Thinking Out Loud...WSO's/Products Being Shared Illegally...

[BIG Mike]

Saw a post earlier about this and as luck would have it, a customer alerted us today about someone on Fiverr selling one of our products for $5.

I've had a loosely formed idea for a while now to put together a group of people who would be interested in developing a mechanism (a portal or ebook or whatever) that details the steps to follow to get a product pulled from these sites.

I know we all do our own thing, but I thought it might be nice to document strategies and the process to give away to members. It would be even cooler to have some sort of automated portal where anyone could report a shared product.

This is not intended to be sold or to build a list just a freebie to be proactive in IM regarding file sharing. It could also be useful if we had some form of organization in approaching sites.

I don't think it would take a huge commitment, but it would be ongoing.

Obviously this topic interests me because our Incansoft products are widely shared...more often than not with a trojan built-into the crack.

If you'd be interested in helping out with something like this and have some related experience, let me know...I'm going to start looking at it seriously right after the 1st of the year.

Again - it's not intended to be promotional or profitable...just to help out the industry and more specifically, WF product owners who have this happen.

Let me know what you think...

[Tina Golden]

I think it's a great idea, Mike. There would have to be a reporting mechanism in place for sure, although it would take some time to double check those before posting or whatever you did.

I know when I come across products being shared/sold illegally, I try to contact the creator to let them know.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

I know we all do our own thing, but I thought it might be nice to document strategies and the process to give away to members.

In general, I think trying to fight pirates is a waste of time.

However, if you are going to do it anyway, something that saves some of the time you were going to waste is a Good Thing. While I'd personally prefer that you invest none of your time in this, the decision of how to deal with it in your business is after all your own, and anything that can reduce the amount of time you invest in it can only benefit you and your customers.

So you've got my support.

[sbucciarel]

Sounds interesting. Might be interested. Want to tell you though that it is very easy to get your products off of Fiverr. I've done it several times. Just use the contact link and tell them the gig and offer proof that the product is yours. They normally take it down right away.

[tpw]

A lot of the processes you need to happen here can be automated. That is why I think it a good thing that you are involved in the process.

There are two sides to it:

1. People selling our stuff; and
2. People giving our stuff away.

If sellers put their product info into a secure database, a cron scan of File Sharing sites could reveal a lot of the products that we are trying to protect.

All we need to do is identify the product in the database, identify it on the file sharing sites / fiverr type sites, then automate delivery of take down notices.

Even if there was a fee for this, I'd be interested, so long as it was not a huge fee.

[Barry Unruh]

Wow, I could understand selling a service "using" your tools, but selling the tools themselves.

I've taken advantage of enough of your holiday sales in the past to know that the buyer could buy the product legitimately for not much more...

[Fernando Veloso]

Mike, sounds awesome. I am in.

[sbucciarel]

There is a great automated DMCA WSO product that I bought that makes it a snap to send out DMCAs with one click.

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...aaaaazzzy.html

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

For as much as I believe in planning, I almost hate to admit this--but, this is the dark side of product creation that I was utterly unprepared for. On one hand, I've been taking the unauthorized wide dissemination of our product as a bit of a complement--I mean, doesn't the fact that people are willing to SHARE it mean that it's valuable, at least to some degree?

Even still, I'm a bit tired of fighting a fight against this that I don't have the time or energy to fight.

[RobKonrad]

Sounds like Carl has already done what you had in mind:

Stop, Thief! - Automate DMCA Notices & Protect Your WSO's From Piracy

Cheers,
Rob

[.X.]

Both of the products mentioned above
are a nice start but there's still too
much hands-on for my liking (especially
with a monthly fee attached).

I think Bill is on the right track with
something that can handle this with an
automated system.

1. You enter your product and business
information

2. The system locates shared files

3. The system sends out the appropriate
message.

I'd think Big Mike's crack programming
team could put that together with
ease - and I'd probably be happy to
pay for the service (amazing no one
offers this already).

It might still require a pair of human
eye balls but this is something that
could be outsourced very reasonably.

I agree with CD - this isn't worth *my*
time but we should all do what we
can to protect our products for the
good of our business AND our customers.

X

[David Keith]

I do think there are things that can be done to mitigate the sharing of such things. It will never be stopped, but we could up the pressure a whole lot.

Of course, I am all for automation as well, but I think one of the bigger aspects of this is going to need to be the "show of solidarity" from IMers.

