Landing Page Theft: Wrong or Fair Game?
Most of the larger affiliates have run into this problem. Since your ads are so incredibly visible to everyone on the internet, it is very easy for other affiliates to simply copy/paste your landing page onto their own domain and run traffic to it from your traffic sources. Doing this can take as little as 15 minutes and can bring in quite a bit of money. This is, of course, unfortunate for the people who spend hours making/paying for landing pages just to have them jacked, but is it something they should get upset about, and should they take action, or should they just chalk it up as an inevitable loss?
Nickycakes doesn’t want to get into a discussion of the legal side of this issue, mostly because that takes way too long to research, but there are a few points worth mentioning:
First, NEVER trust legal information that you get from a source like…this blog…marketing forums (wickedfire), IRC, etc.
Second, apparently, exact wording is protected by copyright, but “styles” are not. For example, you can’t legally jack the exact text of someones landing page, but nobody can copyright the “blog style” landing page.
Ok, so legal stuff aside, is it morally wrong to take other peoples landing pages and use them as your own? Nicky estimates that most people would say that to a degree, yes, of course it is wrong to steal the work of others. That’s fairly obvious. But it is, on the other hand, easy to see someone in this industry justify it, especially when they are promoting products such as payday loans, weight loss products that don’t work, etc. If misleading kids about ringtones charges is morally WORSE than stealing someones fake testimonial landing page, is it really THAT bad??
And that brings up another point. A lot of the landing page theft is happening to these “flog” (fake blog) landing pages. The testimonials on these pages are rarely real. The Cakes isn’t exactly a legal expert, but something in the back of his mind tells him that there is some department in some government agency somewhere that is tasked with finding and persuing such acts. So is it wrong to steal from someone who’s breaking the law to begin with?
What about the networks? Should they get involved in disputes involving copied landing pages? Often if an affiliate feels someone has stolen his landing page, and the person who stole it is using an offer from the same network, they will contact the network and try to use their traffic as leverage to convince them to drop the affiliate who stole their page. Should the networks take action in these cases, or is this blackmail?
Nicky, has his own opinions, of course.
Stealing is always wrong, but this is an industry that tends to have very flexible morals. Should you steal peoples work? No. Not only because it’s wrong to steal, but because being innovative and making your own stuff will many times produce a much better result than taking someone’s work. Remember that you may be stealing from the biggest idiot in the world, and anything you create on your own could preform 10x better.
But should you get upset when other people take your stuff? No, but you will anyway. It stings less after the first few times it happens, but it will happen inevitably. If people see your campaign popping up day after day, they will assume it works well and copy it. It means you’re doing something right. If you come up with a whole new way of promoting something, such as when people first started using blog landers, you should definitely not get mad when people copy your style. Immitation is the best form of flattery, or something like that. If you feel really butthurt about someone taking a direct copy of your work, hire a lawyer. There are probably millions to be made by lawyers helping affiliates sue other affiliates who copy their pages as it is a clear copyright violation and there is a large quantifiable monetary gain as a direct result of the theft. Basically, either sue them or quit crying about it.
Should people try to blackmail their affiliate network into kicking other affiliates off offers if they steal their pages? No. This is not the networks responsibility, and this puts them in a very uncomfortable position. Not only are you hurting your relationship with the network when you do this, but you will likely be branded as a snitch to everyone in the industry. Your reputation in the industry may seem inconsequential when you consider that you run your own company and you don’t really need to be looked on favorably by other affiliates, but this is a very shortsighted position. Consider how many networks and advertisers are run by former affiliates. How many of these were affiliates just a year ago? Lots.
Basically, even if stealing weren’t morally wrong, it is usually much more profitable to innovate. And, snitches get stitches.
Nickycakes would love to know, what is your opinion on landing page theft? He would especially love to hear from known landing page thieves like Zac Johnson.
Keep it real.
I thought I read somewhere on your blog that you add a code snippet that tracks who is stealing your landing pages?
wget http://www.nickycakes.com
It doesn’t bother me anymore when people rip my shit. This is a copycat business for most part – you see creatives, lps, ads, kws – everything copied.
Hey! Remember when Zac Johnson stole your landing pages?
ไอ้ควยเล็ก
People shouldn’t outright steal landing pages, but emulating them is obviously pretty smart, especially for people just getting started. But FUCK the lazy asses who can’t even change (i.e. improve) a couple elements on the page to make it unique to them.
Ripping a landing page is wrong of course, but most successful marketing in all mediums seem to be a copy of something for the most part.
Dude, I’d rip from my own grandma if she’s making the monies.
I had a blog post not to long ago on profiting from people stealing your landing pages:
http://www.johnwineman.com/2009/05/15/how-to-profit-from-people-stealing-your-landing-page/
Oh no, mommy. I published stuff on the webs and a mean man stoled it!
