Leeches! Who are they and why do you have to protect
your downloadable content from them? If you offer any
files for download from your web site, other sites
have to ask your permission in order to publish your
materials on their sites. All your images, audio
files, documents (etc.) are protected by copyright
law. But, others still can offer your files to their
visitors without crediting your site by simply putting
direct download links that point to the files on your
server. This method is called "hot linking" and the
people who do this are called "leeches". You pay for
the traffic, you lose visitors, you receive less
revenue from any advertisements on your site and you
compete with your own content. Leeches do not infringe
any laws and thus you cannot complain to their hosting
providers.

There are many anti-leech solutions around. Most of
them are intended for Unix servers and require you to
install and configure PHP scripts. Helicontech offers
HotlinkBlocker, a surprisingly powerful anti-leech

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