When these sites get one or two notices from a few people, they may comply, but they don't take it too seriously.

If however we were more organized with our efforts, we could put more pressure on the folks that run these sites.

Also, along the same lines there would need to be some serious effort into removing as many of these files as possible from each site even when some of the product owners are not "on board" with this project.

I am thinking its not going to do a whole lot of good if 10 of us got together to keep our stuff off of a few sites, but there are still hundreds of products being illegal shared that are never challenged from the same site.

It is a huge problem, and one that can't truly be solved, but I do think a serious dent could be made with automation and a sense of solidarity.

[DavidTT]

well its the internet and unfortunately you cant have a product without getting it shared by someone. If you can download movies and games, a wso isnt much

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by Barry Unruh

I've taken advantage of enough of your holiday sales in the past to know that the buyer could buy the product legitimately for not much more...

A lot of people get mad about how Mike's affiliate program works because they're stupid and don't know how to deal with "Mike can have a sale but we can't" in their business. So Mike suffers a lot of deliberate efforts to damage his business for "stealing" people's commissions when he has a sale. It really has very little to do with potential customers wanting to pirate the products - it's mostly former affiliates wanting to hurt Mike's business.

[David Keith]

Another thought just came to mind.

I think it might be worth the effort to try to get some higher profile coverage of someone getting sued for engaging in this behavior.

Just like with image thefts, we all know you should not do it, but what prevents the majority of people from doing it is the publicized incidents of 10k lawsuits being filled.

I see this problem a little like the issue of terrorism, you will never be able to stop it, but if you keep dropping bombs on the perpetrators it is a determent. Being proactive also make it much harder for people to organize such sites.

without organization, even if someone does share your product, it will likely be with far less people.

[tpw]

Originally Posted by David Keith

Another thought just came to mind.

I think it might be worth the effort to try to get some higher profile coverage of someone getting sued for engaging in this behavior.

Just like with image thefts, we all know you should not do it, but what prevents the majority of people from doing it is the publicized incidents of 10k lawsuits being filled.

The biggest problem in that approach is country borders.

The guy that ripped me off the hardest is based in India.

That is not to say that all Indians are crooks. I am just saying that this one crook was an Indian.

But when it comes to lawsuits and international borders, the job becomes more difficult and way more expensive, with little promise of gaining the desired results.

I still think the easiest way to address this is cripple the crooks in their distribution efforts.

[Jeremy Stephens]

For PDFs I can remember seeing some software that you can use to ensure that your documents can not be copied and resold.

All I can remember is it was a big name marketer from Vancouver Canada, I think who was selling it.

It was uncrackable and basically authorised the use of a document for a specific computer, so if someone wanted to open it on a computer other than the one it was originally purchased and opened on, it sent a message and invoice to the person that has the illegal copy to purchase a copy. If they don't, the file will not open.

Can't remember what it's called but it looked good.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by tpw

I still think the easiest way to address this is cripple the crooks in their distribution efforts.

This is precisely what SOPA is designed to make possible.

Not trying to open a can of worms, here, but regardless of the abuses to which SOPA might conceivably lend itself (and there are plenty of them)... crippling the distribution of pirated material is precisely why SOPA provides for blacklisting non-US servers at the ISP level nationwide via court order.

If the bill becomes law, it would become possible for a bunch of WSO authors and other product vendors to seek a court order against habitual offenders and cut off their US traffic entirely. And if we can't trust the government with that kind of power, who are we going to trust with it? A few industry volunteers?

[tpw]

Originally Posted by jeremy Stephens

For PDFs I can remember seeing some software that you can use to ensure that your documents can not be copied and resold.

All I can remember is it was a big name marketer from Vancouver Canada, I think who was selling it.

It was uncrackable and basically authorised the use of a document for a specific computer, so if someone wanted to open it on a computer other than the one it was originally purchased and opened on, it sent a message and invoice to the person that has the illegal copy to purchase a copy. If they don't, the file will not open.

Can't remember what it's called but it looked good.

That works really good except when the "phone home" computer does not respond.

The option is putting a password on the document, which PDF files permit, but what if your customer loses the password? And what about the programmers in the world who know how to look at the PDF source code to bypass the password?

There are no easy solutions.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by jeremy Stephens

It was uncrackable and basically authorised the use of a document for a specific computer, so if someone bought a new computer, it made them buy the product again.

Fixed that for you.

[tpw]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

This is precisely what SOPA is designed to make possible.

Not trying to open a can of worms, here, but regardless of the abuses to which SOPA might conceivably lend itself (and there are plenty of them)... crippling the distribution of pirated material is precisely why SOPA provides for blacklisting non-US servers at the ISP level nationwide via court order.

If the bill becomes law, it would become possible for a bunch of WSO authors and other product vendors to seek a court order against habitual offenders and cut off their US traffic entirely. And if we can't trust the government with that kind of power, who are we going to trust with it? A few industry volunteers?

I will let other people play with the worms.

I am not in favor at all of blocking entire IP's or countries from accessing my internet.

I am simply suggesting a system that will automate the process of finding stolen products and sending take down notices to file sharing sites, etc.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by tpw

I am simply suggesting a system that will automate the process of finding stolen products and sending take down notices to file sharing sites, etc.

How does that cripple the distribution network?

[David Keith]

Originally Posted by tpw

The biggest problem in that approach is country borders.

The guy that ripped me off the hardest is based in India.

That is not to say that all Indians are crooks. I am just saying that this one crook was an Indian.

But when it comes to lawsuits and international borders, the job becomes more difficult and way more expensive, with little promise of gaining the desired results.

I still think the easiest way to address this is cripple the crooks in their distribution efforts.

Going by that logic, these people will just ignore the removal request because they know they are un-touchable from a practical standpoint as far as legal action goes.

When the music business got hit with this, they did 3 main things

1. They were very proactive once they realized it was a problem. (software can help us with that)

2. They "made examples" out of some people. While they did take some heat for this, it did make a lot of people think twice about downloading free music

3. They tried to organize and speak with one voice rather than 1,000's of artists complaining about each incident.

I am well aware that probably billions of dollars worth of music are still being stolen, but they did slow the moment a lot. And they also face the same border legality issues.

The music business also did a few other things that we can learn from, but I am getting tired of typing.

To me, we can do a lot to fight this with automation and organizing our efforts.

[Jeremy Stephens]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

Fixed that for you.

No. Because IF you got a new computer, you can change the authorisation. You just need to contact the seller and it reauthorises a new copy.

[tpw]

Originally Posted by jeremy Stephens

No. Because IF you got a new computer, you can change the authorisation. You just need to contact the seller and it reauthorises a new copy.

And if the seller is out of business, you are up a creek.

[David Keith]

Originally Posted by tpw

And if the seller is out of business, you are up a creek.

Yea, but IMers almost never go out of business, most of them are in it for the long haul...right?

Just kidding guys

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by jeremy Stephens

You just need to contact the seller and prove you're not a thief.

I just love doing that to my customers. Gives them that warm fuzzy feeling about buying from me again.

[BIG Mike]

Good feedback...thanks guys.

I realize that stopping it altogether isn't going to happen, but as a few people have commented, it does take time and I think some of this (a good chunk of it) could be automated.

Kind of pie in the sky thinking maybe, but if we look down the road, an organized group effort could swing some weight on the issue with the file sharing sites.

Keeping all of the information, contacts and so forth organized, educating the product owners and file sharing sites are a couple of my goals. I've given a lot of consideration to how to automate it too

Sounds like there's some good interest in this, so I'll keep checking back to the thread and make a list of those of you willing to help with it.

[David Keith]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Sounds like there's some good interest in this, so I'll keep checking back to the thread and make a list of those of you willing to help with it.

NO, not another list, I don't want to be on another list. JK.

This does seem like something we should try to get going. I am willing to do what I can to be a part of the solution.

I hate just whining about problems, I feel much better about actually trying to solve them.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by David Keith

NO, not another list, I don't want to be on another list. JK.

This does seem like something we should try to get going. I am willing to do what I can to be a part of the solution.

I hate just whining about problems, I feel much better about actually trying to solve them.

^^^ That's where I'm at too...

[Steve Faber]

Great, and much needed idea. Fighting the attitude that digital content is somehow free for the taking, simply because it exists only in 0s and 1s, will be much tougher. It will be easier to follow the music industry approach and leave a few corpses hanging by the side of the road as a deterrent.

I'm in, especially if it can be automated.

[solarwarrior]

it is the best to nip the problem in the bud.

