How to Remove Your Stolen Products from Hacker/Warez/Download Sites...

[BlueSquares]

If you own a product, it will eventually get stolen, resold and/or offered as a free download. Here are the steps to get it removed.

The first thing you need is a DMCA Notice.

Here is the one I use:

I, in good faith believe that the disputed use of the aforementioned material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

The following web page is allowing the [illegal resale/download/whatever is happening] of a work I created called [insert product name] originally being sold at [enter the URL where you sell legitimately sell your product]:

[insert illegal URL here]

Please remove this content as soon as possible.

The swear the above information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, confirm that I am the copyright owner.

Electronically Signed,

Your Full Name
Street Address (must be real..PO Boxes preferred)
City State Zip
[your email address...preferably from an account using your salespage domain]
[your phone number...must be real]

Prepare the DMCA notice, throw it into an email, and send it to the illegal download sites.

Subject: DMCA/Copyright Infringement Notice
Body: Paste the contents in. No need for Word, PDF, etc.
No handwritten signature is necessary.


Here's a quick list of email contacts for popular sharing sites:

• abuse@rapidshare.com
• abuse@mediafire.com
• abuse@easy-share.com
• dmca@filefactory.com
• abuse@zshare.net
• abuse@hotfile.com

Eventually, you'll find your product being resold at another site for pennies on the dollar. Here's what to do...

Don't bother contacting the site owner. They obviously know what they're doing is illegal and contact with them will become juvenile or get ignored. Instead, go straight to their "parents" (i.e. host and upstream provider). This technique works 80% of the time.

• Type the following into your address bar:
  http://whois.domaintools.com/thedownloadsitename.com
• You'll get a report with tons of info. Look for the Name Server. Unless they're covering their tracks, this will point towards their actual host 80% of the time.
• Go to the Name Server's website (aka host) and look for the "Abuse" section. They'll normally provide a way to report DMCA/Copyright infringement.
• Send the DMCA email from the 1st section.
• If the Name Server is NOT the host, click on the IP Address and then look for the Resolving Host on the next page.
• 

• Go to the Host site (above is 7Web.ru) and use Google Translate if necessary to surf the site with translations.
• Send the DMCA. Most Russian sites are actually very helpful and remove Copyrighted Materials quickly.

How to Deal with the Shady Hosts

This method gets trickier. It's a 2nd-to-last resort for stubborn "above the law" hosts. You're basically following the same steps from the last section. The only difference is you're looking for DNS servers and submitting the DMCA to them.

• Type the following into your address bar:
  http://whois.domaintools.com/thedownloadsitename.com
• You'll get a report with tons of info. Look for the Registrar Data. Some Registrars actually care about DMCA's...others don't.
• Go to the Registrar's website (aka host) and look for the "Abuse" section. They'll normally provide a way to report DMCA/Copyright infringement.
• Send the DMCA email from the 1st section.

Last Shot...Cut off the Gasoline Supply

• Last resort. If none of the above works, you need to contact their "Upstream provider" and send a DMCA. An Upstream Provider is basically the company providing bandwidth to the webhost. For example, if you're surfing from home, you're probably using AT&T or Comcast. You think you're getting your bandwidth from them...but you're only partially right. Comcast and AT&T actually buy bandwidth from larger companies like Level3 and Cogent. And these companies take their bandwidth and DMCA's very seriously.
  
  So by doing this, you're jumping over the heads of the owner and host. This means the host will get direct pressure to remove the files. And believe me, the host will contact the owner and tell them to drop the file or get shut down (in most cases).
• Here's the way to find the Upstream provider.
• Click on the IP Address:
  

• Go to this site: Traceroute - Online tracert tool
• Paste in the IP 81.177.23.68 or 7web.ru (from examples above...yours will be different).
• You'll get something like this:
  
• Ignore the entries with "theplanet.com". You want to look for the last entry before the ***. In this case, it's pccwbtn.net. This is the last person providing bandwidth to 7Web.ru.
• It turns out this company is actually pccwglobal.com...a major Upstream provider. Sure enough, at the bottom of the page is a DMCA link. Report away.

I hope this helps someone. Once you've gotten the hang of it, it only takes minutes to report your files. Unfortunately, it normally takes 2 days to get them taken down. Good luck out there. Also, I'm not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. I will not be held responsible for anything as a result of the above methods.

