Prevent download of sound file on site page

[janbeeu]

I have a link leading to a soundfile on a site page. When you click on it in IE7 you get to standard option to open or save the file. I want only the "open" option so the file cannot be downloaded. It seems a little stupid to prevent all hotlinking in .htaccess (which I've done) when one can simply download a sound (mp3) file by clicking on it's link on the site page.

How do I prevent this file from downloading?

[penders]

But when you "open" the file isn't it downloaded anyway... saved to the temp dir / temporary internet files, but opened immediately?

[janbeeu]

Actually I don't know if is and, if so, whether or not it stays there.

[alfaguru]

If someone can open the file, they can save it on their hard drive, there's no way round that. You can serve sound files in a streaming mode such as Real Audio rather than as a file but this still won't prevent canny users from storing the stream as a file, although it may discourage them.

I'd suggest you either downgrade the quality, or - if it's a music file - provide only a short sample.

[janbeeu]

Thank you for the clear answer.

[D_Blackwell]

You can serve sound files in a streaming mode such as Real Audio rather than as a file but this still won't prevent canny users from storing the stream as a file, although it may discourage them.

There are some great apps out there that will capture the stream as an .mp3; or whatever the user wants.

The answer to these questions is always the same, if you don't want people to have it - don't put it out there to be seen, heard - whatever.

[janbeeu]

True but we don't have to make it real easy either :-)