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Do you think most marketers, including yourself would be offended by a strong anti theft warning?

by George Wright
24 replies
Hi All,

I know you cant stop theft of digital products. However maybe you can slow it down a bit.

I'm wondering if you would be offended by this, and secondly based on your experience or just gut feeling do you think it would offend others?

e-Junkie has a way, if you implement it, to stamp the email address and name of each buyer, on the upper left hand of the first page of your PDF File.

Now, what if you received an eBook with your name and email address stamped in the upper left hand corner and on that page was a warning.

WARNING:
$10,000 REWARD leading to the arrest and conviction of digital product pirates: If you received this PDF file from anyone besides (your name here) You have received a stolen/pirated/illegal copy. Please forward this PDF file to (Your email address here). There is a $10,000 reward if your information leads to the arrest and conviction of the Digital Pirate.

In addition upon receipt of your information you will immidiatly receive by return email $1,000 worth of (whatever products you want to give).

You will be helping to STOP crime in addition to being well rewarded.

Seeing as how the buyers PayPal ID and name will be stamped in the upper left corner it might just slow down some from giving away your eBook.

On the other hand it might make some people mad at you and they will never buy again.

Again, this is not about stopping theft, just slowing it down.

What do you think?

George Wright P.S. It goes without saying thay any notice used should be approved by your Lawyer...
#anti #including #marketers #offended #strong #theft #warning
  • Profile picture of the author Exfilius
    And if someone removes their name/e-mail address from the pdf, and shares it, what then?
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    • Profile picture of the author George Wright
      Originally Posted by Exfilius View Post

      And if someone removes their name/e-mail address from the pdf, and shares it, what then?
      I know it could be cracked, however when e-Junkie adds the stamp, they disable the edit feature with their own random password.

      Like I said, it might slow down some thieves.

      It doesn't take any effort to have e-Junkie do this.

      Again, I'm just wondering if it would be so offensive that you would lose future sales from your buyers. I know it can be cracked by hard core criminals.

      George Wright
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  • Profile picture of the author zerofill
    I go by the same thing I always have... If they are stealing it they wouldn't have bought it anyway. And I am not running around tracking them down. The warning means nothing to people that do that all the time. They would be a lot more scared of someone like Microsoft then you...and they aren't.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
      Originally Posted by zerofill View Post

      I go by the same thing I always have... If they are stealing it they wouldn't have bought it anyway. And I am not running around tracking them down. The warning means nothing to people that do that all the time. They would be a lot more scared of someone like Microsoft then you...and they aren't.
      Don brought me around to this way of thinking...

      In the beginning, I would get pissed off, and I would guess that in the beginning I wasted a bunch of time chasing stuff like this down, and later went on to spend a ton of money hiring a VA to do it for me - Tracking everything down, sending DCMA's etc...

      At the end of the day, the DCMA works for about....10 seconds...until they create a "mirror" and then you just have to repeat the process.

      I know that there are some people here on the forum that feel VERY STRONGLY about this subject, and are willing to for the most part go to the end of the earth to make sure noone is stealing their stuff. To me, it's just not worth it though.

      It all boils down to the fact that the people that are doing it, don't care what you do for the most part, most of the time they are anonymous, so there are no real consequences legally.
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    That could get pretty expensive if you have to pay $10,000 rewards all day. That would take a lot of ebook sales to offset that cost.

    I do like the idea though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    I like it. I don't know how effective it would be but like you say if it even slows down the theft you come out ahead. We all know the odds of someone being arrested and convicted is essentially zero so you would never actually have to pay out $10,000.

    It would not offend me and I don't know why it would offend others but I think you are smart to get some feedback on that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Million
    Best to just make sure your ebooks have backends in them (links to your other offers or affiliate offers) so you have a shot at monetizing the theft... other than that, your energy will be better spent (and more profitably spent) by ignoring it.

    Take Ryan Deiss, for example, his stuff is all over a certain "forum" that many people here are aware of. He definitely has the money to spend to combat this and yet doesn't.

    That being said, someone SELLING your product is a different story all together. If you can find out who they are, pursuing can be profitable... justice with a wad of cash... however, you need a wad of cash to move forward... ShoeMoney discusses this in a video on his blog. Look him up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dean Slayton
    Yeah I think that would be a little too strong.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Thanks all,

    My question is more along the lines of would this hurt rather than would it help
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    "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book." Mickey Spillane
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    I'm just thinking of using e-Junkie and see no reasons to use the stamp without some kind of notice. And wondered if it would offend people.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vogin
      I don't really think this would do any good. First, I hope your "reward" was only an example, otherwise it looks like a BS.

      Second, thieves have been warned not to steal by their moms and in school and yet, they are still stealing stuff. Another red text isn't probably going to stop them.

      I would simply ignore these dudes. Why would a noble eagle bother to deal with vultures?
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  • Profile picture of the author impact-productions
    I think the watermarking is an excellent idea and would certainly put off the casual file sharers. In this case, it's about prevention, which can be a very effective method of stopping piracy.

    I'd go for a softer warning, rather than one quite so bold. Only a certain type of person will report this anyway, and the soft warning should hit them. Plus, most people will be smart enough to know that the chance of getting the reward is pretty low, particuarly if one or other is based outside the US.

    Thom
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Can't speak for most marketers, but it wouldn't bother me at all. I'm not interested in stealing the product, so the warning doesn't apply to me.

    Hits me the same way the anti-piracy warnings on a DVD do...
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  • Profile picture of the author MilesT
    Well, it couldn't hurt, but I think you'd spend more time in court than you would marketing, which would blow.
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Ashari
    A few things (a lot mentioned in this thread already).

    1. This will not stop the thieves

    2. It will not offend the people who bought the book since they know the message does not apply to them

    3. There will always be people more invested in stealing your product than you are in protecting it

    4. You wouldn't want anyone claiming that $10 000 lol

    good luck with whatever you decide to do.

    -Simon
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    I have heard it said that the only persons the lock on your door keeps out of your house is the non-hardened criminal...

    1. Those who are honest will never try to open your door...

    2. Those who are border-line dishonest (opportunity seekers) will turn the knob on your door to see if it is unlocked... If unlocked they will come inside... If locked, they will look for easier prey...

    3. Those who are hardened criminals won't even check the door knob, before breaking down the door and entering your home...

    The fancy lock will only keep out the second group, and not the third...

    The same concept will apply to your anti-theft measures online...

    The only people who will be swayed by your anti-theft measures are those who are truly honest people, who were handed your stolen content, and those who are Nervous Nellies who would be stopped by a simple ten dollar lock on your door...
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      The fancy lock will only keep out the second group, and not the third...

      The same concept will apply to your anti-theft measures online...
      However, the environment is different. The second group is quite small in Real Life, but very large on teh interwebz.
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