If you found this helpful, Buy Me a Beer!
http://www.warriorplus.com/buybeer/BlueSquares

[jimh1626]

Thanks,
I haven't had that problem yet with my product, but I will file this away for when I do.

Good info, thanks,

Jim

[Ross Dalangin]

This is helpful. Thanks!

Ross

If you use a service like E-Junkie, where it disables anyone viewing your ebook or downloable product after say 3 days....can these sites still steal my ebook? Thats horrible

[Sean Kelly]

I just fight fire with fire by uploading 'modified' versions of my software to the same sites where I find illegal sharing

Other times its as simple as downloading the software, unzipping it to find the license key supplied and disabling that.

Last key I found was from a refunder that screamed at me literally 5 minutes after making her purchase.

Sean

[Christophe Young]

Thanks for the information. What's the best way to find out if my product is being "sold" out there? Do you happen to have a list of places to check?

[BlueSquares]

Originally Posted by simba999

If you use a service like E-Junkie, where it disables anyone viewing your ebook or downloable product after say 3 days....can these sites still steal my ebook? Thats horrible

Yes. Once it's downloaded, they re-upload it to the sites mentioned above. I use DLGuard and it helps a lot..but it can't stop people from reuploading.

Originally Posted by Sean Kelly

I just fight fire with fire by uploading 'modified' versions of my software to the same sites where I find illegal sharing

Other times its as simple as downloading the software, unzipping it to find the license key supplied and disabling that.

Last key I found was from a refunder that screamed at me literally 5 minutes after making her purchase.

Sean

I like these ideas.

[BlueSquares]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

Thanks for the information. What's the best way to find out if my product is being "sold" out there? Do you happen to have a list of places to check?

There's one place it always turns up. I'm not posting the link here. I'll send you a PM.

[LB]

This is good advice however, always make sure you are in the right before doing this.

If you submit a "bad" dmca request and a site gets pulled you could be held liable for damages.

In addition, if the person disputes the dmca notice then you will be forced to file suit to get the work removed.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Great post and very informative but this all depends upon the product you are selling and the creator of said product..

While some host may honor the DMCA, they are under no obligation of law to honor it without proof of ownership. Under law a host actually does not have to pull anything down without an actual court order. Reason for this is you need to remember the host does not know you from jack no more than they know their customer and anybody can "claim" they own this or that.

A host, backbone provider, and etc can actually be sued if they falsely removed a site where someone just claimed to own something and did not own it to begin with. This is why host are so careful and many times do not want to remove things without proper legal papers.

Showing proof of ownership is another ball game because then the host is under law obligated to remove such stolen contents. This is the reason why eBay has the ability for product owners to register what belongs to them.

Many times it is just best to go on and create other products because the time you "may" spend may not be worth it in the long run...

James

disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advice I posted the above on what I have seen

[BlueSquares]

lol...Good stuff James. Love the disclaimer.

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advice I posted the above on what I have seen

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by benj28

The might of hollywood and the music industry cannot stop people duplicating and sharing files which are sold by their original creators online and offline.

Why bother trying?

Most of the users of those type of sites (including me) will download something for free and if we like it we will buy it legit. If what you sell it crap, then i dont want to give my money for it first. Especially where internet marketing products are concerned (seen as most of whats sold is total crap, hyped up crap, crap dressed as super man).

Get a real job

Have you just admitted to being a Warez Freak User ???? If so you are in the wrong forum..

Hey Bev got a live one here for you ....

James

[Janet Sawyer]

Bluesqaures,

Thank you taking the time to post this information, I'm sure it will help many of us out who have encountered this problem in the past. And more importantly those who have yet to encounter it.

As for you Benj28, let me ask you this, would you walk into a supermarket, take a bite out of an apple and then leave without paying for it.

Whilst you may say that you will buy it if you like it, I can assure you not many do.

Let me ask you this,
You offered your games console for sale.
I came round to your house, I waited till you weren't in and I took your games console.
I took it home with me to see if I liked it.
If I do like it I might pay you for it.

Same difference, it's theft in either scenario, me taking your games console or you downloading to see if you like something.

As BlueSquares pointed out.. if you don't like something ask for a refund.

[ishansoni]

Great tips. Its a shame that people would actually do something like this. Ah well, That has one positive though, it tells you that your product actually kicks ass!

lol

Ishan

[Mark009]

Very good post!

You can also pay somebody to get some creditability on those forums and claim that as theirs because most of them don't share their member's stuff.

If that doesn't work, this is the way to go.

Thanks!

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by ishansoni

Great tips. Its a shame that people would actually do something like this. Ah well, That has one positive though, it tells you that your product actually kicks ass!

lol

Ishan

Ishan,
Well it does not mean your products are actually any good .. Some warez freaks just love to hog as much stuff they can on their hard drives. They think the more they have the better a warez user they are, fact is most of it just sits on their hard drive and collects dust...

What the bad part is all of them users in warez that steal others stuff and they have Gigabytes of stuff on their hard drives and still can not make a pennie online...

James

[Michael Chris]

Wow, nice post... I am guessing that will save a lot of people time with that.

Those sites must really like you!

I always wondered why no-one offers this as a non-lawyer service. (or someone probably does, but I haven't seen it)

Thanks,
Michael

[Asher]

Woah, excellent information here! Thanks for sharing this~

Asher

[FortressDewey]

Definitely good tips...

[ShayRockhold]

Originally Posted by Michael Chris

I always wondered why no-one offers this as a non-lawyer service. (or someone probably does, but I haven't seen it)

Thanks,
Michael

Do you mean a service that simply notifies sites about the violation (and perhaps checks to find violators), but does not offer a guarantee that the site will comply and does not offer legal assistance to back up the request?

[russellprisco]

I don't know if it's just me or what, but as long as EVERYBODY isn't getting your product for free, I don't know that it's necessarily that bad of a thing to let happen to your product.

Though I don't condone people screwing hard working individuals out of their profit...I mean, if someone is going to take the time to search out a program on all of those types of sites and risk downloading some sort of attached malware or viruses, they probably weren't going to buy your product anyway.

And just because someone downloads a product that they should really be paying for, doesn't necessarily make them a bad or unscrupulous person... Maybe that person is having the hardest time in their life right now financially, and it's YOUR product that could turn everything around for them.

Either way, if you're product is good, you're sure to be gaining credibility and rapport with that person, and if they do fall into that 2nd group of people, you might end up creating a loyal paying follower in the end.

And besides, if you're product is being downloaded, that probably means that you're doing a good job marketing because they want your product, which is something you can feel good about.

I submit to you that you should start worrying when people aren't trying to get your product for free! lol...

I think it may have been John Reese that said he will occasionally upload a part of his content on these type of sites. (don't quote me on that though!)

When you think about it, what a better way to wet their appetites. "Leak" the 1st 2 out of 9 videos in your series, and if it's really that good and they can't find it anywhere else to get it free, you may just have a new customer...

Besides.... Energy flows where attention goes. If you focus to much of your time and energy on avoiding getting ripped off, you're just attracting more of the same into your life.

Sure, set things up to work in the first place, but instead of just expending your energy finding ways to scrape and save every last dollar and trying not to get "ripped off" or "cheated", why not put that energy into creating a new product that can make you 10 times the money that you're "losing" from freebie downloaders....

Something to think about... =P

~Russell Prisco =)

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by russellprisco

When you think about it, what a better way to wet their appetites. "Leak" the 1st 2 out of 9 videos in your series, and if it's really that good and they can't find it anywhere else to get it free, you may just have a new customer...

Something to think about... =P

~Russell Prisco =)

Or you may just get a new hacker that tries to hack your server to get the rest for free...

That is also something to think about...

James

[Nonny]

Originally Posted by Michael Chris

I always wondered why no-one offers this as a non-lawyer service. (or someone probably does, but I haven't seen it)

I think that's what PirateReports.com does. vBulletin uses them.

[Randy Bheites]

DLguard. Works great.

[russellprisco]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Or you may just get a new hacker that tries to hack your server to get the rest for free...

That is also something to think about...

James

Point taken, but couldn't they do that in the first place anyway? =)

[Brian Tayler]

Originally Posted by russellprisco

...When you think about it, what a better way to wet their appetites. "Leak" the 1st 2 out of 9 videos in your series, and if it's really that good and they can't find it anywhere else to get it free, you may just have a new customer...

I've done this before. Don't think it really has much of an affect either way to be honest.

