Is someone distributing your software or other copyright content
illegally over the Internet? It's possible. It happens. If you
can prove your case, you have grounds for legal action.
BUT -- before making yourself look foolish and creating enemies,
have your facts straight. A reasonable understanding of Internet
technology can prevent you from ending up with egg on your face.
Take this situation. I've changed names to protect the guilty.
A representative of an online business emailed me saying, "It
has been brought to my attention that you have made the
"something.com" public download files freely available for
download by FTP from your web site. Would you please let us know
immediately what is going on and what your justification is for
doing this."
First mistake. If the files are "public download files", then
what is the problem? Public download files are freely available.
However, since I had never heard of their software, I responded
with a request that the company rep show me the link or at least
provide a screen capture of the alleged FTP activity.
I received an apologetic email from the company rep saying that
she could not locate a link to her software from my site.
"Perhaps your site has been confused with someone else's," she
explained. Second mistake. If you're making an allegation of
this nature, know where the problem can be found and be ready to
present evidence to the other party. You look more than a little
incompetent if you can't back up your claim in the most
elementary way.
A few hours later, a third email arrived. This time, the company
rep accused me of being untruthful and threatened legal action.
She then backed up her case with the following URL:
ftp://www.nightcats.com/pub/users heirfiles/
Third mistake.
Sure enough, "theirfiles" were available for download at this
link. And, sure enough, www.nightcats.com is my site domain.
HOWEVER, had the company rep had a basic understanding of FTP
(File Transfer Protocol), she would have understood that a "pub"
directory is "public" -- and therefore the URL had nothing to do
with my site.
A phone call to my web host confirmed they were hosting both my
site and the other company's site. Since both web sites were on
the same public server, any domain listed on that server would
have produced identical results with the FTP URL given above.
That is, you could change ftp://www.nightcats.com/pub/users
heirfiles/ to ftp://www.something-else.com/pub/users heirfiles/
and you would get access to this company's software. If a web
administrator has set up the server to implement anonymous FTP
in this fashion, then all that is necessary is for both web
domains to be stored on the same server.
And that brings us to the fourth mistake. If you don't want your
copyright-protected software files to be available for public
download, why in the wide world would you store them in a public
FTP directory where everyone has free access? Public means
public. If you want the files to be available only to authorized
users, doesn't it make sense to have a private,
password-protected directory set up on your web site?
Had I wanted to be vindictive, I could have posted the URL to
multiple newsgroups and mailing lists. Hundreds of people could
have downloaded those files before the problem was corrected. I
didn't do that, but some people would.
What can be learned from this episode? 1. An understanding of
basic Internet protocols is essential if you are running an
Internet business. It is equally important that your agents,
employees and company reps are trained, since they are the ones
that are likely to make the mistakes. 2. Have a tech-guro
available to advise you on issues that are beyond your current
understanding. 3. If you're operating an Internet business, get
a tough skin. You'll be accused of some mighty interesting
stuff.
