This week I read an article that really stopped me in my tracks. It related

an incident where the writer of the article found out that one of his

employees had stolen a packet of toilet tissue from the store cupboard and

fired him. The employer cited that if the employee had stolen a packet of

toilet tissue then he did not know where the stealing would stop. The article

went on to say that the same employee had come to him years later and thanked him and it showed that he needed to be totally honest.

It caused me to think back over 30 years of working in offices large and

small and to realize that for so many supervisors, managers and company

owners there was an attitude "I can take from the company". This is the

attitude we are facing today. It does not matter if it is within the

workplace or in the shopping mall there is no longer a sense of the

seriousness of theft. It does not matter if it is from your own employer or

shoplifting.

This carries over into the virtual world of the Internet. It does not matter

if the product for sale on the Internet is a book, music, video, a recipe, or

knitting or sewing pattern. Someone has put their time and energy into making a product so they can earn some cash. That might be extra money for a holiday or it may be the main income for the family. It does not matter what the money will pay for, but it does matter that by providing the product for free or at a cut-down price you are robbing the creator of the product of his or her rewards.

Going back to the analogy of the shopping mall again, there they spend

money on security systems to catch shoplifters and employees who pilfer. On the Internet it is becoming essential to protect our investment by using the best anti-theft software available. Here comes the catch as the best is not cheap and it needs to be in place 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 52 weeks of the years.

What do we need to do on the Internet? Firstly we need to protect our

downloadable digital products. So let's look at it simply. You are selling a

product on the Internet. It does not matter if you are using eBay or

ClickBank or any other online market. Your product is stored in a location on

the web and the buyer needs to go there to collect his or her purchase. What

happens if the buyer then tells some friends (via e-mail) or even the world (

via a blog or web page) where your product is? Your product will be sent out

and you will not get a cent for it. Your protection must be to provide the

buyer with a pseudo location that is only available for a short time. This

will prevent anyone else from collecting the product from there. That can be

hard work if you are trying to manage this yourself so you need automated

help.

Secondly we must stop online refunders. These are people who buy the product then say it is no good and keep the product and sell or give away multiple copies of the product. This can only be done by a license procedure where each copy of your product is licensed and that license is switched off for the person who buys the product and then proceeds to make multiple copies of your product for sale or to give away. Cutting off the license will prevent that copy of the product working and will show that the buyer was not buying the right to sell the product.

Thirdly we must find solutions for online piracy. Copies of many products

abound. It does not matter if the product is a script (or small program

routine) or a book, a film or music they can all be pirated and put for sale.

Who loses out the most? It is normally the creator of the product whose

living is adversely affected by the loss of sales. So we make sure that any

copy of our product is licensed.

If you are reading this article from the viewpoint of a purchaser then you

may not realize the devastating effect that online piracy has. You may have

visited a friends house and shown the latest book or designs you are about to

sell. You then go to bed and while in bed the "friend" takes advantage and

steals all your work to put it on sale for their own advantage. All the work

and effort goes to waste. Legal teams are expensive and the case is difficult

to prove so you are left without this friend, without your product and out of

pocket.

Yes software costs to produce. Some products like OpenOffice are free but they ask for your help to develop and support the product. Everything comes at a cost of work and money in the end. Have you stolen this week, this month, this year. Pay back what you have stolen and put it right. For those of us who produce books, music, films, designs or scripts, we need to start protecting ourselves from the thieves.