Want to sell MP3 files. Where to begin?

[Anon]

hello,
i am trying to design a site that will be able to sell music files. we are aware of the legal issues, but i need to knwo where to begin on how to charge and organize the whole process of payment.

i know about the nessesity of a gateway to charge the card in real time, i know how to upload and store the files, organize them and search them....

i need to know how to charge for them and not allow others to download them from other locations.

any help would be great.
thanks

[bastien]

Well Bill,

you hit the crux of the issue...there is no way to prevent your users from sharing...in the short term you could develop a system that allows some form of encryption of the track, but as has been proved, someone will crack it and soon...the tests done by RIAA had all four of their complex encryption cracked, the longest in 4 days....or you could code to limit the locations the track can be played...this was also tried and quickly ran afould of comsumer backlash

Digital rights management is a tough problem to crack and no one can come with a solution as yet...

answer: no way to prevent it

Bastien