I think the kind of people who download from these sites aren't the kind of people to implement or take serious your ideas anyway. Most are just downloading to download (digital hoarders) as James pointed out. So honestly, I don't see them as much of a risk one way or the other.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by russellprisco

Point taken, but couldn't they do that in the first place anyway? =)

They could but you are teasing them to do it ....

These are not the kind of people that are going to pay money for products. There maybe a few older people and even some that have jobs but for the most part many in warez are teenagers and broke/poor ...

If you dangle a peice of meat in front of a tiger that has not eaten for days and then take it away, what do you think will happen ??

James

[BlueSquares]

Originally Posted by Randy Bheites

DLguard. Works great.

I use it. It doesn't help with illegal sharing.

Now, if DLGuard could somehow tie in products with Receipt numbers....I would like that very much. A licensing server of some kind...hmmm.

Originally Posted by Brian Tayler

I think the kind of people who download from these sites aren't the kind of people to implement or take serious your ideas anyway. Most are just downloading to download (digital hoarders) as James pointed out. So honestly, I don't see them as much of a risk one way or the other.

Brian, I completely agree. I've always this it's either 1) people that would never buy it anyways or 2) people that *can't* buy it because of extraneous situations. Either way, both types tend to fall into your theory.

[jacktackett]

If you want solid legal proof you're the owner of an informational product - then spend the $35 US to get it registered at the copyright office. You can now register your works online and they will send you a bar coded form as proof of your registration.

U.S. Copyright Office - Online Services (eCO: Electronic Copyright Office)

best,
--Jack

[Anonymous Affiliate]

This is a major pain in @$$. Every single info product I release is illegally distributed by "paying customers" on forums (or even resold for a 10th of the price) within a couple of weeks.

To all those who say it doesnt affect your business... it does because those forum threads where people share your content get indexed by Google and when someone searches on your product before buying it... well, they find a place to download it for free.

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by BlueSquares

Now, if DLGuard could somehow tie in products with Receipt numbers....I would like that very much. A licensing server of some kind...hmmm.

DLGuard can tie products to receipt numbers and act as a licensing server, but not for PDF files (as far as I know, there's no better "protection" for PDF files than Adobe's password protection, which we all know is a joke.. if you can share the PDF, you can share the password).

Look at Help / Developers Guide in your DLGuard admin section and you'll see how to do it. Or if you want an already built solution (working but not quite "complete" since I only wrote it up as an example of what could be done) to protect a piece of software you're working on, check the "Member's Tips And Tricks" section of the DLGuard forum and you'll find a C# class I wrote a couple years ago. Again, this will not work for PDF files, but realistically neither will almost anything else short of "rebranding" every copy of the PDF with some unique identifying information at the server before allowing someone to download it.. but it works fine for an EXE or a web script.

[Steve Peters Benn]

Hey Bluesquares, thanks for the information, very valuable. However, it still leaves a hardcore of people in members only website that we don't see. I'm not sure how much damage that does, but realistically we can't stop all piracy.

[BlueSquares]

I saw that post, but it doesn't help with PHP coded solutions. Do you know of any? A simple PHP check that's been encoded in Ioncube should be sufficient I think.

Originally Posted by stevenh512

DLGuard can tie products to receipt numbers and act as a licensing server, but not for PDF files (as far as I know, there's no better "protection" for PDF files than Adobe's password protection, which we all know is a joke.. if you can share the PDF, you can share the password).

Look at Help / Developers Guide in your DLGuard admin section and you'll see how to do it. Or if you want an already built solution (working but not quite "complete" since I only wrote it up as an example of what could be done) to protect a piece of software you're working on, check the "Member's Tips And Tricks" section of the DLGuard forum and you'll find a C# class I wrote a couple years ago. Again, this will not work for PDF files, but realistically neither will almost anything else short of "rebranding" every copy of the PDF with some unique identifying information at the server before allowing someone to download it.. but it works fine for an EXE or a web script.

[ASM Marketing]

Thanks for the template

[Sheryl Polomka]

Thanks for the post, I will bookmark this one as I think it may come in handy. I had this problem when I ran my last WSO, it didn't take long for a few of these sites to have my ebook.

One forum, when I contacted them and asked for it to be removed they did so straight away.

The other forum, when I contacted them, the banned me and told me 'this is a sharing forum'. Grrrrr

They were giving away my download link which I since changed, but I'm sure its still out there, but like Russell said 'the energy flows where the attention goes', I just didn't want to spend anymore time or energy looking for it and worrying about it.

