Anyone Make Money by "Encouraging" People to Steal Your Photos & Software?

D

daveguy

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So, I've seen this a few times. When I was much younger I may have pirated some shitty software from pirate bay. The software was a trap. When I may have opened it up for the first time I got a scary message saying they knew I pirated it and to send them $30 to prevent a lawsuit.... I got scared and paid them $30.

Just recently in the professional world I experienced a client get a threatening letter for a photo they accidentally stole from a "free image" site. Apparently, the photo was free, but not royalty free. Total BS. They paid $15,000 to avoid a lawsuit.

Got me thinking.... I want to take a bunch of pictures and upload them around the web. There are ways you can secretly "sign" the pictures using exif data and hidden pixels. Then, I want to build some shitty software and upload it to torrent sites (or have someone else upload it of course). When people illegally download it I'm thinking I can send a threatening letter and demand payment. I'm sure I can get a lawyer to work for free on this and get paid after the deed is done....

Anyone ever try this? Kinda scummy, but this is BHW isn't it? Not like I'm posting an ad on Craigslist and asking for "sample" articles for a job that doesn't exist. Something I've seen people do as well.
 
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dont do that. can you not earn your money honestly.
daveguy said:
but this is BHW isn't it?
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yes but this isnt what bhw is about. Its not about scamming people. BHW is for black hat seo and money making methods, not scams
 
No, I can't seem to make money honestly anymore. I was making around 2k a month from a micro niche site in a legitimate niche selling a legitimate product. Then I was hit by the first penguin in 2012 and the SERPs were overtaken by large brands with inferior content and products. I've become very bitter towards IM since then.

Don't kid yourself. Black hat SEO is a scam. You buy links, don't tell people you've bought them, and create artificial popularity. I've seen people writing fake reviews, selling services to write fake reviews etc. You can't possibly say suing people for stealing your work is worse than that.
 
daveguy said:
No, I can't seem to make money honestly anymore. I was making around 2k a month from a micro niche site in a legitimate niche selling a legitimate product. Then I was hit by the first penguin in 2012 and the SERPs were overtaken by large brands with inferior content and products. I've become very bitter towards IM since then.

Don't kid yourself. Black hat SEO is a scam. You buy links, don't tell people you've bought them, and create artificial popularity. I've seen people writing fake reviews, selling services to write fake reviews etc. You can't possibly say suing people for stealing your work is worse than that.
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so start up with seo again. so you got hit with a penguin update. You make a new site, and adapt to new techniques. hey while your at it, i heard if you jump in front of a car, you can get payed by insurance. Its not bad at all... you cant possibly say getting money from insurance for getting hit by a car is bad
 
This is the most blackhat sh**t I have read thus far on this page.. Smart, but grimey AF
 
Nah, I'm done with SEO. Deliberately jumping in front of a car to get money is fraud. If I drive around Florida and take some beautiful pictures and people choose to steal them, that's not fraud. They stole. I spent my time + money driving around taking pics that are good enough to make people want to steal them.
 
daveguy said:
Nah, I'm done with SEO. Deliberately jumping in front of a car to get money is fraud. If I drive around Florida and take some beautiful pictures and people choose to steal them, that's not fraud. They stole. I spent my time + money driving around taking pics.
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Its fine if you do that. But trying to purposely get them to download it by saying its free (like what happened to your client) is scummy
 
daveguy said:
So, I've seen this a few times. When I was much younger I may have pirated some shitty software from pirate bay. The software was a trap. When I may have opened it up for the first time I got a scary message saying they knew I pirated it and to send them $30 to prevent a lawsuit.... I got scared and paid them $30.

Just recently in the professional world I experienced a client get a threatening letter for a photo they accidentally stole from a "free image" site. Apparently, the photo was free, but not royalty free. Total BS. They paid $15,000 to avoid a lawsuit.

Got me thinking.... I want to take a bunch of pictures and upload them around the web. There are ways you can secretly "sign" the pictures using exif data and hidden pixels. Then, I want to build some shitty software and upload it to torrent sites (or have someone else upload it of course). When people illegally download it I'm thinking I can send a threatening letter and demand payment. I'm sure I can get a lawyer to work for free on this and get paid after the deed is done....

Anyone ever try this? Kinda scummy, but this is BHW isn't it? Not like I'm posting an ad on Craigslist and asking for "sample" articles for a job that doesn't exist. Something I've seen people do as well.
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It's low, OP. Now there are VERY few things that I would consider below me that aren't outright illegal, but this is definitely one of them. I'd never judge somebody for doing something I personally wouldn't do, but it's definitely near the bottom of the barrel, on par with blackmail, buy scamming, and corporate shakedown.
 
