A great article on piracy

[DarkPhoenix]

I just found this article very interesting... I was thinking it might be interesting for you guys as well.. Check out the Piracy Article. It's about piracy in general, as well as why piracy actually can be good and how to protect your software against it.

[XtremeMaC]

software forum? hmm hmmm hmm ?

[DarkPhoenix]

Yeah... well.. I was in doubt as to where to post. It had to do with software, I figured, so I put it here... move it around if you feel I'm wrong.

[Doggie]

i think its warranted being here so dont worry DarkPhoenix

its to do with software piracy hense being in the software hangout

[neosapience]

I thought of a method that may help stop piracy. Let me know what you think -

First, make your product available only to online customers. While you may think this would block out a lot of customers, it probably wont. Even people that can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on software have internet connections.

Since your software is for online purchase only, force people to register it before they can have it. Use email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, bank accounts (credit/debit card), etc... then VERIFY them. One of the stupidest things that software companies do is allow people to use bogus registration information. It's very easy to verify phone numbers and addresses, I can do it myself, it takes 5 whole minutes.

Once the software is registered, send the customer the product and their personal CD-KEY. The CD-KEY is tied to their registration information in your company database. When the customer installs the software, they must enter their CD-KEY and then connect to an online server and re-verify their registration information. If the CD-KEY and information they are using doesn't match the online profile, they can NOT install the software, period. This would instantly prevent pirates from distributing the software with a valid CD-KEY, as I seriously doubt they would distribute their personal information along with it.

The only thing pirates could do from this point is crack the program. Preventing this lies in the ability to use good encryption and forcing the software to check itself for integrity. While I'm sure that many of you would say 'No software is uncrackable!', you can surely make it VERY hard for people to crack.

Just how effective this method would be is questionable, but I'm sure it's better than the one Adobe uses.

[DarkPhoenix]

Heck no... I'd never buy software from someone who would demand my personal information... and require me to be online to register? That's silly as well. Then at least allow phone-verification, like you can do with XP, in case you don't have the net where you need it.

And online purchase as well? How about if a young kid would want to buy it? Kids can't buy stuff online, afaik... just giving examples... could be that a kid would not want to or need to use the program, but say one did...

I believe in the method of trust... honest people will be honest, and most people who use pirated version of a software wouldn't have gotten it if it hadn't been available as a pirate edition.. this especially applies to poor people in poor countries.

At least not do like microsoft did with XP and only allow x number of registrations, and by all means, don't attach a registration to hardware.. having to re-register just cause you install a new HDD or a new 3D-card ain't that much fun.. especially if you only have x registrations to do in the first place.

[neosapience]

DarkPhoenix -

Do you use an ATM card? How about a Credit Card or a Check?

Guess what, every time you use one, you're giving away your personal information. It's not hard to verify this information either. The specific information I'm talking about would be more for people paying with cash/cashiers checks/etc...

Simply including this information when you install your software is NOT too much to ask. It's also not SILLY to make people register online. Almost everyone with a computer has access to the internet.

What exactly do you have to hide anyway?