This may be the most important email in the history of online copywriting.
Future generations of copywriters will look back on today, as the day when online piracy was dealt its death blow.
… okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating juuuuust a tiny bit.
But then again … maybe not?
Either way …
I am about to tell you the story of how one man took on a corrupt system of pirates … and brought it to its knees.
And that man … is me.
Daniel Throssell.
Let me explain …
***
It all started earlier this year when I discovered a thread on a site called:
“GroupInsiders”
The idea of the site is this:
They get a bunch of people together to ‘chip in’ a small amount towards an online course.
Once they’ve raised enough money, they get one person — the “buyer” — to (anonymously) buy the course.
Then, the “buyer” rips or extracts the files, and illegally shares them with everyone who ‘bought in’.
It’s quite a clever little crime ring.
And I would have been totally unaware of it …
If they hadn’t set their sights on MY market research course, Market Detective.
But in early 2021, these guys started trying to raise the funds to buy MY course.
That’s how I first learned of this site.
And at first, I found it amusing.
After all …
The way they were encouraging each other to join in was, well, kinda adorable:
Nawww.
So sweet!
But it seemed they weren’t having a lot of luck getting other people interested.
Still, unbeknownst to them …
I registered a fake account to join in 😇
I couldn’t help it. I just have that troll streak in me.
But, I began egging them on … and even getting quite active.
I’m not telling you which user I am.
(That’s part of the fun — as you will see below)
Yet over time, they started to get more serious.
More and more people started saying they wanted to chip in …
And it became one of the top-ranking threads on the entire site.
The discussions got more passionate.
They watched in agony as I ran a special three-day sale to celebrate expecting my third baby … and they missed the discount because they couldn’t get organised in time 😂
And then …
the mod stepped in.
He said that they were preparing to purchase the course.
So … I readied myself.
And sure enough …
They officially started a ‘Group Buy’ for my course, and began collecting funds.
Careful not to blow my cover, I dutifully chipped in my US $40 (paid via cryptocurrency).
And … I watched.
It took a few weeks for the whole thing to go down.
And honestly, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to succeed, given that my course is delivered via my Learnistic mobile app.
But someone must have done it.
Because sure enough … the first batch of 27 pirated videos from Market Detective came through to those of us who’d paid.
And I have to admit …
I was kinda ticked that they managed to extract the content 😒
I didn’t think they would.
But they were literally so dedicated … that the “buyer” had screen-recorded HOURS’ worth of video from his iPad.
You have to give him credit for perseverance!
But it was a short-lived victory for them.
Because unluckily for them …
They didn’t realise that the sales volume for Market Detective isn’t that high.
It’s a $1,500 course … so it doesn’t exactly sell like hotcakes.
And people who watch EVERY single video — including the two-hour-long survey-analysis videos — are, erm, NOT very common.
And so with a little help from the wonderful team at Learnistic …
We managed to identify the “anonymous” buyer 😏
I could see he’d already blazed through about 2/3 of the course.
This stung me a little …
But it was okay.
Because I now held all the cards.
And so …
I struck.
First, I removed the access from the buyer.
Under my T&Cs, since he’s engaged in piracy, he now loses access and is banned for life.
Poor guy 🤭
Now remember:
At this point, only 27 of the videos have been uploaded for the scammers.
(And they have no idea that I’ve cut off the “buyer’s” access so he can’t get the full course anymore)
So next …
I issued 27 individual DMCA takedowns.
One on each file that had been uploaded …
All at once.
I actually had the folder open when they actioned them.
The files literally just vanished from the webpage before my eyes. Poof!
And then I sat back …
and watched the chaos unfold:
[Daniel: Well, that was stupid of you for paying before you knew that then, wasn’t it?]
[Daniel: LOL you idiot … how about the fact that I ALREADY revoked the buyer’s access before he got the whole thing … maybe that might stop you 🤣]
[Daniel: BAHAHAHA … yes. Please use a pre-agreed word from one of the course pdfs as the secret password. I would never work it out. It’s not like I MADE THE FRIGGIN’ COURSE AND OWN ALL THE PDFS or anything lol]
===
Of course, until now, they had no idea I’d been in there watching all this.
Or that I’m actually one of the users they named in the new private ‘trusted’ group chat they set up …
Or that I may have more than one traitor account in there 🤭
They have NO idea how deep my infiltration has actually gone …
But they won’t catch me.
Which is why I don’t care about writing this here.
Oh man, this is too good.
What’s more, my DMCA takedown ensures those files are now permanently banned from their file sharing site. They can’t re-upload them.
But … I didn’t stop there.
Next, I proceeded to break as much stuff as I could.
I went to Skrill, and reported the moderator’s email address for illegal activity.
(They replied a few hours later saying they were escalating it … 😏)
I went to Google, and reported the intake form he used to collect payment info.