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Cost of doing business.

Also, why aren't these companies paying for photos? They deserve free photos? Fuck photographers?
 
So check this out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/2msk1l/i_am_being_tinder_skype_scammed_and_blackmailed_i/

This poor smuck showed his dick and face on Skype and is getting extorted for money lol. Man, got me thinking even more. I could make some spank video without showing my face, title the video "young boy masturbates on camera" upload to torrent sites, and then say they stole my copyrighted content and if they don't pay their IP address will be sent to the police. LOL. Bet they'd pay up real quick. Nothing illegal about this at all.

Back to the photos. If I don't label the photos as "free" I'm really just relying relying on the stupidity of people to make money, which is really just marketing at its core. When your product is good enough it will promote itself. When it isn't, you do aggressive marketing, BH SEO etc. to sell it. Ever been to a timeshare presentation? Those guys sell products to old people worth $1 for $40,000.
 
well ok, if I upload to torrent site myself than yes, that's bad bad bad. I'm implying that it's free when it's not. So maybe not that. Maybe I upload the photos to istock or something. Apparently Ghetty stole 47,000 photos and is now getting sued for selling them as their own:

http://petapixel.com/2016/08/04/getty-images-sued-accused-misusing-47000-photos/

Come on! It's a fucked up world.
 
try local lead generation? you send leads to contractors and get paid for it.
 
hmm.. idk. there's probably some "bait" law isnt there?

like you cant just set up a person doing this.

if i were a lawyer that would be my stance. different story if they willingly take, but if they were coerced into some trap? i know there's at least "entrapment"

who knows
 
galavance said:
hmm.. idk. there's probably some "bait" law isnt there?

like you cant just set up a person doing this.

if i were a lawyer that would be my stance. different story if they willingly take, but if they were coerced into some trap? i know there's at least "entrapment"

who knows
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I'm not a lawyer in any respect, but in general, "entrapment" only applies to sanctioned coercion on the part of a government agency, such as a police department sting operation performed incorrectly.

Interested if any members have done any research into this. If so, can you share your findings?
 
Noah Hawryshko said:
I'm not a lawyer in any respect, but in general, "entrapment" only applies to sanctioned coercion on the part of a government agency, such as a police department sting operation performed incorrectly.

Interested if any members have done any research into this. If so, can you share your findings?
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You and OP might find this interesting. It's on the same level of scummy.

There's a method on here you will have to search for it. So basically you sign up your number at a bunch of places.

You get alot of telemarketers call you.
You research to make sure you know the laws. Alot of them won't follow every single rule. And the more rules they break the more money you can get. Then you get a lawyer to contact them or sue them
 
makistoj said:
You and OP might find this interesting. It's on the same level of scummy.

There's a method on here you will have to search for it. So basically you sign up your number at a bunch of places.

You get alot of telemarketers call you.
You research to make sure you know the laws. Alot of them won't follow every single rule. And the more rules they break the more money you can get. Then you get a lawyer to contact them or sue them
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Yep - there are whole books dedicated to this "method".. just google it on Amazon and buy one of the books as a starting point for research.. you absolutely have to keep up with the laws in this space but I despise telemarketers so much it would probably be satisfying.

If you are already in debt extend it to debt collectors - they frequently break the rules as well.
 
I agree with suing debt collectors and telemarketers. Debt collectors especially. That's how I cleared up my credit: suing these idiots for the maximum amount allowed by law PLUS getting them to remove their shit from my credit report.

Kelly Felix has a book about it. I can't stand him but that shit works. He knows what he's talking about. If that's how you want to make money, go for it.
 
Noah Hawryshko said:
I'm not a lawyer in any respect, but in general, "entrapment" only applies to sanctioned coercion on the part of a government agency, such as a police department sting operation performed incorrectly.

Interested if any members have done any research into this. If so, can you share your findings?
Click to expand...

there has been a lot of talk about this..it's horsechit

talk about how some people's mo is to take pics, seo the chit out of it and then hope it pops up on google. turn around and sue them

but as i was sitting there thinking about it, there HAS to be something.

everybody in the line of copyright trouble are in trouble. so if you dont know the source of where ANYBODY got it, and you decide to use it, you are in trouble. and if someone didnt know if you had copyright claims and they use yours, they are in trouble as well

but what's to stop a business popping up doing this? brb.. affiliate company opens up. here use these materials - little did you know they are all stolen and they don't have the rights to it. or they do have the rights to it and are hoping you take it

brb turn around and sue.. or something to that effect. or have it be a buddy's material

yea, there's something in place to stop that

it doesn't have to go as far as seo
 
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