Hotlinkers Stealing Bandwidth

If you have been using way to much bandwidth and have decided you want to remove your embedding and stop people from leaching this will help you.

In flvideo folder create a .htaccess file. Add this to it and replace it with ur site info.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yoursite.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /include/embarrasingMessage.jpg [L,NC]

It will stop most leachers from stealing your bandwidth.
And Pornfo Go F#ck Yaself Leach!!

I hope this helps those of you who are experiencing people stealing videos from your sites without giving you the propper acknowledgements.
The f#ckhead i had to block was using 6 different sites to run his porn site from, stealing all our bandwidths, if you have a adult site id go there and have a look if hes leaching your bandwidth or atleast check your awstats.

That sucks. It's not so bad if they will at least leave the watermark in place that links to your site, but for people to go through the trouble of actually stealing your videos (and your bandwidth) is beyond rude.

It's too bad that you can't make a dummy file that only shows on his sites, something that plays a video saying this content has been stolen, to watch the video, please visit yoursite.com. lmao

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SportsGamingTV.com

That sucks. It's not so bad if they will at least leave the watermark in place that links to your site, but for people to go through the trouble of actually stealing your videos (and your bandwidth) is beyond rude.

It's too bad that you can't make a dummy file that only shows on his sites, something that plays a video saying this content has been stolen, to watch the video, please visit yoursite.com. lmao

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I just recently did something like this. The file you send the hotlinker to doesn't have to be .jpg
Google for "hotlink watermark image redirect" that should throw some .htaccess suggestions

This line here RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /include/embarrasingMessage.jpg [L,NC]

/include/embarrasingMessage.jpg This Can be changed to any file you like, including a short flv file saying that the site master is a leaching scumbag lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zeffer

This line here RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /include/embarrasingMessage.jpg [L,NC]

/include/embarrasingMessage.jpg This Can be changed to any file you like, including a short flv file saying that the site master is a leaching scumbag lol.

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:D

Oh yes, me likey :lol:

I have video editing facilities if necessary.


:runsofftofindthat'orriblepicwiththeweightliftersa rsehangingout: :wink:

lol Philthy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philthy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zeffer

This line here RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /include/embarrasingMessage.jpg [L,NC]

/include/embarrasingMessage.jpg This Can be changed to any file you like, including a short flv file saying that the site master is a leaching scumbag lol.

---

:D

Oh yes, me likey :lol:

I have video editing facilities if necessary.


:runsofftofindthat'orriblepicwiththeweightliftersa rsehangingout: :wink:

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Was that not on rotten.com or something like that??? LOL anyway this will teach the beggers.

Great stuff. This is worth putting up as a precaution even if people aren't stealing your bandwidth yet. :D

Found a suitable video :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZxRj2HQmzE

so this will stop people who use the <embed> to post a vid on thier site? or just people who get a little sophisticted and try to direct leech

I am a bit confused...:)

What does it mean to steal bandwidth? I doubt it is happening to me yet but I would like to prevent. However, I do not want to stop poeple from using the embed code to place on other sites.

Can someone please clarify?

The person i stopped was using my bandwidth to use on his site without giving credit to where he had embedded it from. He was just using the flv straight from my site.

oh wow, yeah that is a problem (the .flv usage)

to the previous poster. DO you want to get rid of the embed code for ALL of you videos? Or just some.

Maybe I have misunderstood, but I do not believe this interferes with embedding at all. For example, here's a video I just embedded from Zeffer's site.

http://idiggi.blogspot.com/2007/08/x-ga ... e-out.html

As you can see, it plays fine. I think this code just prevents direct linking. If I'm wrong, hopefully someone will correct me before I put it on my own site. lol

No that site dosent have it, the one you got that vid from.

Ah, ok. So does it stop people from being able to embed videos as well? I hate to be open to bandwidth thieves, but I think having embedded videos is nearly essential for a video sharing site.

Yes my method works, you can still embed videos, it just stops people from not giving you credit(your logo stays).

Cool, many thanks. If there was a rep system on this forum, I would +rep for sure.

