Imagine the following: you are putting everything on the line and showing all the effort to build your own company. Selling unique pottery, or jewelry with a special touch that no one ever did before. Or you are a Latin teacher who is offering online Latin classes where candidates have to pay for. All sounds very legit right? But what if, after a few years of hard work and a lot of sales, you find your numbers are going down. Sales are getting less; revenue is getting less; customers are getting less… How is that possible? Why were you a very popular online retailer and in no time at all, the sales are over. Have you ever thought about the concept ‘online piracy’ before?
Online piracy is an online illegal practice. Within the concept of online piracy, ‘’pirates’’ are hijacking your products or even worse, your online identity. This could be done in several ways. To begin with, it might be that the pirates are copying your products without you knowing it. Or at least, the idea of your products. After they found your products, they are producing the same products in another country or within a cheaper factory. Results? They can offer the same products for a less sales price; customers are going for the cheaper option, obviously.
Digital content
Another way illegal online pirates are executing their practices, is by literally copying your documents, or in the case of the Latin teacher, his or her Latin online classes. They make an account and pay for once; now they have accessibility to the online content. After that, they make sure that they literally copy the online Latin class and offer this on different platforms. People now can make use of the free online classes (although it is stolen) and learn Latin without having to pay for it. Sounds better for those customers, right?
What to do about it?
Online pirates are practicing their illegal services all over the internet. From eBay to social media; it is happening everywhere. Luckily, there are some specialized companies who can track illegal practices, and make sure that the copied products or contents are taken down. Therefore, they execute DMCA takedowns, do a 24/7 tracking on all the platforms and such companies have a big database in which they can find potential illegal pirate activities. It is very wise to engage with such a company; you will guarantee yourself from not having a loss of revenue and therewith, it does not cost you a lot of time to track the illegal activities.