By shaggy82 on

Hi,

I have a site where people come on and listen to or look at different files. Is there a way that I can keep them from saving the files to their computer or copy the pictures to their computer? I just want them to be able to look or listen on my site, not download or copy. Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

choster’s picture

choster commented

Unfortunately, there is not. This is not a limitation of Drupal, but of the medium/technology. In order for the media to display/play in someone's browser, his/her browser needs to decode it. But if the browser can decode it, it can save the decoded information locally instead of displaying it, and in fact probably does by caching it.

There are various cheap tactics that might discourage rank amateurs or search engine crawlers, like delivering all media through Java or Flash, or overlaying photos with transparent images, or crippling the context menu. Any of those tactics is more likely to annoy and drive away legitimate traffic than to stop anyone determined to take. Anything that can be seen can be screenshot, and anything that can be heard can be recorded.