Deleted the text since I can't delete the entire post. See next post...

I noticed in my awstats that certain .flv files are being accessed, I'm assuming that this is someone hotlinking. I checked all the referring sites, but none of them show any hotlinking. I'm not sure how the .flv files are being directly accessed since they're not showing up on any referring sites.

But to be on the safe side, I put the .htaccess AND the image (which I called "leachingscumbag.jpg") in the flvideo directory, yes? Or does the image go somewhere else?

@grynmoors

Code:

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RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /include/embarrasingMessage.jpg [L,NC]

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change the last line to where you want it

i put mine in images folder...eg

Code:

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RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /images/leachingscumbag.jpg [L,NC]

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OK, so...lemme see if I have this straight.

In order to put the .jpg in the images directory (as the current file structure stands) then the .htaccess would say

Code:

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RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp)$ /templates/images/leachingscumbag.jpg [L,NC]

---

since my images directory is inside the templates directory...is this correct?

yep thats right....basically from the web root folder

does it protect from vipers quick tags linkers?

if not, there is some way to get rid off vipers quick tag stealers?

I know about 1 sites that gets 20000 uniques/day thanks to stealing videos using that wp plugin :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Hello Guys,
Can someone explain me how do i just encript my videos so when the users go on the Temp File to check the video they won't see it.
I just want to ban my videos for being copy, PERIOD!
Any help will be very much appreciated.
I try to understand you leaching explaination but in vain, i can't get trou it.
Thank you

They will know what the .flv file is simply by looking at the page source. Google "source code encrypter" if you want to hide the source code. Not sure how this will work with vShare tho. Maybe encrypt the tpl files...dunno. Never tried it myself but willing to experiment. Best advice is if you don't want *anything* copied from the internet, then don't put it there to begin with, because anything is "copy-able". All they also have to do is run something like a screen recorder software and copy it that way. There's ways around it, believe me and even if you go thru all this trouble, they will still copy if they *really* want it.

The main thing about this thread is to stop people from directly linking to your videos and thereby stealing your bandwidth..which YOU have to pay for and they don't.

create an .htaccess document and put this in it (change the YOURDOMAIN.com to your domain name) and put it in your flvideo folder:

Code:

---

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?YOURDOMAIN.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp|js|css|jpg|jpe?g|gif|wmv|avi)$ /templates/images/logo.jpg [L,NC]

---

Instead of them being able to hotlink to your video, all they will get is your site logo.

UPDATE: Tried encrypting index.tpl and it doesn't work. smarty errors abound.

Thank you very much for the tip grynmoors.
Tested and it works fine.

Mniang70

Not working for me! :(

the .htaccess I posted is in your flvideo folder, yes? You changed the "YOURDOMAIN.com" to the actual name of your domain, yes? Your logo is called "logo.jpg" and is in the templates/images folder, yes?

For troubleshooting see http://www.devpapers.com/article/242

Yes, i did all the things you mentioned but is not working. If you estrapolate from the embedded object code the exact name of the flv file (i.e. http://www.youdomain.com/flvvideo/646510561616521.flv) and you paste it in the browser's url you still be able to download the file! :(
Anyway now i check that article...

If it's a problem, you can always rename the flv in admin panel. That will screw up the code on the thief's page.

If you're talking about downloading the file versus preventing hotlinking, that's not the same thing. Yes, they can download the flv just by getting the URL when they "view source". Anything is copy-able from the internet. If you don't want something copied, then don't put it on the internet to begin with. There is always Screen Shots, Screen recording software, access to direct URL's, Temp folders and all kinds of things. If someone wants it bad enough, they WILL get it.

What this thread is concerned with is HOTLINKING, which uses YOUR bandwidth, that YOU have to pay for and the hotlinker doesn't (not about downloading your files).

To make a directory so that nothing can be downloaded from it, password protect the directory. Consult with your webhost about password protection for directories. I don't know how passwording a directory will affect vShare script when people go to watch a video on your site. My guess is that it will crash the script.

ramius, did you find anything? I used the player setup wizard with this .htaccess in my flvideo folder and I was still able to view the video. Not sure why this wouldn't be working.....

