Don’t Worry About People Stealing Your Content

5 Sep, 2008 Advice, Education Brian Armstrong

Hi Brian,

I would like to get a marketing opinion of you. I have offered downloadable e-books in the past for other educational products I developed but I had a problem with people stealing the work - buying one e-book, then copying it for others. I even had problems with my printed works in that regard. I had several of my online articles mishandled as well and have since removed every one. It was a bit unsettling since my sellable works were mostly purchase locally and I often knew who was doing it - makes one wonder about people and ethics. What kind of copyright security would I get or should I even worry about it? People seem to steal no matter how many protections one tries to implement. Do you have that problem with your works?

Thanks,
Karen

Hi Karen,

Yes I had the same issue. Within a few months there were free copies of my book circulating online. But honestly…it didn’t bother me one bit. I was just glad people were reading it/using it etc.

The way I look at it, distribution and getting your ideas out there is more important than making money from it. In fact, if you get good distribution the money thing will take care of itself. For every person who reads it free, at least they are exposed to my ideas…then maybe they will benefit from it, and tell other people about it or subscribe to my blog, and end up making me money some other way down the road.

You could get it to 100 people perfectly locked down, get $100 from each, and make $10,000. Or you could get it to a million people, have 90% of them steal it, only get $10 from the remaining people, and still make more that way (a million).

Hope that helps, and until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

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4 Comments so far »

Gopal said,

Wrote on September 5, 2008 @ 9:00 pm

Great point. People will always find a way to not pay for something if they can. It’s just become the norm and most probably don’t even consider it stealing. Trust me, I am a musician and have struggled for the last 10 years to get my band’s (the Integral) music out there. The Industry is in disarray because the Internet has just blown the door wide open on file sharing. On the flipside the Internet makes things so available and allows people from all over the world from different walks of life to communicate and share ideas…just like we’re doing here. Build relationships, build value and you will accomplish a lot in the long run because you would have branded yourself as a knowledgeable leader. Your business will grow as a consequence of that. I’ve been marketing cutting edge technology that will be in millions of households in the next few years and have been using a lot of Internet marketing to get the word out. I don ‘t bother selling anything up front. I just share information (which is worth so much more) that will hopefully help others and those who are interested will be attracted to me in return. Don’t despair, you will do well. All the best. Gopal
http://www.boom.thevfusiongroup.biz
http://www.theintegralband.com

[Reply]
Brian Armstrong reply on September 12th, 2008 2:25 pm:
Thanks Gopal, I think the music industry faces this especially hard right now.

[Reply]
Erica Douglass said,

Wrote on September 6, 2008 @ 3:20 am

Hi Brian,

I would go one step further and say “the ebook should not be your primary source of revenue.” The ebook should be a tool. Which tool is up to you — it could be a tool to promote you, your services, your business, and/or an affiliate program or two…

…but you should be making good money no matter whether people get it for free or not.

The ebook is not where the money is. The backend/upsell/cross-sells are where the money is.

-Erica

[Reply]
Brian Armstrong reply on September 12th, 2008 2:24 pm:
You bring up a good point…the ebook is a good lead generation tool, so even if people get it for free it has accomplished it’s goal. I currently have no back end product, but I guess that’s ok for now :)

[Reply]