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I want the videos that I play on my site should only be streamed but should not be accessible to download softwares. Can videos be protected from downloading so that no one should be able to record them
Thanks

user444757
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    Think about it this way: Can you speak to your friend, but prevent him from memorizing what you said? – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 18 '11 at 19:46
  • possible duplicate of [How to prevent downloading images and video files from my website?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1294501/how-to-prevent-downloading-images-and-video-files-from-my-website) – bummi Jul 04 '15 at 06:41

3 Answers3

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Can videos be protected from downloading so that no one should be able to record them?

The short answer is: No.

Longer answer: It is impossible to protect anything from downloading unless you don't want anyone to watch it. Remember: if they can see it, they can record it.

Zed
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Sure, just don't serve them up. By definition, for someone to view an online video, they have to download it. There's absolutely no way around it, short of forcing them to use a remote desktop type viewer. Once the bytes leave your server, you have absolutely zero control over what happens to them.

Marc B
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The answer to your question is no.

Why? No matter what sort of protection you put on the actual file, it needs to be transferred to the client computer somehow. And if you put some kind of DRM on the file so that only the person who's authorized to download the file can view it, it still needs to be viewed. This means that an enterprising person can intercept the actual values being displayed somehow and store them elsewhere. It could be as labour-intensive as getting a screenshot of every frame, then stitching that together to form a movie.

If you don't want people to download your videos, don't put them on public servers.

CanSpice
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