Why evil content pirates in China grin every time you sell a new offer

Here’s a lil’ something to chew on: With the rise of AI, fapGPT, and companies shilling and creating AI… not to mention the rise in the grinning copycats out of China (I have tracked a lot of content pirates to China over the years) anxiously waiting for people just like you to launch new offers, etc… it’s a bigger pain in the arse than ever for content creators of all stripes to keep content protected. There are things that can be done to mitigate it, of course. Like, for example: Services that keep your content from being listed on Google, YouTube, Reddit, that sort of thing. If you use audio/video then mobile app tech like we offer at Learnistic can also make it a lot harder for pirates. You can also trademark and copyright your works (something I learned years ago from the great Matt Furey, and highly recommend doing so you can go after pirates for damages). A lot of people cope about it with “don’t worry about it, it’s just the cost of doing business!” which to me is as dense as if someone is robbing or, nowadays squatting in, their house and they say “just the price of home ownership!” So besides the above, what else can you do to pirate-proof your content? The answer: Take a page from what TSR did after Dungeons & Dragons got popular and people started pirating it all over hell and gone. What TSR did to quell the damage and probably all but make pirating nearly obsolete in those days was two fold: (1) Realize the futility of trying to chase all the pirates, and… (2) Make trying to play their games, using the content in any kind of meaningful way, and even enjoying the modules and manuals a total non-starter unless the players had in their possession… The dice! Yes, all those many-sided die had a purpose. And one of those purposes was to make it no small feat to pirate them. These days making dice is cheap and easy. But back in the 1970s and 1980s? It’d have been extremely expensive and time-consuming to make your own dice, as you probably had to do them in sets of 10,000 or something. (The whole idea of “print on demand” and 3D printing was not like it is today.) From what I understand, just making you have to use their dice put a huge damper on the pirates, restored profits, and solved the problem at the time. Which brings us to your business today: I’m not saying to create literal dice to use your content obviously. But what I am saying is, to learn what the equivalent of “dice” is for using, buying, and benefiting from your content so customers have to buy it from you and not illegally and fraudulently get it from the criminal scum skimming the online shadows. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this. You have to think through it, and think hard about it. It’s extremely cheap and easy for people and/or software to scrape content. But if you figure out what your “dice” is for your particular business and situation and market and niche and product category... you might be able to severely but a crimp in your pirates’ plans and make it much harder or at least a lot less profitable for them. On that note: One of the many lessons I teach inside the April Email Players issue for those who create & sell content is many options for you when it comes to you creating your own equivalent to “dice” so you can make it a helluva lot harder and, ideally, obsolete for the pirates to even bother. Or, if nothing else, be like the proverbial porcupine in the forest: The one creature other creatures could kill, but it'd be needlessly painful to try. I can’t make you any promises of course. And you can never 100% thwart them all. Plus, every business is different. But you can make it a helluva lot harder for them. And if you use as many of the methods I talk about inside the April issue to help thwart the content pirates you could very well put a huge damper on their goals, make it a lot harder to steal from you, and as a result potentially keep a lot of money that could right now, as I type this, be being syphoned from your business and maybe even your kids’ futures by some pecker-less piece of pewp pirate exploiting your hard work. Otherwise? Said pirates laughing at you probably appreciate your dedication to their Cause… The deadline to get in on the April issue in time is tonight. If you want in on time, use this link immediately: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Here’s a lil’ taste of what’s inside this King-Sized issue: * A content creation secret used by famous actor Gary Cooper to turn otherwise boring, ordinary, bland, and totally “plain vanilla” scenes into fascinating & memorable moments people remembered for years afterwards. (Especially useful if content you sell is otherwise easily found free on YouTube or Google.) * A shrewd way used by everyone from Dr. Seuss to Mister Rogers to even Quentin Tarantino… for creating content people love to pay for and consume even if it’s not mind-blowingly original. * The “fights are bullshit” secret for writing emails that can potentially make lots of sales even if you hardly even mention your product or offer at all. (This is directly from the writer who helped make The X-Men a household name and a billion dollar IP for Marvel Comics. And it can work like a charm when creating other kinds of content, too — from sales copy and emails to books, courses, talks, and everything in between.) * An old school writing trick for making your content so compulsively engaging & hard to stop reading/watching/listening to it might even piss people off! (No joke — doing this not only pisses off Stefania whenever she reads or edits my content… but it even irked my book designer when she was creating the interiors of one of my books.) * 7 ingenious ways (based on what Dungeons & Dragons in the 80’s did to help stop IP theft in its tracks) to aggravate & foil content pirates who are probably drooling right now at the chance to steal and sell your hard work. * The “Scorsese touch” content creation & monetization secret I’ve been using for the last several years to help write emails that sell like crazy without having to constantly hard pitch my offers. (Including helping me sell scads of my perfect bound books that look like they should sell for $13 at Barnes & Noble for as much as a $1,000+ a pop…) * A content creation trick (that's gone all but extinct since the rise of “Influencer” culture) that can help you sell your offers on the sneak inside your content. (I also show you an example of an email doing this that got the highest clicks, opens, & sales for us during a highly competitive affiliate campaign… even though it barely even talks about “the product” or benefits or has all that many claims.) * 2 things amateur copywriters, coaches, & online marketers can do (starting immediately) to help grow a bigger and more influential business than their more talented & well-connected peers and competitors. (These are the exact 2 things I did over 20 years ago to quickly blow right past a lot of my own more talented, better connected, and far superior copywriter and/or marketer peers.) * A cunning way to craft content that can help your business stand out head & shoulders in niches overrun with competition and distractions. * An ancient kung fu fighting tip (used by the late, great copywriter Jim Rutz did a lot in his ads, believe it or not...) that can help make even the most mundane, ordinary, and typical content/information look & feel exciting and sexy. * A 3-point content creation approach pioneered by Earl Nightingale (when he was a radio broadcaster in Chicago) and later perfected by Dan Kennedy (when speaking on the Peter Lowe tour) that can help get your content ridiculously high engagement & sales. * Why always trying to be contrarian or a “rebel” is a recipe for ending up ignored at best or even an abject failure in the content creation game at worst. * How to use your content to seize the coveted “cat bird seat” (i.e., he to whom business seems to flow effortlessly) in your industry. (Old school Mad Men like Olgilvy, Burnett, Norman, Foote, Cone, etc were pros at doing this — and it’s one reason why each had their own horde of clients who gravitated just to them, only wanted to hire them, and often didn’t care how much it cost.) * How to approach content creation in a way where your name and brand can be all but “infused” so strongly in your customers’ braincells they start seeing you almost everywhere and almost in everything they look at! (I won’t say doing this is easy — it’s not — but it is the big secret to how you achieve true marketplace omnipotence where your content can spread to the four corners of the earth and all but sell itself.) * How to summon energy & excitement “on demand” to create content when you don’t feel like it, don’t want to it, and it feels like such a chore you’d rather be doing ANYTHING else but creating content. (The late Heath Ledger tapped into this phenomenon to help create his most memorable performance as the Joker. And I've been using for a long time to pound out all kinds of content even when I'd rather be doing something else. You can, too, if you take this approach to heart, apply it, and work hard at it.) All right that’ll do it. If you want in on time for this issue you have to hurry. Once the deadline hits tonight it’ll be too late. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA