What should one do if one finds out that his/her creation is shared on a P2P network? You can't sue, as you generally have no idea who put it there^*, you can't remove it from the network - heck, you can't even estimate the number of people who have it.

Some have tried polluting the network with fake versions of the same thing, some even tried infecting the file(s) with viruses (!) but the latest trick I saw made me smile - if you have to do something to protect your work, here's how you should do it...

I recently found out about Edward Tufte's Visual Display Of Quantitative Information and decided I need it (badly and urgently). It took me few minutes to order it through Amazon (FR) but the availability is at the moment 1-2 weeks (!). Impatiently I went to eDonkey network and searched for any electronic version - I needed to make a quick look as soon as possible. Sure enough, I found a PDF version even though of suspiciously small size.

Few hours later the "book" was sitting on my hard drive. But it was not really a book ;) It was a 5-6 page document consisting of:

• the cover of the book
• the link to the Amazon page of the book
• the PDF form (!) to help you order it from Amazon
• list of very positive reviews of the book on Amazon

I don't know about you, but for me this is pure genius, assuming it's the author (or someone he hired) who did it. The message was clear - if you want the book, here's how to get it - yet not rude.

Hey Scoble, if you decide to publish your book in the paper form and are afraid that P2P networks might cannibalize sales by providing electronic version for free you might consider doing this same thing ;)

^*Actually if it's your software that is being shared, the best thing to do is to display the registered user's name prominently (in the about box, on the caption etc). Then you'd at least know who leaked it...