Don't Steal Shit

Posted On: 2010-03-11

That was the advice from one very experienced webmaster in a forum thread I read today and it's definitely worth repeating ... don't steal shit!

The original comment appeared in a thread about possible court proceedings that involves a well-known sponsor who ... it's claimed ... is running a bunch of tube sites inside their members area. It's alleged that those tube sites are being stocked with movies stolen from other sponsors and even one or two solo girl sites.

Someone actually suggested that one of the solo girl's movies had been downloaded from those tube sites over a million times and that sure does represent a lot of lost income for the model in question.

I suppose we should all be shocked that such a well-known sponsor could be even thinking of doing something like this. Sure, this is the adult industry and we work in an area that many people consider to be rather sleazy ... even if it isn't ... but that doesn't mean that anyone in this industry has any right to break the law and rip others off and the fact that someone is still doing it in 2010 is sad for this business.

There are certainly plenty of us who work within the law and practice sound business ethics and there are always going to be some newcomers who think that it's ok to tell lies, cheat and steal ... it's the same in any industry ... but it seems much worse when it's a sponsor who has been around for years.

Didn't they think that they were never going to be caught? Didn't they think that someone would sue their sorry ass off? Didn't they think that others who had seen their content stolen wouldn't join the action?

What makes it even worse is the fact that this is a sponsor who makes bucket loads of money without having to resort to stealing other people's content. They've got some great sites that convert well.

As I said a few moments ago ... we can expect some newcomers to this industry to think that they can get away with stealing content and that's been the case for years but sooner or later they get caught. So if you're a newcomer who thinks that it's easier to steal content rather than buy it perhaps you need to reconsider your business plan.

Most newcomers who try to steal their content don't last long in this industry and the sponsor who has been caught doing it may find their time here in adult is reaching its expiry date too.

Don't card If you are new and you're thinking about stealing content to build your sites there's a good chance that you're thinking about carding too. Carding is an old trick where you get friends or family to sign up for porn sites through your affiliate link so that you get a commission but then they chargeback so there's no real cost to you. I know that lots of very "bright" people think it's a scheme that they have just thought of but it really is old and, while it may have worked once it certainly doesn't work anymore.

So if you're new to this industry and you've somehow got the idea that you can make a lot of money here by working a few scams or stealing content ... or even stealing signups from other affiliates ... I've got news for you. Your business plan is full of holes and you will get caught before you've made your fortune and once you get caught you'll be out of the industry for good.

Compliant code There's a very interesting discussion going on over in SEO circles concerning code that is compliant with W3C guidelines.

It seems that one guy has discovered that a lot of the sites that are either owned or have been developed by most of the leading search engine optimization practitioners have plenty of code areas hiding back in the code. He's now suggesting that sooner or later all that non-compliant code is going to bite those SEOs in the ass and their rankings will suffer.

In their defense many of those SEOs are pointing to their rankings and saying that if it was going to be a problem then they wouldn't have achieved the rankings that they have. They've also latched onto something that Matt Cutts ... Google's mouthpiece ... is reported to have said that supports their view that non-compliant code is no big deal.

Sadly for them the Matt Cutts' quote that they're using seems to have been taken out of context but that's not stopping them from using it. It seems that whenever a guru gets threatened they'll use any defense they can find and kill the messenger rather than admit that they could ever have been wrong.

So is compliant code important? Well Steve and I are leaning towards the view that it is ... and even if it isn't important now there's no guarantee that it won't be important in the future. So we set out to write compliant code ... it's really no big deal to do that and perhaps all those SEOs who don't write compliant code are just plain lazy as the guy who is championing compliant code suggests.

Whether it's dodgy content, dodgy signups or dodgy code it always pays to play by the rules ... you just never know when the hammer is going to fall on those who don't.