[MikeTucker]

Seems like a lot of effort to go out of your way to step on the cockroches. They can't keep up with me anyway, so what do I care if they steal my old stuff and feed off the crumbs that are left?


But yeah, as I'm sure you're aware Big Mike you can "Harden the Target" so that they go looking for easier carrion to feed off and leave your stuff alone.

[Whos That Guru]

Originally Posted by solarwarrior

it is the best to nip the problem in the bud.

Is that so?

What do you recommend then? Not selling anything at all? lollll

[Webpromotion]

It's a real bad problem.

But I do not see an end to it.

Most companies when pricing their products put in a certain amount for loses due to theft.

Even if you build a scraper that finds these products being shared.... what about torrents. Good luck with stopping those.

The music industry with all it's unity and all of it's billions of dollars has not been able to stop piracy, what makes you think our industry can.


The software industry had its shot at it. Remember dongles and protected software. It was broken back then and it still is being broken now. Software industry just gave in.

[Rus Sells]

Originally Posted by tpw

The biggest problem in that approach is country borders.

The guy that ripped me off the hardest is based in India.

That is not to say that all Indians are crooks. I am just saying that this one crook was an Indian.

But when it comes to lawsuits and international borders, the job becomes more difficult and way more expensive, with little promise of gaining the desired results.

I still think the easiest way to address this is cripple the crooks in their distribution efforts.

Just because they are in another country doesn't mean they are untouchable. The United States has many bilateral copyright agreements in place that protect your copyrights in the participating company therefore one should not hesitate to send a DCMA notice.

I just cite the agreement if I have to send a notice to some one in a different country.

Bilateral copyright agreements of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's the list of countries. Note: India is on the list. = )

Just recently I found my software "AGAIN" being offered on a very prominent forum with a certain colored hat in the name.

This time I called the actual hosting company and as things turn out the gentleman who owns the hosting company insisted on being a forum moderator on this site in order to host the site. He logged in and instantly deleted the thread offering the free crack and download link and told me to call him any time I find my products on the forum.

So sometimes taking the time to protect your business works out to our advantage!

I like Mike's idea but I've sent quite a few DMCA notices and now it only takes me about 1 minute to fire one off. hehe

[WiFi]

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

Just because they are in another country doesn't mean they are untouchable. The United States has many bilateral copyright agreements in place that protect your copyrights in the participating company therefore one should not hesitate to send a DCMA notice.

I just cite the agreement if I have to send a notice to some one in a different country.

Bilateral copyright agreements of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's the list of countries. Note: India is on the list. = )

Just recently I found my software "AGAIN" being offered on a very prominent forum with a certain colored hat in the name.

This time I called the actual hosting company and as things turn out the gentleman who owns the hosting company insisted on being a forum moderator on this site in order to host the site. He logged in and instantly deleted the thread offering the free crack and download link and told me to call him any time I find my products on the forum.

So sometimes taking the time to protect your business works out to our advantage!

I like Mike's idea but I've sent quite a few DMCA notices and now it only takes me about 1 minute to fire one off. hehe

I'm sure that gentelman will be getting quite a bit more calls in the future.

[kenmichaels]

Originally Posted by Webpromotion

Software industry just gave in.

No, we did not.

We just got a bit sneakier and we learned to be quiet about what works
and what doesn't work.

Some took the approach "if its going to be cracked, use the cracks as marketing"

Some took the approach " blitz the computer the crack is running on"

Some took the approach " The software can tell if its been altered, so lets
pretend that it works, and slowley degrade, or just act like its crummy software full of bugs to begin with"

Some took the approach " update so often the crackers cant keep up with the current versions"

Some took the approach "join the crackers, get some payback"

Some took the approach "Law enforcement"

Some took other steps.

What we have never done, "is just gave in "

[mikem1962]

I to have seen people on fiverr selling WSO's cheap. Not sure how to get this practice stopped.

[Shazia Mirza]

I think me and OP are in the same boat, I am lucky I came across this thread, looks like this guy on Fiverr is really selling a multitude of products.

Here is my rant on him... Someone else is selling MY product?

I will look through this thread and cross my fingers hoping to see a brilliant idea!

