A live music act that I offer web design advice to have been offering their songs for play in WMA format on their site for some time.

Whilst this has been a great way for people to check out their tunes, it has also provided a mechanism for visitors to download "save" tracks to their own computers, and thus removing most of the incentive to buy the official album or paid download releases.

I have been pondering a few solutions to this. The simple fix was to disable the right click button in the browser using JavaScript. This removed the "Save Target As" method of download, but the user could still left click to load the track in their Media Player, and then save the track from there.

I suggested a Flash based MP3 Player that could be both skinned (themed) and have a playlist specified by an XML file. In addition, the player could be controlled elsewhere on the web page via JavaScript commands.

I have been impressed with the chosen solution, from E-Phonic, in addition to the download concerns it averts, it is also cross browser compatible (provided you have Flash Player), and removes the need for a separate Media Player application, as tracks are played directly within the web page / browser.

If you would like to know more about the E-Phonic MP3 Player flash plugin, please contact me.