I noted down the usernames and post history of all the accounts that weren’t mine, for later cross-checking against databases.
Some users had even been dumb enough to brag about which products of mine they owned … so I ran a search in my system and noted the suspicious names for surveillance.
In short …
They trusted me with the keys to the control room …
and I repaid them by locking the door and ripping out as many wires as I could find 😈
But …
I’m STILL not finished.
I’m not content to just mess with these guys.
Daniel Throssell does not do these things by halves.
No …
I want to END them.
But … how?
How could one man end an entire scammers’ empire, you ask?
I admit, I thought about this.
I wanted to make them bleed.
And then I realised their big weakness:
Trust.
This entire system works on trust.
Trust that once you make an anonymous crypto payment, the guy is going to deliver.
Trust that there isn’t a “rat” among the other members in the group buy, who will report the file and get it taken down.
Trust makes their whole site work.
But …
What if I could corrupt that trust?
What if there was a way to make it so that those guys couldn’t ever trust anyone else again?
And I realised:
There is …
And I have the power to do it 😈
In fact … I’ve already been doing it.
You see, over the past several months, I haven’t just opened ONE fake account.
I’ve opened multiple.
I’m not bluffing, either.
(I mean, I obviously just used one to ruin a group buy 🤷♂️)
I already own several accounts on their site, which I have registered with VPNs and throwaway emails, so they can’t track my identity.
They are already riddled with rats.
But now I’m going to do something better:
I’m going to flood them
with even MORE spies.
In fact, if you are reading this email … you could become one of them.
Because I am now making a decree:
From now on, for the foreseeable future …
For ANYONE who:
1) Registers an account on GroupInsider …
2) Infiltrates a group buy, by paying the small fee …
3) Gives me the details of that group buy, leading to a successful DMCA takedown (or somehow ruining the group buy for them) …
I will reward that person with something out of my own product range, of MORE value than what you paid to ruin the group buy.
Doesn’t matter if it’s my course in the group buy, or someone else’s.
I want to ruin ALL their group buys.
I am PERSONALLY going guarantor for our whole industry here.
Note: Obviously, I reserve the ultimate right of discretion here. I can end this offer whenever I want, and I’m not going to give any T&Cs that can be gamed. If you do something clever or tricky to try and ‘game’ my offer — rather than working with me in good faith to destroy piracy — I will see through it, and deny (and possibly ban) you. My judgment will be fair, but final.
But in other words …
5,000 copywriters …
Just got a public, ongoing incentive …
To be the ‘rats’ in this cursed website.
Do you hear this, GroupInsiders?
Your number is up.
Your goose is cooked.
I’ve been infesting you with ‘rats’ for months.
I’ve already used one of them to thwart your group buy of Market Detective … and I have more you don’t know about.
And with this email … I’m unleashing a new wave to overwhelm you.
From this day forward, you will NEVER be able to trust the people in your “group buys”.
Because there will ALWAYS be my spies there … waiting to betray you.
And you’ll never know who they are, or where they’re coming from.
Until this point, you have targeted people who didn’t have the time … or the motivation … or the resources to hit you back.
But this time …
You done screwed up, son!
You messed with the WRONG guy.
I will outspend, outwork and outlast you.
And don’t think I’ll get bored of this.
I LOVE this. I LIVE for this. Nothing thrills me more than screwing over a bunch of scammy pirates. Can you not see how much I’m enjoying this?
Messing with you has been one of the most fun things I’ve done in ages.
So on behalf of this industry …
I will do everything in my power
to ruin you.
That is my promise to you.
So, GroupInsiders, you pack of filthy, scummy thieves:
GAME ON.
And to every honourable person reading this, I have a call for you:
Go to GroupInsiders (link below) …
and register an account.
Even better, register multiple accounts.
And, do it over the next few weeks or months, not just days.
See, the mod has to approve new accounts. So I assume they’ll try and block all new users, at least for a while.
But that’s fine with me too … because we’re hurting them, one way or another.
Still, my offer stands for the foreseeable future (though I retain the ultimate right of revoking it).
My goal is so that this website will now NEVER have any idea who they can trust … and who is a spy for Daniel Throssell and the copywriting industry.
Also —
Spread the word.
I have put this email into a blog post partly so it can be shared with anyone who would be interested.
And … I extend my offer in this email to ANYONE who thwarts piracy on this site.
Meaning: If you help me screw up a group buy for a copywriting course on GroupInsiders (or, heck, ANY group buy website in our industry), I’ll personally make it up to you. Whether you are on my email list or not. Whether it’s my course you save or not.
Even if no other course creator appreciates you saving their stuff … I will thank you, and I will reward you.
(Although I’d love to see Stefan Georgi and Justin Goff and Andre Chaperon and Ramit Sethi etc. — all these people whose courses have been ripped off — join me on this!)
Either way though … I’m ready to do what it takes to ruin these guys.
And in the process …
We are going to fight for not only the people who make courses … but the people who BUY them fairly.
Oh, what fun.
If you wanna play along, here’s a link to the funny thread where everyone is egging each other on to buy my course:
https://groupinsiders.com/t/daniel-throssell-market-detective-amazing-market-research-course/
And of course … you can sign up for your multiple ‘spy’ accounts there 😉
Daniel Throssell
~ Epilogue: The Aftermath ~
I sent the above as an email to my email list on September 16, 2021.
After I sent it, several things happened.
Obviously, some of the community members were on my list, and saw my plan.
They were furious — and began cussing me out, calling me a “petty rich prick” and all sorts of colourful insults.
And in the days that followed …
The general mood over at GroupInsiders changed.
It was no longer a happy community of trusting thieves anymore.
To my delight …
They started to turn on one another and accuse each other of being spies.
i.e. EXACTLY what I wanted to happen 😈
I watched with glee as the community began to devolve into a giant game of ‘Among Us’, with various members trying to ‘out’ my spies.
(I even delightfully played along in my email list, publicly framing certain users as my fake accounts … knowing full well they weren’t 😂)
But even better:
They disabled all new registrations.
They knew the moment they turn them back on, I’d flood them with rats.
But … this meant they became a hermit kingdom.
Without new members, the site would inevitably wither and die.
For several weeks I watched with delight as the site devolved into chaos.
(And of course, the people who had tried to steal MY course got more and more frustrated as the moderator kept telling them it would be delivered “soon” … knowing full well I had prevented them from getting full access.)
But then, about a month later …
The best thing of all happened.
Because one day …
I tried to check GroupInsiders …
and found this:
GroupInsiders was … down?
Oh … dear 🤭
It seemed almost too good to be true.
So I checked the next day.
It was still down.
And again the next day.
Still down.
For days … and then weeks … I checked regularly.
The site was just … gone.
And while I don’t want to get ahead of myself …
I’m starting to wonder if I might actually have struck the killing blow.
I can’t be sure …
But I wonder if the moderator realised I’d truly cooked him …
And cut his losses, and run off with everyone’s money without delivering their courses, like the dirty pirate he is.
And he’s just let the hosting bill expire, or something like that.
Again, I don’t know.
But from what I’m seeing …
SOMETHING has happened!
Now …
This is obviously good news for all the content creators who were having their courses pirated by these guys.
And you might think that because I made it my mission to single-handedly destroy this website, that I would gloat about this.
But you would be wrong.
I am not THAT callous.
I know how hard it is to save up to buy a good course the legal way, since I’ve had to do it many times.
I actually feel for all those people who used that website to try to steal my course … who have now been left empty-handed.
The guy who called me a “petty rich prick” for wanting to charge for the courses I spent months of my life creating was right. I totally am.
And so I wanted to express some deep words of sympathy for them:
BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH SUCKERZZZZZZZZZ!!! 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 LOLOLOLOLOLOL WHERE’S YOUR PRECIOUS PIRATE SITE NOW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHH 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 YA DIDN’T EVEN ALL GET MY MARKET DETECTIVE COURSE WHICH YOU PAID YOUR $40 FOR LOLOLOLOLOOOOOOOOL 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK SUUUUUUUUCK 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 SHOULDA SAVED UP FOR IT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE LOOOOOOOOOL
*ahem*
… aaaanyway.
As you can see, I truly feel their pain.
I feel for all those victims who were TOTALLY duped.
I mean … when you pay $40 in cryptocurrency to a guy who literally stated a piracy website, who has a long history of not delivering on the pirated courses he claims to be buying … why would you NOT expect said guy to come through on his word?
I know *I* wouldn’t expect this outcome.
I’m shocked.
Shocked, I tell you!
🤔
Anyway …
The last post I saw was a couple of users moaning about how Market Detective STILL hadn’t been delivered to them, weeks after the moderator had promised to do so.
(Again: That is because I caught the guy extracting it, and banned his access. Duhhhh)
So this might be how the story ends.
Or maybe not. Maybe the mod will suddenly return and the site will come back online.
I don’t care. Either way, my strategy for crushing them is still rock-solid, as I wrote above. If I catch them back online, I’ll send a bunch of spy traffic their way. Their death is assured one way or another.
But on behalf of our industry …
I am hereby proclaiming a rare victory over the pirates — on behalf of all hard-working creators and their legitimate, paying customers.
In fact, this was so much fun, I may even have to try it again on some other pirate sites …
But, this is how our tale ends for now.
Thank you for playing.
And if you’ve enjoyed this adventure …
Well, you will probably enjoy my email list, where I regularly engage in such shenanigans (They’re much more fun in real-time, too.)
I also send what are widely considered some of the best copywriting emails in the industry.
(As you can see … the above was just one of them.)
So if you’d like to sign up for the list, check it out here: