What do you do about your products that get ripped and end up in BlackHat forums?

Send a DMCA notice to any sites that host your files.

Many times a lot of the blackhat download links point to the same source: a file share or 'drop box' service.

Send a DMCA to the file share service and have the file removed. All the blackhat links pointing at the file will then be broken.

There are services that will do this stuff for you.

You will never be able to 100% stop it, but your best bet to "fight" it is to send DMCA like mentioned before.

DMCA or just make your products physical versions and increase the price on them.

Yes report it! It's so easy to pirate items now a days, which is why the music industry got hit so hard. So put a Google Alert to make sure you get any notices when something comes up as your product name. This will keep you alert when someone is selling your product else where, or giving it away.

I typically don't worry about it too much

If someone wants to rip off your product, they probably were not going to buy it anyway

I've seen entire sites that post a lot of WSO's and other products. Really a shame for the people that do a lot of hard work to create something of value.

It would be nice to find a way to "lock down" content that doesn't require a lot of programming or expensive plugins.

Nearly all larger offers in the IM niche get ripped or distributed illegally...welcome to the Internet.

What I do is have my team send out regular DMCAs and then followup. It's a cat and mouse game that never stops but I wouldn't let it stress you out in the least.

To help prevent it, I generally structure my offers so people who refund right away don't get nearly the entire product...such as delivering bonuses every week for 12 weeks or something.

I also brand the crap out of my stuff so the people who get it for free, still see my URL and branding all over the place..both of which have inherent value.

I wouldn't worry about it. They are not your target market anyway.

Create a quality product and sell lots of them, make a nice piece of change and don't worry. Include some upsells and downsells in the product that are less likely to get distribution.
You could even include some affiliate links and make even more on the back end.

bzzzt. the CORRECT answer is, and I've done this, is if they take paypal payments for illegal membership/download access of my content; and I see any of my products, I

a) send a DMCA takedown. If it's not responded to, I then (and this is good)

b) find out their paypal account and file a motion with paypal to terminate their account, with pdf screencap of original non-responded to DMCA and their listing of my info product, and the paypal address they use for payments (put through a sample order as though you were going to order, then cancel right before payment, that way you can see their paypal email; screencap that as well, and attach when filing paypal infringement report, so there's proof). I play hardball.

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mp...gementrpt-full

I protect my IP rights vigorously.

I killed a pirate dvd site like this that was pirating my dvds. then you can file that w/law enforcement for criminal prosecution for illegal DMCA content piracy in their home country. Tip: that's a challenge in places like indonesia/china since english not first language; have to schedule translator when talking w/law enforcement/police in some of those countries.

The pirate blackhat forum webmasters do not want you to see this. So spread it virally.

disclaimer: this is not advice of any kind, its just what I personally do when I see pirates trying to spread my content illegally. Piracy is a crime and I Do report to law enforcement/merchant accounting to stomp them. I also send C&Ds/DMCAs to hosting companies and DNS registrars of pirate sites, for takedown actions.

P.S. When you get a reputation like I have for killing piracy, they don't put your stuff online as much, since they know you'll come after 'em hard, like I do. Like we all should do.

dont worry about that , they will make you famous (if your wso's are bullshit of course)))

One of these might help:

Nanacast - Features

DLGuard - Download page protector, create expiring download links

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...tent-ease.html

Yep, I set them up to be ripped off. As mentioned above, there would be a lot of work involved in removing me completely. People who pirate files are allergic to work.

Steal my stuff and pass it around...thanks for the free distribution! (;

Hello Warriors.. When people say that it doesn't really matter if someone steals your product or not, because it doesn't hurt your real sales that much , it isn't true. I have seen campaigns fall significantly short on sales, after having products pirated. The percentages drop drastically. It could mean the difference between 25 sales and 300 sales, or even more. I have also seen campaigns that were destined to be sabotaged and only produce a few sales, which blossomed into hundreds of sales instead, after having implemented strategies to avoid being pirated. Your best bet is to make as much of your product as you can non-downloadable. This way when somebody steals your files, they can only steal a part of the product, leaving the freeby seekers with an incomplete product. The freebie seekers then have to go buy the real product in order to get the rest of it. A good example is a membership site. Pirates can't steal that, and if it comes with the package then anyone who takes their free files will be left desiring the rest of the product. There are ways of avoiding total piracy, and even profiting from it. It just takes applying some logic. When you do these things mentioned above, the pirates become affiliates for you in effect, and their efforts to foil your campaigns end up making you more sales. This will help anyone who try's it.

I once had a product stolen and what I did was change the URLs where it was located. I then sent an update to the buyers list so they can still access everything.

I monetize my PDFs. Lots of affiliate links, lots links to other products, lots of links to my FB groups, lots of links to my content, lots of....

You get the idea.

I think that the blackhatters are just collectors more than anything, he with the fullest hard drive wins mentality. Download all you can, look at very little. I like the brand the hell out of the product approach.

If you can't beat them, join them.

I usually just join the forum where my stuff is being shared and join in the conversation by thanking them for noticing it, answering questions and establishing good will with the blackhat crowd.

They are much more receptive to this than if you are a dick. They will respect you and are more likely to buy your products in the future as a result of this interaction.

If your software was already ripped, then it means that your software is great.

Here is a solution that i found. Give the software free, but keep something on your server. There must be something that makes all the software to work. Make that thing available trough API access and only available trough a monthly payment. I think this is also called Software as a service.

I always set up Google alerts for my stuff so that I can see where my products are being shared, then, as explained above, you can send a DMCA notice to get the links taken down.

However, having your stuff shared on blackhat sites is not necessarily ALL negative. One of my products was shared on a blackhat site, and to my bitter sweet surprise the users actually had a lot of good things to say about it in the thread and really liked it. So yeah, tons of people downloaded and shared my ebook for free, which sucked, but at least I got some real honest good reviews and critiques from users who weren't just trying to kiss butt, which I can learn from for future launches annd products, and my brand received a lot of exposure with positive comments and reviews.

Of course the share cost me a lot of sales, subscribers and money. Having your stuff pirated always will. All I'm saying is, don't throw in the towel or get all depressed if your product got shared. Its not the end of the world, and you can do something about it using the advice given in this thread. But take what positives you can from it, learn from it, and prepare for it. Brand that thing, make other offers in it, and make sure its a good quality product, and who knows what kind of good you can milk out of a situation that's not much in your control.

re piracy must be fought aggressively.

Look what happened to the adult industry, as a precursor to all info-marketing. It's gotten decimated. tube sites/filesharing has taken a huge toll. Nowadays actresses have to do webcam live work for a livelihood, nonleveraged, in that industry. Because of widespread piracy/unauthorized redistribution of content.

I protect my content aggressively with DMCA takedowns, law enforcement help, paypal account de-register bans for blackhat forum 'member' sites and pirate dvd sites, registrar actions, google search removals and more. I've sold a Lot online for 15+ years and work hard to protect it.

Piracy-Related Stories like this are interesting:
http://www.wired.com/2011/05/eight-domains-seized/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2460799.html
http://www.techspot.com/news/50694-m...rn-movies.html
http://recombu.com/digital/news/inte...ns_M11099.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/te...anted=all&_r=0
http://ctwatchdog.com/finance/downlo...nds-of-dollars
http://www.iprcenter.gov/news-releas...83fbcbe5e14f62
http://www.wired.com/2010/04/pornstar-piracy-video/

the adult industry has always been interesting to study re trends (they had the world's first 'membership sites') and the rest, for lessons learned about digital content distribution -- and as a warning for what happens when you don't go after piracy. Digital theft is a crime.