Re: ManHub.com - Making money on your stolen content?
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;126108]That is such a defeatist attitude. If we were to follow this line of thinking affiliates would just start shutting down and finding employment outside the home. The tubes are getting all the traffic, the tube are killing sales, sponsors are cutting out the affiliate through email collection, sales are down, conversions suck … let’s all just quit. It’s pointless.
There is no ONE meaningful solution that will work here. I have already shown how talking about the affiliate cookie problem in public has gotten a number of sponsors to change their cookies. I also talked publicly about Buddy Profits collecting email addresses and sending out mailers that cut out the affiliate and Buddy Profits is working on a solution that will include affiliates in those sales, albeit working so very slowly. But they are working on it. So here are two examples of how one little guy can make a difference.
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A boycott could have an affect if enough affiliates jumped on board on stop sending Manhub, Haze Cash et al traffic and stopping selling these companies links on their sites.
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If enough sponsors had their videos removed from the Manhub system it could have an affect on their inventory.
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If sponsors and affiliates got together under one leader or a co-operation of a couple of leaders to create an organized attack, and those people sent out press releases as to what we were doing, others in the business would begin to take notice. The word would spread and it could actually inspire others to join us or to create actions of their own against other tube site owners.
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And if Manhub starts to see even a tiny dip in their traffic, they will have to buy more traffic. That cuts into their profits.
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If this co-operative group started to strong arm other people in the business, for instance Juicy Boys and Men.com who have both have big banners flying on Manhub over the past two days, then that starts to hurt Manhub a little more. Do this enough times and sponsors start to become afraid of buying ads on Manhub?
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Sponsors can report copyright infringement to Google, which could ultimately affect their placement in the SERPS, this means Manhub has to buy even more traffic.
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Sponsors can flood Manhub with DMCA notices, which chews into their inventory and creates work for their tube administrators.
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And yes, there’s legal action.
The way the Allies were finally able to defeat the Nazis was to come at them from several directions at the same time: the Russians from the east, and the western Allies from France, Holland, and Italy. You can’t fight a war on four fronts.
Likewise, Manhub can’t fight a war on eight fronts simultaneously. It will cost them money, traffic, labour resources, lawyers fees, and chew away at their will.
So far this thread is pretty disappointing. Only a couple of sponsors are speaking in this thread, why aren’t there more sponsors in here saying they’ll join this fight? It’s also pretty disappointing because whenever anyone tries to do anything meaningful, there are always the Debbie Downers pointing out the rain clouds.
Jesse, you’re right about one thing: no sponsor or affiliate (or very few) would be willing to put a sizable chunk on income on the chopping block. And without a majority support from sponsors and affiliates, these initiatives probably won’t amount to much. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.[/QUOTE]
In short, I think they are all great ideas. The problem is look what happens whenever similar issues come up.
Whenever these ideas come up though I think of things like MR where the most vocal people would come back two weeks later when their payments were late and ask if anyone else was missing them. Call them out on it and they’ll say something about old links … well I used to have some old links to programs MR bought and as soon as I saw where things were going links were pulled. It was no easy task but bookmarkers are good business and you piss them off and you piss away the revenue they generate.
If the day ever comes that everybody does actually get together to accomplish something and is successful at it then I will be more optimistic. The reality is I have not seen enough people get together to affect the tubes. Maybe ongoing dialogue and discussion will change that but I am not going to hold my breath as I’ll probably die.
Right now, as US law is written, as long as they respond to DMCA requests in a timely matter (and they do) there is nothing that can be done. Sue somebody and they have a table of made up submitter IPs if they are actually uploading themselves. Sure you’ll win some battles if litigation is one of your methods of income generation but Manwin wouldn’t be as long as it is if it were as successful as people thought.
For the record, I felt the same way as an affiliate as I do today.
Tubes aren’t going anywhere until the law changes or enough people sue and manage to win that everybody is too afraid to be in the game.