Stream Rippers

DJD

Member
Hi Guys, very new and green to all this, yesterday I checked my CP and noticed I had 9 listeners from the uk with exactly the same log in time. listening on player/ripper! not knowing what was going on I stopped the station broadcasting for a few mins then switched it back on but within a few mins it was happening again with 15 listeners with eu ip addresses all using player ripper to listen on and identical log in times. My question is what is stream ripping and this normal/usual should i ban the ip addresses or is that a waste of time. is there anything I can do to stop this happening? why does it happen? can the cp panel be set to recognize stream ripping and stop it?
 

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
Hi DJD,

Yes unfortunately this does happen from time to time. As the name suggests, they are ripping (recording as such) the stream.

The only thing that we can suggest is that you kick and ban the IP's from the "admin" section of your servers control panel, providing that is that you are on a Shoucast server as you did not mention your username?
 

realdanceradio

New Member
This happens to me daily, and is a daily admin task!! Ban ip's that don't abuse my radio and only costs me money!!

Support, is there a feature on the roadmap to introduce geo-locking? Cerntainally would be useful!
 

DJD

Member
Some sort of notification when ripping is occurring on your station would be good either by email or txt say. Don't know if that's possible tho ??
 

realdanceradio

New Member
Some sort of notification when ripping is occurring on your station would be good either by email or txt say. Don't know if that's possible tho ??

Yeah don;t think it is, the ability to block certain IP's as a blanket or certain offending country's would be great.
 

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
Unfortunately there is not anyway to implent a notification of stream ripping as they are detected just as normal user listener agents. As realdanceradio said, its just a manual task that you will need to keep an eye on and kick and ban any such rippers as required.

We do however offer geo-locking. We have offered this for several years now @realdanceradio
 

General Lighting

Super Moderator
Staff member
you can also use the "update-title" software to regularly change your metadata (with numbers for shouts or other messages); this can fox streamrippers by splitting up their audio files as they often use metadata changes to split them into individual tracks.

http://utils.magic-radio.net/UpdateTitle2-9.zip

(the docs are in French but its not that difficult to work out).

that said I've monitored a few of them and even geolocated some [who all appeared to be from border areas of NL and DE] it turned out they were not doing it maliciously; but with a genuine intention to listen to the music at a later time or perhaps whilst walking or cycling in these areas; as if you use a mobile connection you might end up roaming between NL and DE and stung for many Euros!

for older generations many do not realise it is different from connecting a cassette recorder or minidisc to a Band II receiver (where it doesn't cost the broadcaster any more) and younger folk are used to getting "everything for free" and less aware of resource limitations.

on the Dutch pirate station relays they positively encourage stream rippers and then upload gigabytes of the broadcasts online!

Ironically the practice of playing single unmixed tracks with synchronised metadata that "copyright feds" tend to encourage makes this worse as it means there is more value to streamrippers trying to get individual tracks.
 
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