The $20 Heist

July 16, 2011

Every day I receive Google Alerts about my name, trademarks, and so forth. It’s nice to see where I’m quoted or where something I’ve written or recorded has spread.

However, once a week or more, I receive notice that some of my intellectual property is being offered by one of the rip-off sites. They operate under names (I’ll make them up) such as Windfall or Crypt or Access. They post the kind of notices that are supposed to make you wink and say “Joe sent me”: “We are not endorsing the breaking of the law, and you are downloading what is posted here by your own decision. If you find any material here improperly offered just notify us and we’ll remove it.”

Yes, and if you complain to the division of motor vehicles, they’ll move the lines more quickly.

Basically, people take a book or recording and upload it to the site where it’s offered for free and widely advertised (hence, my Google Alerts) to attract people to the paid advertising on the site. All types of proprietary, copyrighted, trademarked, intellectual property is, hence, ripped off and provided for free, from a wide assortment of authors and originators.

The truly astounding aspect (just spell my name correctly) is that the denizens who post and download boast about it, like kids hiding behind a garage dashing out to rob parking meters. A typical comment: “I was finally able to obtain this combination printed and audio work which I’m proud to contribute here to my colleagues in The Gutter.”

Here’s my quandary: If you want to make it in the consulting, coaching, or related professional services areas—offering services of value to corporations and individuals—how do you justify learning how to do that by stealing others’ works? How do you base your business of service on unethical and illegal acts? Behaviors don’t change. Aren’t you going to rip off the client (or the restaurant or the hotel) as well?

I even have a good idea about who some of the thieves are—apparently some folks who are angry with me and are retaliating in the only way they know how. They’re angry because they’re non-successful. So they steal things. Could there be a connection there?

I guess I’m innocently surprised that the major publishers don’t crack down on these sites (occasionally an attorney’s letter removes some of the material for a while) and/or that there’s no greater outrage on the web. But then I realized that these are very minor people engaged in very trivial work.

If they get their kicks out of stealing others’ material and bragging about it in order to save the $20 the original work cost at retail, there’s not much to do but feel sorry for them.