SitePoint: Rather Than Freaking Out Over Piracy, We Decided To Adapt

from the good-for-them dept

Thu, Aug 13th 2009 7:32pm — Mike Masnick

AnonJr alerts us to the news that publisher/media firm SitePoint, has decided to do away with the passwords on the PDF versions of its books, noting that it seemed to only serve to piss off customers:

In the 18 months I have worked at SitePoint, barely a week has gone by where I have not received at least a couple of emails from customers questioning the logic behind our password protection policy. My response, based on the SitePoint philosophy, was always that we were taking an ethical (if largely symbolic) stance on the piracy issue. But how long could we maintain that line while simultaneously placing primacy on the customer experience, as all the while more and more requests to remove password protection poured in.

As a web development resource and learning centre, we know that we must embrace the state of flux -- not as a lofty ideal, but as a normative imperative. You can't claim to be all about the cutting edge when you're stubbornly clinging to old, outmoded processes -- especially when your own beloved customers are urging you to move on. And if we're not keeping pace with the constantly evolving face of web design and development, then we're neither a resource nor a learning centre -- we're a museum.

Kudos to another company recognizing that pissing off your best customers is hardly a way to run a business.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: adapting, customers, ebooks, markets, passwords, pdf
Companies: sitepoint

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Free Xbox Live, 13 Aug 2009 @ 7:46pm

Finally they do away with the passwords!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2009 @ 8:05pm

2 requests a week is "pouring in"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lance_, 13 Aug 2009 @ 8:12pm

I sent them a quick thank you note. The password initially prevented me from sticking my SitePoint books onto my eSlick. I eventually worked out how to decrypt them so it wasn't a /huge/ deal, but it's great to see them improving their user experience. I'm more likely to buy more of their ebooks now.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2009 @ 9:45pm

Surely Mike, pointing out business that are adapting is a really poor way that businesses are adapting. FAIL! Agenda! Lots of t-shirts!

FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Preemptive FAIL!

Sorry about that, hopefully I've helped fill the quota of commenters saying retarded stuff and then saying the word "fail".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lens42 (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 12:27am

Re: requests "pouring in"
The mistake many businesses make, that Sitepoint apparently has not, is that you don't need *that* many complaints in your inbox to warrant action. The complaints are from the people who give a sh1t. Most people don't bother to complain, they just walk away. You may only get one complaint, but if it makes sense, you should act on it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2009 @ 5:16am

PDF passwords are worthless anyway, especially if they've allowed printing.

How worthless?

It can be defeated with /Notepad/ of all things. Just turn the PDF into a PostScript (.ps) file, open in Notepad, and search for the word "eleven".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Killer_Tofu (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 5:53am

Re:
Lol, that does seem to be about their generic response to. Completely skip half of the points and then say fail.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BobinBaltimore (profile), 14 Aug 2009 @ 5:53am

Re: Re: requests "pouring in"
Definitely agree. A small number of complaints (or, say, dissenting voices in a forum) is generally representative of a much larger dissatisfied (or dissenting) population. Gosh, I hope Mike is reading this! ;-)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jezsik (profile), 17 Aug 2009 @ 10:47am

A good start
Now why even bother with PDF files when HTML is far more versatile(notwithstanding any images they may use). As I move further and further from paper, I want a format that works on any size screen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]