Hi ppl, I’ve been a part of this community for almost 4 years. Its been wonderful. But lately I’ve been losing faith here. I feel insecure about uploading my works here. I feel like our works are not protected enough.
As soon as we upload a new template. Its available everywhere. I mean pirated sites. Where they give it away for free. There are soooo many. How many can we stop?? I’m tired of fighting piracy.
I recently saw my templates being distributed for 5$ on fvr*.there were so many. Unbelievable! I managed to make some of them take down. But only some. One particular author, I must share this. Said he doesn’t care. Even I report it. He said he has already made more money than me, using my work. The beauty is he said I didn’t even purchase my templates. He said he got it for free!!.
Yeah. Envato can’t stop them all. But at the same time, as long as we sell our works in the form of templates, its not safe. I have a new project on queue as we speak. But I think that’s it. I’m done with envato. I must look for other options.
There is no any similar marketplace to upload your work and to protect it at the same time.
Even you have your own e-shop you will see your items at pirate sites again.
Can you stop the terrorism in planet? The war? The drugs, whatever?
How you think envato can stop pirate sites for 9,780,187+ items?
If you have any suggestion post it here… Do whatever you want, piracy there is everywhere, unfortunately.
I learned a long time ago that piracy can’t be stopped, and whatever you do you will end up loosing time and not gaining anything. You take files from 3 pirate sites, 6 more will spawn in a few days (or sooner). Most piracy websites are in countries where you can’t enforce take-downs anyway. I also tracked my sales against my efforts to remove files from pirate website, and there was no change in general. But, in one week I removed 400 pirated files, and I had 15% drop in sales in the week after. I can’t say if that had some effect, but it looks like it did. Many pirate websites give links to original files, so while they are giving files for free, they also drive some traffic to our items, and maybe even some sales.
Envato can’t do anything to stop piracy, we as authors can’t do anything too. Microsoft can’t stop piracy of Windows and Office. Selling items is only one side of this business, support and help author provides are another, and only users with valid licenses can get that, so pirated files are not that useful to end users, especially since many pirate website modify items to include malware. So, even if someone downloads pirated item, it might prove very expensive to fix issues malware in the item caused.
For authors best way to protect against piracy is to have one year limit for license, but since Envato doesn’t agree with that, we must do with what we have. Spending time to stop piracy doesn’t work, make more items, improve old ones and provide great support.
One more thing, 90% of people that download pirated items (that is statistics I have read somewhere) have no intention to pay for legal file, so you don’t actually loose any sales, because they would not buy the item in any way. Look at some TV shows, they have record viewership and record piracy in the same time. Piracy is bad, but it is not all black and white.
I’ve lost my faith in Envato long time ago, instead of making new scripts (which gave me decent amount of money when they were released) I decided to become a freelancer, at least I don’t have to worry that someone will steal my work
u are perfectly right about all that u said however there has always been a question in my mind how can a site with thousands of pirates items be reported and that the thing is not forced into closing somehow some say. Such websites have been reported months ago are are still doing well there is no mean at all to do anything about it ?
if we could all do this that night have been a solution , but try to imagine the number of guys getting into the mix if all authors here were doing so , not to mention that , let’s face it the marketplace system is hurting both agencies and freelancers and provides them with very precarious situations , so that this is even harder than before to be independent and to make decent money …
Piracy is a huge challenge, not just for Envato but for anyone who chooses to sell digital products online.
We have a team who work incredibly hard to tackle this problem, but you’re right. We’re going to be outnumbered and sometimes fighting piracy online can feel like sweeping leaves in a storm. The fight is endless, but that is not to say the fight is futile. We need to keep fighting, and we all need to work together.
Envato’s strength is in it’s community, and that community together can work to fight piracy far more than we could if we were separate, or simply relied on a single team. There is absolutely a limit to what we as Envato can do, and so we rely on our authors to be diligent and use the power of things like DMCA’s, which is a powerful tool that everyone has access to. If someone has shamelessly copied your work, then use the DMCA and report them. Please.
If Envato’s community sets the precedent that we’re not going to tolerate pirates, pirates will see us as too much trouble, but we need to work together, Envato and our authors.
Do whatever you want, piracy there is everywhere, unfortunately.