*snort*
spending time and energy trying to get a network or a person to take down a stolen landing page is time that could be spent optimizing a campaign or starting new ones. you could probably try to sue the bastard that stole your page but it will probably cost you more than the time it takes. good post nickycakes.
Its only an injustice if it happens to me
I like tossing the guy/gal out of affiliate networks when he steals content and designs. Sounds resemble to me.
Timeless classic !
– Do not deleting the credits,
this theme is released for free under the GNU General Public License (GPL) requiring that the credits will stay intact.
I’d appreciate the credit being left in unmodified, thanks in advance –
– I respectfully decline, but here’s an ascii wang 8======D –
serious post here. i agree that people should not blackmail aff.networks when they’re lp is stolen… the networks really couldn’t do anything about landing page theft and if that affiliate really stopped promoting their offers, i think aff.networks need not to worry that much about it..
w/regards to fake testimonials, its everywhere i guess, even stupid ebook sites have their own
I think you raise an interesting and ever increasing problem. People shouldn’t steal content but they will. People should learn their own way of making money on the internet. I have a easy cash systems website and was ranking really well for it and then, someone lifted the majority of my site, it annoyed me and there is nothing that I felt I could do, luckily I resolved the issue and moved passed it and now my site is doing ok again. Phew.
didn’t you use to steal cars haha
Look at all the tools that are built to seal other peoples keywords and add copy and such.
Stealing is a big part of the bis, and for some reason I think it always will be.
Copying content is certainly dubious but copying style is standard in the offline world as well. In the supermarkets the big names spend huge amounts of $$$ researching the best colours and styles for their packaging and then the small guys just copy them having not had to pay for the research. Just take a look at products like breakfast cerials for example. My cheap non brand name bran flakes box looks almost identical to the big name one for example. Regardless of the style theft the brand name will still likely be shifting more units.
Straight up jacking landing pages is pretty lame but it’s a sign of someone who doesn’t know what the hell they are doing anyway. If you’re making money in this game then you know the drill… be a Becky not a Samantha.
You mean be a Laura not a Becky and definitely not a Samantha.
There’s no such thing as theft when it comes to information. There’s only copying.
Good points all, but it will fall on deaf ears. Everyone is after the fast bucks…
Is what it is man.
It really sucks when you’re the innovator. But not much that can be done. The barrier to entry in this industry is so low anyone with a little web skills and a couple bucks can do it.
Ironic the things that makes this business so great when you’re starting, makes it crappy as you get to the higher ranks.
There’s a maritial arts discipline that everything revolves around move completion. Or using the unstoppable force and directing it the way you want it to go. Think about how you can take these things that don’t change and leverage them. For example if/when you come out with your own offer all you have to do is get the advertising some good visibility for it and before you know tons of people will be promoting your stuff. All the band wagon boys will jump on as soon as they see your ads everywhere.
Creativity will always win at the end of the day. Sure you can always copy everyone else and make some money. But to get to the next level you need to innovate.
Pay this man for advice: “didn’t you use to steal cars haha”
I love it when cons get conned (and cry). Peace brutha.
Didnt both becky and samanta did better than laura. While it does sucks when you Are the innovator Copying is just part of the game, get use to it and move on.
Can work out if they copy your page exactly and don’t switch the links over. Literally happened yesterday to an affilaite of mine. Guy gave him two conversions and was converting at 12% with over $3.00 EPC. Haha. Dummy…
“And, snitches get stitches.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAxnB6Ap4o
I think copying landing pages is bad, as long as they are unique in some sort of way.
Obviously the content should be different, but the “style” is fine.
JUNE 3RD.
The real problem with not doing anything to the affiliate network is that it fosters a fucked up culture in which affiliate managers think it’s okay to tell their affiliates to copy top pubs word for word.
Keep in mind that most AMs, especially those from Azoogle, are fucking retarded and will immediately tell all their affs to copy if they see you pushing volume. Why? They get 2.5% of the margin, a laughable amount to get paid for fucking your affiliate and “friend,” but from their perspective they want to maximize their overall commission. Guess what? When people copy, their commission goes up. As does the network profit. They don’t give a fuck how profitable it is for the affiliate, they just want to see as many leads as possible.
That is why I think it’s important to confront the network… they aren’t just turning a blind eye, often times they are ENCOURAGING it. Don’t be some spineless bitch scared of being called a snitch.
I think it is god awful! But if someone can get away with it oh well then I guess.
Not that is the right thing to do, but Internet just prove that people can recycle your work
I think it’s not fair to copy another people landing page exactly.
David
I never copy other peoples landing pages exactly, however to find inspiration and ideas are totally fine I think. If you’d like to stay in front in IM you need to be the one copied, and not the one who copies.