Stop URLs from being published in magazines?

[RyanMoore]

A friend of mine runs a personal website.

Recently an unsolicited link to his site appeared in a magazine. This resulted in a 10-fold increase in bandwidth usage for that month, which he was not willing to pay extra for, and so was forced to temporarily shut down the site.

When he complained to the magazine in question they generously agreed to pay his bandwidth fee for that month.

What I would like to know is:

1. Is there any way to stop magazines (for example) from publishing links to my own sites without asking first.

2. Is there any action that could be taken to cover increased costs.

[Leosghost]

You dont say if the magazine was "print" or "web based" ..But to reply to your question
#1. No
. He was lucky that the magazine are so obliging ..
. Most of us would love the free link ( I presume their PR was much higher than his )..
Loads of ways to capitalise on this situation ..Depends on his site?
BTW .his bandwidth deal must be rubbish if one magazine link put him over ...

whoops forgot me manners!..Welcome to WebmasterWorld RyanMoore

[mincklerstraat]

There are quite a few sites (though it'd be a tiny, tiny portion of the web) who publish in their terms of service that publishing links to content inside the site is prohibited. This rests on very doubtful legal grounds. But prohibiting linking is about as difficult as prohibiting people speaking to you when you are in public places. You could set up any number of means to frustrate sites which do this - by, for example, refusing access to the site from anyone with a 'referrer' that isn't either blank/a bookmark or direct-type url, or from a select set of sites which are allowed to link. Or you can mirror your site on your home computer, and take the site offline, and only allow trusted individuals access the site via your computer at home, perhaps identifyable by a secret knock or handshake.

On a more serious note, the best way to do this would be to post a fairly visible warning on all of your pages, linked to a page requesting that links first be discussed with you. This would look very odd unless yours is a 'special' sort of site. A much better practice is just to swallow the bandwidth bill yourself - it probably won't be too high unless you've go lots of big, special pictures that some people really like ogling at - and look into ways of recuperating some of that money, or even earning some, from your site.

[RyanMoore]

My friend runs the site to distribute his own original music (as MP3s). He only does it as a hobby, and isn't interested in selling CDs or making any money out of it - so there is no way the site will ever be able to pay for itself.

When I originally did the site for him I got a better deal on bandwidth, but there was a local crackdown on music and video piracy and the hosting company got paranoid - just becuse the site had .mp3 files on it they assumed they must be illegal.

Since setting up the new site for him in March it's been using about 70-80% of his allowed bandwidth every month. The MP3 files are 5-10MB each, and there are quite a few of them on there. He agrees that the more people see the site the better, but also the way he looks at it is that if he stood in the street playing live, he wouldn't have to pay more if more people came round to listen.

[bateman_ap]

If he is that worried about bandwidth how about offering short samples as streaming audio? So if people like that they can download the whole thing after? Might weed out the people who like his music from people just wondering what it sounds like?

[py9jmas]

Have a look at Coral
[scs.cs.nyu.edu...]
a Content Distribution Network on the cheap (ie, free).

... Have you ever run a website, only to find that suddenly you get hit with a spike of thousands of requests, overloading your server and possibly causing high monthly bills? If so, Coral might be your free solution for these problems!

[mincklerstraat]

Hope the ironic comment did not offend, I'd assumed this was a site with lots of special pictures. Audio hadn't crossed my mind.

Something that could possibly help is using bittorrent technology for sharing these files - and other peer-to-peer file sharing technology. I don't what the threshold file popularity has to be before the file becomes readily available through these networks, but it might be worth giving a try. I know that shareaza has a file available on how to share your files while saving bandwidth w/shareaza - it might be worth a read.

[RyanMoore]

No offence taken :)

I have to say I'm not a fan of BitTorrent. Some people thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, while others (like me) can never get it to go above about 0.2k/sec

In the last few days I've sorted a better bandwidth deal out so hopefully that will be the end of the problem.

Thanks everybody for your advice.

[BigDave]

If you are getting such a low speed on your downloads, it is because you are not opening up the required ports to share out the files.

[createErrorMsg]

but also the way he looks at it is that if he stood in the street playing live, he wouldn't have to pay more if more people came round to listen.

That's because it doesn't cost the sidewalk any money to bring walkers by his corner. This is a tech-ignorant comment.

If he's using 80% of his bandwidth to distribute free, original music, he should post a request for bandwidth donaations on the site. Build a page that briefly explains the expenses involved in transferring these 5mb music files to each visitor and ask that when they download a song they donate 50 cents or a dollar. If only half his downloaders did that each month, he'd probably be able to cover a hosting plan with more bandwidth.

[moltar]

check out soundclick. many artists use it to publish their music there. it's free.

[SkyDog]

My friend runs the site to distribute his own original music (as MP3s). He only does it as a hobby, and isn't interested in selling CDs or making any money out of it - so there is no way the site will ever be able to pay for itself.

I imagine your friend wouldn't have published the site if he didn't want people to hear his music. And the more the better. Even if he is a sensitive artist that doesn't want to make any money, I'm sure he could throw up Google Adsense and it the site would probably pay for itself.

Most of the rest of us here in the real world would love to have this "problem".

[saoi_jp]

I found one of my URLs referenced in the back of an educational coloring book in my daughter's bookcase.

That site was an educational one but it's where I got my start with affiliate marketing way back when, with links to this company called Amazon something. I still use that travel coffee mug they sent out at Christmas.

What I'm trying to say is, I understand the artistic purity approach, but there's also the reality of increased popularity causing the whole endeavor to close down (even if only temporarily). Asking for donations is like the busker's open guitar case (to borrow your sidewalk analogy) -- people who feel moved to contribute, will.

[nalin]

If the music you friend is releasing has no strings attached (ie derivitive works can be made), I would assume that it would not be a difficult task to find a mirror who would gladly host the larger files. Though I am more familiar with such resources as applied to software - generally speaking when your releasing stuff GPL or copyleft or otherwise FREE, there is a site out there that wants to host it for you.

Additionally you might want to look in to less resuorce intensive distribution channels. Depending on the number of people downloading, torrents or other forms of p2p distribution might be a great channel to use (the arguments for legitimate use of p2p encompass situations just like this).