Bandwidth thieves close down ethaimusic.com

[Sawatdee]

We are sorry to report that due to bandwidth thieves (other web sites linking straight to our files pretending they belong to them) we have exceeded our monthly bandwidth limit. What happened, is that some popular mp3 web sites were getting visitors to their sites to download files from our site. But, they did it in a sneaky way. Their visitors didn't know anything about our site. They would just think the mp3 files were on the mp3 site they were visiting.

We have to pay a lot of money for extra bandwidth at the moment. As some of you may know, we recently had to upgrade from a 14 Gig bandwidth limit to a 45 Gig bandwidth limit. (Most normal sites use less than 1 Gig of data transfer per month. Learningthai.com does 16 Gig per month). We cannot afford to upgrade again as we are still losing money on this web site.

As a consequence, we will be removing all of the mp3 files from the server. We are sorry to do this but we have no choice. We will then monitor to see if the flash files are also being "stolen". We will probably have to do something similar with learningthai.com as that is also a victim of bandwidth thieves.

Again, we are sorry about this.

[ualan]

I am sorry to read the bad news.

Would it be possible to make the site open only to registered users? I even would be ready to pay a small amount in order to help.

[SiamJai]

I share your view and feeling about this ualan, but I don't think that limiting downloads to registered users would do much help. What it would do instead is that it would increase the number of "2-posters", as I call them - you know, the ones who just post spam on the boards to get the free stuff.

Is there some kind of a protection software that would prohibit direct linking to the downloadable files? I think it would be more useful.

BTW, I also wouldn't mind paying a small fee if that would help.

[Mike]

If you're hosting company lets you use modrewrite, can't you just put something like this...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} &#33;^&#036;
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} &#33;^http&#58;//www.ethaimusic.com &#91;NC&#93;
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} &#33;^http&#58;//ethaimusic.com &#91;NC&#93;
RewriteRule .*&#92;.&#40;mp3&#124;MP3&#41;&#036; http&#58;//www.ethaimusic.com/ &#91;R,L&#93;[/QUOTE]

...in your htaccess file. That would (or should - don&#39;t blame me ) stop all links from offsite directly to the mp3 files, and it would redirect people who tried to to the ethaimusic homepage instead.

[Chai]

น่าฉงฉารจังเรย

I think both learningthai.com and ethaimusic.com have great potential. They are very much &quot;one of a kind&quot; websites. If there&#39;s anything I can do to help, please let me know.

[Anna]

Hmm... I have an idea. You know how you have the download information on the downloads section of learningthai.com ? Why don&#39;t you have something similar to that where you have to register into this forum and make at least 2 post or however many in order to download the mp3 files or even to enter the site. You can have a little message saying &quot;We&#39;re sorry, but currently you are not signed in with the forum and blah blah blah&quot; something like that you know? That way if they&#39;re still stealing your mp3&#39;s or maybe the flash, you can perhaps get some background information since they&#39;re signed in into this forum. Oh gosh I don&#39;t know if that makes sense to you, but you can maybe put it on the download section of learningthai.com

[asisomsouk]

hey i just read the news&#33; that sucks really bad&#33; Maybe if you open to registered users only that might help and when they fill in there information make sure to say put your correct information instead of fake ones&#33; i hope you get it back soon&#33;&#33;
Amy

[Jonil Raptor]

i hate online thieves.
But like the others said, you should make it member only who can download the mp3.
Don&#39;t make the whole site member only, but just the download part. that way, people whose never been to your site b4 can look around but can&#39;t download mp3&#39;s until they&#39;ve signed up&#33;
With creative minds like yours, i&#39;m sure ya&#39;ll will come up with something.

[roni]

Yeah, that sucks
I wish I knew something about computers so that I could offer advice, but...
I guess a small fee would make the most sense. It&#39;s too bad it came to that, but hey, maybe you should do it until you start making money off the site... I think a lot of us would be willing&#33;

[ualan]

I slept over it and I come this morning with a new idea: I am sure that many of the members of this forum do have a web site. I do have 4, each using quasi no bandwith. My proposal: instead of having all MP3 on your site why not share and have the MP3 files distributed on many sites, 1 MP3 file per remote sites. I could host 1 MP3 file on each of my 4 sites, hoping not to have a bandwith problem myself&#33;

What do you think about it?