A GREAT idea to fight freebie sharing.

Whether piraters/shop-lifters like it or not, designers have a right to say what can and can't be done with their freebies.  To 95% of designers, the only acceptable way to obtain a freebie is through their site -- whether it be their personal blog, or the website they sell their designs at.

Jen Reed aka libracorn, Digi-Owner of DigiScrapZ.com, has a GREAT idea for how you can fight hot-linking (where groups will share the download link so they can by-pass visiting your site to get the download.)

DigiScrapZ offers only one freebie on our site. It's an older freebie and we find that the zip file has been direct linked to a few times.  With the last notice we received from Jen's piracy blog about the sharing, I decided to take a different approach to fighting this.  Instead of removing the freebie file, I rezipped the freebie (keeping the same zip file name) with a little surprise for the downloader.  With our new site design, we decided (for now) not to offer any more freebies.  So anyone downloading this particular file from here on out will definitely be coming from a pirated link since there is no longer a direct link to the freebie on our site.

Our newly packaged freebie contains only two files - one is our normal "stop piracy" graphic but the other is now this graphic:

I kept it simple, clean and readable.  I believe digital designers will constantly be fighting a piracy battle.  But instead of just taking down our freebie, I decided to keep it up in the new form and "donate" the little bit of bandwidth to fight the piracy battle and maybe educate people a little in the process.  I definitely smile each time I think about someone downloading and opening this new "freebie" file.  lol!

Please feel free to do this with your own freebies.  If you offer direct linked freebies (not freebies through a shopping cart like zen) and find out that your freebie link has been "shared"... do a little repackaging to the zip file and keep it up using the same name. It makes you feel MUCH better at least it did me... lol! 

Jen Reed aka libracorn
Digi-Owner of DigiScrapZ.com

Comments

[Kathryn]

Way to go, Jen!!!

[Monica]

ROFLMBO I love this High -5 on such a comical an smart way to get back at them. he he he.

[Anita Stergiou aka digiVixen]

hey this is brilliant - now i just eed to figure out a way to get it to do the same thing with where i host my freebies for download. thanks for the awesome ideas :)

[Jana1506]

You go girl!!! I love the idea. It may not stop piracy but it will turn some faces red, I'm sure. I just wish I could see that.
Jana :)

[Leticia]

I this is a wonderful idea

[Teresa Bishop]

I love this message about piracy. That is such a great idea.

[katef]

oh wow this is an awesome idea!!!! Love it!

[Sophia]

Great idea! I have borrowed this idea and did a little graphic of my own. I will upload it in place of the files that are now being shared illegally on my site. I hope you don't mind my borrowing your idea Jen.

[Steph]

GREAT IDEA!! Thanks for sharing it!

[LilyBelle]

I love it - it's the perfect putdown! I couldn't have thought of anything better myself and I can't give higher praise than that!!! :)

[SignoraM]

I loved this idea soo much I just used it on my blog for links I was pretty sure had been pirated. Turns out I was right and they're now only getting a little homemade message from me...though mine's not quite as nice LOL Nothing terribly mean but it gets the point across. I'm so glad I read through this site!

[Paula Duncan]

What a great idea! I was just pirated and I am not liking it!!

[Deena]

That's great!! LOVE IT!

[Rosie]

What a great idea! I would love to see their face!