly large ones) are pretty hard to trade unless the pirates have a place to store them. A lot of the free bandwidth accounts that they used to use have dried up ... hence the reason they're hotlinking to webmaster sites more than usual ...

That's not to say they still won't trade video files ... but there's a reason they're always trying to break into our sites ... it's a lot easier for them to use our bandwidth and storage. Anything else is a major hassle and tends to cut down on the piracy .... at least to some extent ...

mmm good, it's encouraging to hear about things such as this. One up for the webmaster.

I agree with everything you're saying regarding why they link us more nowadays. And because of the free services drying up, it is obviously helping our files to not be distributed as much, despite it costing us more in bandwidth. Lose one, ya get the other.

But yeh, we could have it all with something like this.

Although say you were only concerned with the copying of your files. Not even DRM can protect against software copying the video output onto a monitor (to then be re-compiled into an mpeg, divx), can it?

Good point ... and screen capture is particularly problemactic for jpegs ... I really don't know what can be done about that ...

And there are screen capture programs for video such as Camtasia ...

Although I notice that the pirates frequently talk about using that method only as a last resort when they can't crack the files any other way ...

I assume that's because the quality isn't so great and/or the capture programs are difficult ... at least with video ...

Of course ... that could always change over time but for now, at least, ... based upon the pirate posts I've read ... it's not yet a major concern ...

At least in this scenario they would still have to pay for the video in order to capture it under DRM ...

Oh yeh, I didn't think about the implications for jpegs (It's 4am..I deserve to be slow)! What a nightmare.

mmm, I'm guessing it'd be the quality issue - it's like compressing an image twice, since the second time 'round the screen grabber only has the raw data - the compression algorithm is completely lost before being compressed again.

ehhe I spose, look on the bright side - atleast you're profiting from the pirates too hey. *g*

Bed awaits ...