Offering a free download - a few questions

[bennylava]

I'm offering a free book to my members, which will be a tab on the main "ribbon" above the forums list. But I'm a little concerned about attracting scammers (or spammers) through this. So:

1. Do you think that offering a free book to members would attract unwanted attention? It occurs to me that both scammers, and spammers may appear because of this. Or at least, their bots.

2. Would requiring them to be a registered member help? Or would they just use some bot to sign up in order to get the PDF? No idea how that's done. For anyone unfamiliar with the book industry, ripping off books is a profitable business. Often authors will find their works being sold in many other countries, so that it's easier for the scammer to go unnoticed. Yes the book is free, but it took me a year to write and I want to offer it to my members as an attraction.

Thanks!

 

[Old Nick]

To avoid the worst, you can create a usergroup to whom you give the right to download the free book. Then you create a user promotion which allows you to automatically join this group under certain criteria. In your case User published at least 5 messages could do the trick, but it's up to you to choose the criterion.

 

[bennylava]

To avoid the worst, you can create a usergroup to whom you give the right to download the free book. Then you create a user promotion which allows you to automatically join this group under certain criteria. In your case User published at least 5 messages could do the trick, but it's up to you to choose the criterion.

I believe I've seen what you're talking about. It says something like: "You must post a total of 5 messages before you can do x".

Do you think I could alter that message? I would like it to say:

"You must post a total of 5 messages before you can download the book, which is something I have to implement to keep out all the scammers and spammers. Sorry about the inconvenience! You can simply go make a few replies, which is more than the scammer's bots will do."

I would hate for this to be a deterrent though. You know how people are. They would have taken the book, but now they're like "Eh, that's too much trouble".

 

[Old Nick]

I believe I've seen what you're talking about. It says something like: "You must post a total of 5 messages before you can do x".

What I suggested you do does not create a message like this, what you are talking about probably comes from a third party add-on. But you can create a notice that displays a personalized message, this notice can automatically no longer be displayed when the user is promoted to the group that allows downloading resources.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Or would they just use some bot to sign up in order to get the PDF?

Yes they will. And sadly you will probably find that your PDF will be available on a lot of other sites.

 

[Old Nick]

But if they have to post 5 or more messages before downloading resource (promoted to the usergroup) it will be easier to track them. But in fact everything can be circumvented and protecting your PDFs against everything and everyone is almost impossible. That said you can specify more criteria to obtain promotion in the group which allows downloading, for example : User has received a reaction score of at least X, just set this to 1 and bot will have serious problem to be promoted to the usergroup since reaching this criterion no longer depends on them but on the interaction of another user.

 

[Mr Lucky]

But if they have to post 5 or more messages before uploading it will be easier to track them.

I don't know how you would track someone who illegally takes your PDF and uploads it to another site. By putting the PDF download behind a login and user group promotion it may take a little longer, but once it has been pirated then the flood gates will open anyway. You will get some protection by publishing an e-book but it's incredibly expensive.

The problem is not just scammers who steal and re-upload but otherwise law-abiding citizens who just think that ion something is free then they don't need to abide by copyright law, even if they understand the meaning of the word copyright.

 

[Old Nick]

I don't know how you would track someone who illegally takes your PDF

We were talking about bots not real people, and I think it will be complicated for a bot to write 5 messages to benefit from a promotion, and he still has to know it... If it's a real person, this can also help detect a fake account if it must participate by publishing 5 messages before being promoted. But yes, nothing is infallible, the goal is not to make their task easier, that's all.

 

[Mr Lucky]

We were talking about bots not real peopl

I know but was also referring to back OP issue of real people, the promotion idea will work against bots.

 

[Old Nick]

If real people have to get 1 reaction from another user it begins to be complicated, not impossible but complicated.