[BlueSquares]

Once you have a single DMCA email in your email's "sent" folder, it literally takes 'seconds' to reopen the email, "Edit as new" and send it.

It actually takes the uploaders more time to upload and share than it takes me to dispatch emails to Rapidshare, MediaFire, etc. lol

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by BlueSquares

I saw that post, but it doesn't help with PHP coded solutions. Do you know of any? A simple PHP check that's been encoded in Ioncube should be sufficient I think.

Yeah, it would be simple to check in PHP, but you'd almost have to encode it with IonCube or Zend. It would be pointless if the source code was "in the clear" (and would also give away your DLGuard query key) and any other method of encoding is either too trivial to crack, or not supported on many hosts. All you need is the URL to your DLGuard install's query.php. Build up a query to request whatever information you need (for example: mysite.com/dlg/query.php?r=A123B456&p=1&k=mysecretkey) and use cURL or fsockopen to pass that query to DLGuard.

This isn't exactly the DLGuard support forum so I won't go into more detail than that.. but if you'd like I can write up some simple examples (one using cURL and one using fsockopen) and post them over there.

[BlueSquares]

That would be golden. Many people will benefit, I'm sure. Thanks for the help!

Originally Posted by stevenh512

This isn't exactly the DLGuard support forum so I won't go into more detail than that.. but if you'd like I can write up some simple examples (one using cURL and one using fsockopen) and post them over there.

[consult4u]

we actually did file an dcma notice on one guy who had some of our stuff up but when it came time prove it all we really had was basically our word against his.

After we did proivde what proof we could the guy ineeded up;taking it down anyway and we ended up wasting a month or so dealing with this crap!

I kinda look at it as a badge of honor as someone like my stuff enough to stole it.

[John Blaisdale]

Thank you very much for this. While I am personally not in the internet marketing niche or anything to do with making money online this is still a very valuable resource.

With that said, this is incredibly useful for those developing products in the internet marketing and make money online niche as these are the types of products which are usually "shared".

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by BlueSquares

That would be golden. Many people will benefit, I'm sure. Thanks for the help!

No problem.. look for something over there probably later tonight or tomorrow. Shouldn't take me too long to put together but I'm kind of busy at the moment so I'll have to make time to code (probably take a few minutes at most, it's pretty simple) and give it a few quick tests to make sure it works as expected.

[usualcliche]

I think this information is priceless to someone who sells there stuff. The sheer volume that people pirate stuff is astounding and these steps do actually work and are proven. Thanks for sharing as I'm sure any help in this are will help the author save $$$....Great post!

[George Montagu Brown]

Thank you Bluesquares, just thank you!

I'll be contacting a few hosting companies...

George

[abdoue]

the problem that i found when i tried to track my product is that people change the name of the product when they upload to file hosting website any solution for this issue ? thanks!

[ShawnC]

Thanks for making it easy for everyone to be able to report if they need to - very cool of you to take the time to put this together.

But really to know your stuff is getting download you have to search out and watch the places that it would end up going for sale, wouldn't you?

Shawn

[jasonvthomas]

Awesome Information. Thanks for sharing.

[internetwarrior97]

VERY helpful post - thank you and thank you again!

[4morereferrals]

How interesting.

Some tool named Ben / Benji just bought my product, downloaded it, and then immediately claimed un-authorized purchase to paypal.

I guess he didnt like it much?

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Have you just admitted to being a Warez Freak User ???? If so you are in the wrong forum..

Hey Bev got a live one here for you ....

James

[Angela V. Edwards]

Thank you SO much. This is extremely useful information as I am having a HUGE problem with people giving away my backlink packets on their forums for free.

[stevenh512]

@Angela: Glad you found this thread. I offered to find this same info for you since I know you've described yourself as a "non-techie" but now you know how to find it yourself. If you have any trouble let me know, I'd be happy to help track down whatever info you need to stop people from stealing your backlink packets.

@BlueSquares: The cURL version of that PHP code I mentioned is posted on the DLGuard forum (same thread as the C# class I originally wrote a couple years ago). I haven't bothered to duplicate it with fsockopen yet, but I can if it's needed.. I just prefer to work with cURL (so much cleaner, and these days most paid hosts support cURL).