UPDATE: The code needs to be in the .htaccess in the root directory (not the flvideo directory). I added this bit of code to the main .htaccess AND the logo was displayed instead!!!! Yay!!!! To get the image to be displayed, I just needed to remove the first "slash" from infront of "templates". Here's my successful code:

Code:

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RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?YOURDOMAIN.COM(/)?.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(flv|swf|png|bmp|js|css|jpg|jpe?g|gif)$ templates/images/logo.jpg [L,NC]

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Hi,
it is much simpler to just login it cpanel and enable your hotlink protection which will automaticaly stop any clicks counting on othersites and make them all count as clicks on yours also bandwidth stops being stolen much much easier :D

I tried doing that, but there's some forums where I like to have an image in my sig and for each one, I have to go in and "allow" that URL to access my sig image (I do a lot of gaming so subscribe to a lot of forums). This was becoming horribly inconvenient...the .htaccess solution here was a much better solution for me.

There is a tool on the net that make your life easy.

http://www.htaccesstools.com/hotlink-protection/

But we can't disallow the blank refers because the vshare player design.

and the reason is that the player begins with.

Code:

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so.addVariable("file","http://mysite.com/flvideo/1210779023428305516.flv");

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it must be like this

Code:

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<script type="text/javascript">

        so.addVariable('file',"1210779023428305516.flv"); :D

</script>

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if someone can acheive that then can disallow blank refers. :idea:

How about this one that bizhat uses and recommends in the wiki? http://docs.buyscripts.in/Vshare_flv_hotlink_protection

Code:

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RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yoursite.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*.(jpg|flv)$ - [NC,F]

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From htaccess tools:

Quote:

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Some surfers uses a personal firewall or antivirus program, that deletes the page referer information sent by the web browser. Hotlink protection is based on this information. So if you choose not to allow blank referers, you will block these surfers. You will also prevent people from directly accessing an image by typing in the URL in their browser.

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With this in mind, why would you want to disallow blank referrers? Unless it's to prevent people from directly accessing an image (or video) by directly typing in the URL in their browser (and thus downloading it).

If that is the case, one measure you can take is to add a subtitle to uploaded videos so that no matter what, the URL of your site will be on the video. Search the forums for "hardcoded watermark" or something along those lines or check my site webgeek-design.com and look in the FREEBIES section.

Hi all,

I want to be able to prevent hotlinks, but still want to allow embed videos to be streamed from my flvplayer on other sites.

Any tips ?

Regards

This thread offers several things to use in .htaccess, of which none affect embedding as far as I know. Try the one listed above your post (the one recommended by vshare wiki---see link).

This is what I have in my flvideo folder:

(.htaccess)

Code:

---

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?myvsharesite\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*$
RewriteRule \.(flv)$ /templates/images/logo.jpe [L]

---

As far as I know, (I tested it on another domain) I can still embed videos, but direct linking is disabled. What they see is my logo instead (I created a copy of my logo.jpg as logo.jpe since I also have hotlinking of images disabled).

I have this in the vshare root:

(.htaccess)

Code:

---

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?myvsharesite\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*$
RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /templates/images/logo.jpe [L]

---

To allow streaming from other sites, you add the domain to the list

Code:

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RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?vsharesite1\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?vsharesite2\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?vsharesite3\.com [NC]

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Decided to work on this again today. I finally saw some results in that I saw videos blocked. But I never did see a replacement movie or image in place.
I am on a Mac but with Safari I get the original request blocked and a continuous attempt at downloading is indicated. Bringing up the browser error window and clicking on the video it is attempting to get will show the LeachBanner.jpg has been sent instead of the requested movie. OK, it almost is perfect.

However...

If I run Firefox and try the same link I get to watch the movies as if nothing is blocked! What's up?

I am testing on a page on another site that has a flash player coded onto the page and it is getting the movie name from an xml file which has several choices. The choices are hard coded to connect to my vshare site and get the movies from the flvideo directory.

I will try to find a PC tomorrow and test the same links on it.

Any ideas?