Ripping off people’s content is illegal, whatever you think of them
I’m opening up a real can of worms as I surf around the little network I discovered after my disagreement with Hannah.
As well as uncovering several dubious Internet marketing schemes (which is ironic given how much at least two people in this “network” accuse Darren of doing exactly the same thing) I found one web site that has ripped off Tim Ferriss’s “Four Hour Work Week” book and is giving away the audio recording and PDF to anyone that links to the web site.
The guy doing this (and he’s not getting a link from me) says that he’s doing it “because I don’t like watching people get ripped off by scammers like Ferriss”.
The problem is, in law, you don’t have the right to rip people off regardless of what you think of them. Copyright is copyright.
The guy ripping content says it’s OK because “Ferriss is a liar” and “he won’t risk a confrontation for fear of being exposed for a fraud”.
Still against the law.
What’s worrying me is that this stuff is all coming from a similar place, and I’m wondering if this is some of the advice that the “30 day blogging course” is offering in order to make money: be as controversial as possible, and rip other people’s work off.
I’ve already been told that I’ve fallen for Hannah’s linkbait by responding on my blog, and that’s probably true, so I’m not going to link to the offending site – plus the fact I’d effectively be linking to illegal content.
I know there are plenty of people doing a wide variety of dubious things online in order to build popularity and money, and it concerns me. It’s really not doing blogging.
Another person in the “network” justifies the whole affair by writing that “It’s good to challenge the status quo from time to time. Tthe [sic] blogosphere has far too many stale and impotent blogs in the make money online niche and it’s refreshing to see someone shaking things up a little.”
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November 10th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
[...] all a comment that was actually heavily critical of Darren from a blogger resulted in a couple of posts linking back to said blogger. Maybe I should just make [...]
November 10th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I’m sure that you could report the copyright violation to Ferriss so he could pursue whatever retribution he thinks is fair.
I hate to see people justifying their illegal actions by claiming some sort of righteous purpose. Civil disobedience has its place in society, but it is not an excuse for this sort of theft.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
The person offering the copyrighted 4HWW materials seems to be having problems gaining a foothold after all. After an initial blast onto the scene, he has managed to fall short of all of his promises thus far. He is either over his head, or just irresponsible. No matter which it is, he has done the worst thing possible and disappointed his audience. He garnered lots of attention and then proceeded to lose the trust of the readers. I doubt that site will be around for long.
As for Hannah, well only time will tell if she manages to stick around and make a place for herself in the blogosphere. She’s got one week of posts out there. Now let’s see where week two leads.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Now the site in question has replaced it with a link to a torrent site. Which – contrary to belief on the sites in question – is still illegal (Incitement).
No doubt the lawyers saw it, and took action, and may take action again.
As for Hannah, I’d be interested to see where she goes from here. She’s managed to get a genuine A-Lister to comment on her blog, something that most bloggers dream of (even us that are nice!), but what now for her?