How Do You Deal With Torrents Of Your Stuff

5 replies
So I just was doing some Google work on my one directly-IM site. I had a very nice last month, and was checking on some keywords and related to see how I was going to move into the fourth quarter here.

After a few clicks down a path I was curious about, I find a bunch of torrents for my product. One of the torrent sites lists the stats (which of course I have no way of verifying), with over 1300 downloads of my stuff from just that site alone.

I know we can't stop the morons who do this, I'm not looking for any magic answer there.

Instead, for any of you who have found your stuff on the torrents, how do you deal with it? I'm a pretty positive guy overall, and always try to find the way to learn from every situation, but at the moment I admit to being mostly ticked off....

So, how do you handle torrents of your work? Someone give me the positive spin.... please!
#deal #stuff #torrents
  • Profile picture of the author Corey Geer
    I touched up on that here:
    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7085833

    I just made a post about it actually.

    Honestly, people who browse Torrent sites don't have a dime to spend anyways, you wouldn't have made the sale off of them anyways.

    As for dealing with Torrent sites, well I can give you some insight on how a place like Piratebay works. They post threatening and legal letters on their website making fun of them and laughing at them. I don't think contacting them will do you any good nor will threatening them with legal action. Places like Microsoft, Blizzard Entertainment, Etc already tried that and they laugh at them since they reside their servers in Sweden.

    I really wouldn't worry too much though.
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  • Profile picture of the author MyNiches
    To piggyback a bit on what Corey said, which I think are excellent points..

    Depending on your business you can even chalk some of the torrents up as free advertising, if somebody gets a "free trial" and likes what you're offering they may infact turn into a customer. Obviously, it would be better to just not have your stuff get pirated at all, but maybe there's a way you can try to take advantage of this or convert some of the pirates into customers.

    We've seen how fighting this has only hurt a lot of media publishers like the recording industry, so maybe there's a lesson there?

    I guess it really depends on your product, too. For example, SaaS businesses don't really need to worry about this since their customers are paying for memberships.
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  • Profile picture of the author WarrenPeterson
    Appreciate that Corey, and agree 100% they are not buyers. I have no illusion that those are missed sales. I know the industry well (I ran a company in IT security for over a decade)... I didn't mean to imply any legal action.

    I just hadn't been on the 'other' side having my own work ripped off and shared and am in annoyed mode...
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  • Profile picture of the author George Lee
    Hi:

    You can try to get it removed from the search engines, that will help some. Just run a search on How to remove content from plus the name of the search engine or copyright infringement plus the name of the search engine.

    Unfortunately, there is no one stop solution for this problem. It is one of the pains of doing business. If you obsess about it you will drive your self nuts. Most of the types of people that engage in this type of behavior are not the quality customers that you would desire to have anyway. Quality customers usually would rather get their stuff from legit sources and not worry about the risk of viruses and the like.

    Other than to try to get it removed from the search engines and see what happens, I wouldn't sweat it.

    Best
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  • Profile picture of the author kstavert
    I listened to someone who deals with this stuffs all
    of the time and was really impressed with the way
    he handled them...

    if I'm not mistaken, before he launches something,
    he creates a domain like "blackhatwhateverhisproductnameis.com"
    ...

    he also frequents the blackhat sites that have his product
    and posts answers to question that people are asking about
    HIS product and tells them that, if they want to get ALL
    of the answers as well as ongoing support, they can LEGALLY
    purchase HIS product at - and he puts in his domain....

    Says that most people are really NOT out to rip him off..
    just that they don't know where to really get his stuff
    legally...

    I don't remember what this part was in relation to... but,
    he also locks his PDF's and, when someone tries to open
    it, they get a message that they must email hisdomain@gmail.com
    to get the key - and the key will only cost them so much $$$...
    he makes note of their email addresses, too

    anyway, there were quite a few really creative and positive
    experiences (he'd spent a fortune in legal fees, trying to go after these
    blackhat sites - the only outcome was his frustration and anger
    at being ripped off)

    so, go and be friendly... be helpful to everyone asking questions...
    and, get them to come to you and buy legally.

    Just my two cents worth
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