DMCA Force

ANaughtyMouse · Mar 6, 2014

Since this is checking up on a service, rather than a pub or agent, please feel free to move this thread if it's not in the right place.

Just wondering if anyone else had received a similar message or had any experience with this company:

DMCA Force

I received this email:

Dear [Name omitted],

I wanted to contact you in regards to your anti-piracy needs. I see that your books are impacted by digital piracy and it appears that you may handle your anti-piracy independently through Muso. My company, DMCA Force, provides full service anti-piracy solutions where we handle the monitoring, notification, follow ups and reporting. We work with companies large and small including independent creators. We pride ourselves in our ability to work efficiently and effectively with our proprietary software, which allows us to provide solutions that work for our clients' budgets and allows our clients to focus on other aspects of their business. We work with small publishers and independent authors who were often surprised at how affordable our full anti-piracy service was for them.

I'd love the opportunity to provide you more information on what we can do by having my team put together a complimentary anti-piracy evaluation report for you to compare our services. There are no obligations with this report as we simply report our data and findings through charts and provide more information on our processes and what we believe we can do specifically for your needs.

Please let me know if you'd like for us to put this report together and feel free to share any specific needs or concerns you may have about the piracy impacting your company.

Thanks,

Allison

Allison Howarth
President
DMCA Force
520-917-4909
520-327-5740 fax
www.dmcaforce.com

Check out what some of our clients have to say about us here: http://www.dmcaforce.com/testimonials/

Does anyone have experience with this company? I joined Muso off a recommendation; the pricing here doesn't seem competitive, but the services look a bit more broad.

Thanks!

Torgo · Mar 6, 2014

I feel these services are a complete waste of time and money.

The amount of piracy you experience is directly correlated with how popular your books are. I've seen firms like this and what they do. They DMCA a lot of stuff on the Web, but this isn't where the bulk of ebook piracy goes down. It's a whack-a-mole game with no measurable effect on your sales.

Every month you will, typically, get a report saying 'we took down 200 links this month.' You may feel better, but I don't believe it makes the slightest bit of difference to the bottom line. I have seen ebook sales figures across a huge list before and after a firm was hired to police a set of authors. I haven't yet seen any evidence of any kind of effect.

veinglory · Mar 6, 2014

I have used Muso and found it clearly reduced the availability of pirate versions of my work. So if that is your goal I would recommend them. My level of popularity is low to medium so I join for a few months and then let it drop for 6-12 months until piracy rebounds. I, personally, do this regardless of whether it actually affects sales.

I don't know about this new service so I can't speak to that.

veinglory · Mar 6, 2014

I do things that work and meet my goals. For me, Muso worked. It reduced the number of pirate copies of my work accessible via search engines (over 80% reduction). That was my goal.

veinglory · Mar 6, 2014

To my eye DMCAForce is not competitively price by number of notices sent. But it might be targeting people less comfortable with Muso's semi-do-it-yourself platform.

Torgo · Mar 7, 2014

veinglory said:
I do things that work and meet my goals. For me, Muso worked. It reduced the number of pirate copies of my work accessible via search engines (over 80% reduction). That was my goal.

But did you see any correlation with sales?

veinglory · Mar 7, 2014

Torgo said:
But did you see any correlation with sales?

If there is an effect I think it would be in the small to moderate range that I don't have a satisfactory way to assess.

My back list sales fluctuate quite a lot with new releases, seasonally, various promotional activities etc and during the month or two where I use Muso I send smallish batches of notices each day--with varying lags to compliance. So there is no sharp 'on' and 'off' to assess sales against.

BBCAuthor · Mar 7, 2014

That's interesting that you can use Muso for a few months and then drop it for a while. I assume it's easy enough to do? Do you have to register again each time, or just restart payment?

BBCAuthor · Mar 7, 2014

Great to know -- thanks!

veinglory · Mar 7, 2014

Yes, I have a permanent account but I find it easy to turn on and off. The level at which I am pirated is not high enough to require a full time account. Although it is probably time to have another go at it.

BBCAuthor · Mar 7, 2014

I've been considering signing up for Muso, so thanks again. I think I will. Even if it doesn't make a huge difference in sales, IMO it can't hurt to curb the availability of pirated books.

HistorySleuth · Mar 7, 2014

This is interesting. So how does it remove the illegal files? Does it send a take down notice?

Torgo · Mar 8, 2014

HistorySleuth said:
This is interesting. So how does it remove the illegal files? Does it send a take down notice?

I assume from the name it's DMCA takedowns, yes.

DMCA Force

ANaughtyMouse

You don't see me

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

veinglory

volitare nequeo

veinglory

volitare nequeo

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

veinglory

volitare nequeo

BBCAuthor

BBCAuthor

veinglory

volitare nequeo

BBCAuthor

HistorySleuth

Researching History's Mysteries

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.