Watch out for this forum...Illegal copies being given away!

[Steven G. Johnson]

Hi everyone,

I want to share a little information with you...

Today was the official launch of my product, The Quick List Formulas...

We I received a whole lot of traffic today and sales were pouring in
but something wasn't right...

The sales weren't matching all the traffic...

Well right when I started noticing things weren't adding up, I
received an anonymous email from someone telling me that someone
was giving away free copies of my guide, the video course, my bonuses,
etc...he even had a link to my members area...

When I checked, my product had been downloaded more than 500 times
TODAY for free! And that is just the TIP OF THE ICEBERG!!! Why? Well,when
I dugg a little deeper, my product has been downloaded of 1000 times!!!

A link to my members area, guide, video course, and bonuses has been
available for download in that forum since July 20, 2008

They actually have been giving away products for free way before they
even launch...

I have contacted a few of my Internet marketing buddies who are part
of JVNP to inform them that their products were being given away before
the official launch but I decided to let you guys know about this also...

As a friend and loving member of JVNP, I just thought I should let
you know because this has made me highly upset and I will deal with
it promptly...Since joining here, I have made many friends and built
great relationships...You all are good people.

We all work hard in developing these products to help people out and
no one deserves this...I was deeply hurt and I didn't deserve this! My team
didn't deserve this! The people who are promoting don't deserve this, but
most important - it's not fair to the customers...



Regards,

Steven Johnson

[Paul McPherson]

If you are using a linux site with cpanel, you can setup leech protect - This allows you to set up a limit to the number of times per hour that somebody can log into their account.

There are also some better approaches to prevent anybody from taking your hard work away. I don't know if there are any specifics on this site, but its a topic worth discusssing (Preventing Leeches)

Paul McPherson

[lakshay]

This is disgusting!

btw Steven, did you have a membership based download area?

That could have possibly made it secure...

[affiliaterockstarx]

Hey Everyone,

File sharing is a fact of life.

Microsoft can't stop it.

The movie industry can't stop it.

It is just a fact of the digital age.

The people that frequent these sites would
probably not purchase your products anyway.

Although, I do agree we should attempt to make
it harder for them to share our work.

But there is nothing stopping someone from buying
your product and sharing it on these sites.

Think of it as viral exposure.

There are so many sites like this on the net it is
hard to keep on top of.

Look on the bright side.

Maybe if they like your product they will buy the next one.

Or maybe you might make a little cash from an affiliate link in
your book.

Or maybe you are helping someone who can not afford to purchase
the product.

What can you do besides contact Rapidshare and then move on.

Craig

[Keith Ireland]

Most of the people that downloaded your product would probably not make the purchase anyway.
There are many forums that share every new Internet Marketing release, usually these people just download it then move onto the next product.

If you know the secret engine techniques you can find almost any new release its a fact of life. Most of the big Internet Marketing gurus are actually members of these forums and the people that run them are making good money through I.M.

You have got to remember 90% of people who buy I.M. products are newbies, and are not Internet savvy. So they are unlikely to know about these forums.

Its Sucks Steven but you can't stop it!

[Mike Merz]

Great replies ... due to the popularity of this community, links to it have popped up on many forums the likes of the one Steven mentioned ... we've even been featured in a few 'black hat' ebooks ... when you get popular in positive ways, there are always going to be unsavory individuals that don't want to travel the right path to get to the rewards ... regardless of what it takes.

I've recommended for some time that you keep review comps out of your initial promotions ... it may attract more partners ... but not all the right ones. Set up a qualifying system to screen out tire kickers and suspect types.

Best,

Mike

[Steven G. Johnson]

Well, you all are right...when stuff like this happens you just who
to move on...

A little update:

Despite the fact that those idiots leaked my product a couple of weeks
in advance and more than half of the JV partners that signed up didn't even
follow through and promote...we still managed to move 572 units in the first 18 hours!

THAT'S PRETTY AWESOME IF YOU ASK ME!

And that's not including the OTO's...but it is still not over!

Thanks again guys...

Steven

[vignesh_natraj]

this is really bad news.
its pretty lame that few jv-partners are spoiling the sales of other partners.
i see a big concern here and I know how it feels when ur product is shared for free >:(
contact the file hosters n send a DMCA notice

but you should not have posted the link here.. coz
more members will visit that site and start leeching. (just my opinion)

[Steven G. Johnson]

Hey everyone,

Here's a little update...

I got that forum's web hosting to suspend their
entire account...

One less problem we have to worry about now ;)

Steven

[David Meade]

Good work getting their account suspended Steven ;)

Glad to hear your product is doing well regardless.

Dave

[Mike Merz]

Well, they're obviously back ... and we no doubt have a few of their members on this board, so keep your product access to those that you know, trust, or have proven their credibility.

Funny thing is ... these guys are so angry about us 'ripping people off', making them look like Robin Hood, or something ... when nearly all of the products they target are ClickBank based, which has the most relaxed refund policy on the planet. Customers can refund if they don't feel they've received value on the dollar ... no need for 'protection' from vigilantes.

Oh, well ... regardless of how you try to be fair with everyone ... you're going to run into those that don't think it's good enough.

Best,

Mike

[guptara]

I heard Easyclickmate provides some level of protection from illegal access. It requires the user to use their Clickbank receipt code to access the download page.

I haven't used it though.

[Chris Douthit]

Steven, you have a right to be furious. There are several products which can protect you, but the better protection the more of a pain it is for your customer to get your product activated.

I have had very high protection to very low protection, I find somewhere in the middle is best. I always hated getting emails from customers frustrated with getting the product activated, then giving up and just requesting a refund. But at the very minimum the download area should have some sort of protection on it.

[Adeel Chowdhry]

I've had it happen to me too..

- and I just look at it as branding now.


Adeel

p.s. I think it's best that you remove that link from the first post...why give these scumbags any publicity?

[Jay Salvati]

Good work Steven...I was about to suggest that course of action...

[vignesh_natraj]

yes .. remove that link.. don't give away them more publicity

[ExMachina]

I also suffered from this last year, but had to just accept that it was a fact of life.

It's not just forums that are the problems but search engines which ignore robots text files and list download page. You will never stop the sharing but you can reduce it by using download protectors.

One other thing that i found very useful is that if anyone asks for a review copy convert it to pdf there and then and add a something unique into the pdf. Then when you find your product shared you know who shared it.

[Rob Toth]

I had a colleague and affiliate partner point out that my new offer was posted at BlackHatWorld ... it was a mistake on our end as normally file folders are protected. This one didn't get setup right. So I'm sure some folks grabbed all the files for free.

But as pointed out, it's unlikely that these individuals would have been customers.