[Ben Gordon]

Mike, I totally agree with you. I personally had to actually hire a full time Filipino just to check if my stuff is leaked and send DMCA notices. It's a total waste of $300 per month but it's definitely worth it and I would recommend it to everybody who sells 'big time' internet marketing products. Worst of all is people who spread my products many times and create many other file downloads after my employee sends a DMCA notice to the file host. I have threatened most of the file sharers on forums to legal action, however, only two of four took it seriously and closed up their posts on forums. Do you know if there's any way to get forums to remove this content? That's the main thing I'd like to know. If there were, it'd make my life a lot easier.

Although this is a continuing issue, I don't know if it can be fully stopped and put to an end, especially if your product gets really popular. Unfortunately, thieves are everywhere and have existed since, well... our world stated. I can still remember that caveman movie where one caveman hits another with a rock and takes his raw chicken. Hopefully soon we can be the ones to hit back that caveman .

[Ben Gordon]

Guys, I found a great way to protecting some of your content and 'freaking out' some thieves. I recently found DMCA badges on dmca.com (provides professional DMCA takedown services) that are provided to us FREE of charge! Just stick this on your website footer, even perhaps the ecover of your product and you've got yourself a boost of protection . Here're the images:

Version 1:


Version 2:


Version 3:


I'm definitely going to add this to some of my content and websites. Give it a try!

[Rus Sells]

FBI — Anti-Piracy Warning Seal

This seal coming to web sites all over the United States soon. A vote to broaden the usage of this seal was made last month. I had the link but now of course I can't find it.

Just think if you plaster that all over the second page of your ebook and on your web site. Of course if you are a software developer you can join a couple of the associations mention on that page to have the rights to use the seal.

[Claire Koch]

i never understood why mike does that to his affiliate seems counter productive to me

Originally Posted by CDarklock

A lot of people get mad about how Mike's affiliate program works because they're stupid and don't know how to deal with "Mike can have a sale but we can't" in their business. So Mike suffers a lot of deliberate efforts to damage his business for "stealing" people's commissions when he has a sale. It really has very little to do with potential customers wanting to pirate the products - it's mostly former affiliates wanting to hurt Mike's business.

[Ben Gordon]

Originally Posted by Rus Sells

FBI — Anti-Piracy Warning Seal

This seal coming to web sites all over the United States soon. A vote to broaden the usage of this seal was made last month. I had the link but now of course I can't find it.

Just think if you plaster that all over the second page of your ebook and on your web site. Of course if you are a software developer you can join a couple of the associations mention on that page to have the rights to use the seal.

I'll definitely use this too. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm looking for all kinds of these types of seals and images.

[unoentremil]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Stephens

and basically authorised the use of a document for a specific computer, so if someone wanted to open it on a computer other than the one it was originally purchased and opened on, it sent a message and invoice to the person that has the illegal copy to purchase a copy. If they don't, the file will not open.

Hi Jeremy,

The consequences of this ultra-defensive system are devastating for your loyal customers and should be considered. Nowadays all of us use different devices and computers.

In my opinion, the best way to fight piracy is providing uncrackable value to your customers. Call it support, updates or whatever. Doing so it's even possible to gain customers from the dark side.

[Emily Meeks]

I agree with you. Unfortunately, so long as the Internet's around, piracy will always be around to some extent... but even though it's nigh impossible to completely stamp it out, it doesn't mean we should just say "We can't stop it, so f*ck it" - we still need to make an effort.

I know a certain piracy forum's Do Not Share list is getting longer all the time...

[Hackbridge]

Nothing to do with IM of course, but I read in the news today that some hackers have started a space program so they can have their own internet free from goverments prying into their affairs. I'm sure I have the story wrong in many ways (reasons for doing so) but the point is that some people will go to great lenghts to circumvent paying or making money from someone else's hard work.

For the record I hate thieves. The problem is that stopping digital theft isn't going to be easily stopped.

Originally Posted by CDarklock

How does that cripple the distribution network?

[BIG Mike]

I'm glad this got thread got bumped - it's time to start getting this group organized.

If you are interested in participating and helping out in some way, send an email to michalis.kotzakolios@gmail.com with the Subject Line "Anti-Piracy Group". You'll no doubt get an A/R response saying the email address is no longer monitored - just ignore it.

I will contact you individually with a meeting place online so we can get the ball rolling.

[BIG Mike]

Giving this a bump - I've set up a group at Google Groups for this here:

http://groups.google.com/group/warri...acy-workgroup/

If you're interested in helping out and participating, feel free to join in.