Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 126 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#91

Post by Aeolun »

cm2187 wrote: post #87
ttoinou wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I might do that in the future, I have to be the first google result of "MyProduct Crack" ;) But if the official author of the plugin gives it for free it sends a weird message to paying customers, no ?

In most large corporations, using pirated software is a breach of internal policy and possibly a fireable offense. It is unlikely they would violate the license even if it easy to do. Getting a large corporation to buy software from you is another matter. I tried to push my IT dept to buy licenses for libraries I liked, even with a modest cost, unsuccessfully.

Probably because IT shouldn't have control over Dev related purchases. Unfortunately it seems very few corporations have noticed this fact.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#92

Post by SyneRyder »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #13
warrenm wrote: post #9

First - if they wouldn't have paid anyway, you haven't "lost" anything (you've actually gained something) Second, your pricing must be turning off those who would [possibly] pay, but opt for the cracked edition due to cost Third, focus on support: you can download, install, and run OpenNMS, for example, totally 100% for free. But if you want support beyond the mailing list, you pay for it.

A note on your second comment, that is a possible consideration, but remember that some people will simply never buy software, so there will always be someone that cracks it. Many people either have fundamentally different opinions on whether or not software should cost money or they're too poor to be able to afford it when they can get it free.

> ... or they're too poor to be able to afford it when they can get it free.

For that situation, consider adding an FAQ or a page on your website encouraging people to email you and ask for a free or discounted copy if they really can't afford it.

Don't make it too easy - you'll get a few whose entire request is "give me free copy" and threaten you when you don't. Don't help people who threaten you or don't show you respect.

But if you get someone who gives a short story about their current situation and either asks for a discount ("I want to at least pay what I can afford") or suggests they'll pay you back (or Pay It Forward) when they're back on their feet - those are the people you want to help. Bonus points if they include how your software will help make their life better.

Do keep in mind that some of those people will have high support demands, so factor that into your software pricing. You'll need your paying customers to subsidize the support cost.

If you try this, you'll find that some people aren't genuine. They'll say price is the reason they pirate, but if you offer them a free copy, they'll complain you didn't offer the free copy in the exact way that they desire (and "want to know what you're gonna do about it"). Ignore those people, they will never be satisfied. Literally ignore - if you engage them you'll make yourself angry & sad and it will ruin your productivity.

Above all, focus on your actual customers. Focus on the 1% of people who love what you make and are happy to support you.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#93

Post by SyneRyder »

JamesBaxter wrote: post #72
aerovistae wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even then a library is still buying at least one book if not multiple. And someone originally bought the pirated software, too, which they then went on to share with others.... just like a library. So what, again, is the difference? No, of course I wouldn't feel guilt. Do you feel guilt when you buy things secondhand or borrow books from libraries? You're not benefiting the creator and you're shortchanging the crea…

I would imagine a lot of pirated software is taken from versions stolen from creators so there was no original purchase. Also buying second hand is completely different as one second hand DVD can't be shared amongst millions of people. It's a completely different scale... Was also interested to read about the PLR https://www.plr.uk.com/allAboutPlr/whatIsPlr.htm

> I would imagine a lot of pirated software is taken from versions stolen from creators

I can confirm this. One of the 'cracks' for one of my programs was a license code obtained by someone using a stolen credit card. No attempt to actually crack & keygen the software. And there's genuine theft there, as payment processors keep the transaction fee after the refund, and there's a $25 penalty fine for a chargeback. Plus the owner of the credit card temporarily gets their card locked until it's replaced, etc.

So if you've ever used warez from Team OXiDE, keep in mind that some of that software was obtained via actual fraud.

> Was also interested to read about the PLR

To save people a click: "Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right for authors to receive payment for the loans of their books by public libraries."

Australia has a similar Public Lending Right as well. In return for allowing their books to be available in libraries, authors receive a subscription payment from those libraries:

https://www.arts.gov.au/funding-and-support/lending-rights

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#94

Post by Torwald »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #80
dsr_ wrote: post #15

The Coast Guard is your ally, along with the Navy. Talk to your insurance company; they have lots of experience (or else you picked the wrong one.) Oh, are you equating copyright violation with major theft, murder and associated felonies so heinous that there is actually a separate body of international law to address it? Please don't do that. Unless you are already a market leader, copyright violation is largely equ…

> Oh, are you equating copyright violation with major theft, murder and associated felonies so heinous that there is actually a separate body of international law to address it? Please don't do that. The term "software pirate" was invented by software pirates.

That does not matter, still conveys the negative things the grandparent doesn't want to have conveyed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#96

Post by beobab »

majewsky wrote: post #76
vortico wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a large application that is constantly being improved, so there are always at least some changes between versions that break ABI compatibility. Even a simple change of the application that only requires a recompilation of the plugins would break ABI. Pirates would have to modify inconceivable amounts of binary code to match a 67.0 plugin to a 68.0 application or vise versa.

> Pirates would have to modify impractical amounts of binary code FTFY

Just looked up FTFY. I am pleased it doesn't mean what I thought it did.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#97

Post by Eridrus »

ttoinou wrote: post #45
jzelinskie wrote: post #3

How you address this depends greatly on your software and who it's marketed towards. Piracy can be a hint that you haven't come up with the best business strategy for that market. Often what's best is to meet the market where it is--would you rather have more people using and aware of your software or only small amount of people people that know about your software and pay for it? The answer in many scenarios is to h…

Thanks for the answer. I have a lot to think about !

Some people just have no money. I pirated tonnes of software as a kid because I couldn't afford any of it.

One thing I've seen that generated a lot of good will in me was a company that said "if you can't afford a license, email us". Depending on the margins you have and the software you make, that could work for you as a way to communicate with your users.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#98

Post by imtringued »

yodon wrote: post #49
ttoinou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

change the backend to an API What do you mean ?

Don't ship all the code to the client PC, run at least a small portion of the code on a server that you control. Doing this makes "cracking" your app useless because it still can't do the job without an account on the server for the server-side processing. This is basically what every MMO in existence did. MMO's are games that can only be played if you have a server-side account, because they took a chunk of code tha…

>The real advance was noticing that a server-subscription based MMO can print money while a non-server-based client-authoritative game architecture dies a rapid financial death due to piracy.

MMOs have more consistent cash flows than regular games which means the developers can work on content updates in the future. Regular games will have the majority of their sales within the first month then quickly taper off. This is unrelated to copyright infringement. In a peer to peer architecture cheating is a far bigger concern than copyright infringement.

By the way the reason why ingame transactions in freemium games work is because there is no spending limit which means a small rich minority of players ends up spending multiple thousand dollars on the game to compete with other players.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#99

Post by xiaoma »

I avoid dangerous Somalian shipping lanes.

If you mean the co-opted meaning of the word that the RIAA/MPAA managed to acclimate Americans to a few generations ago, I'd use either a SAAS model or a subscription/membership model where customers get more and more value over time instead of just a one-off product.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with piracy?

#100

Post by _jcwu »

iamben wrote: post #34

A while back a friend of mine told me he installed a 'clean my Mac' application, thought it was decent and went looking for a crack. So the story went - the top link was one to their own website with full instructions on how to crack the app - something like - www.appname.com/how-to-crack-appname/, or whatever. On the page was complete and detailed instructions on how to crack it yourself using a hex editor or decomp…

This reminds me of https://www.codeux.com/textual/

The software is on GitHub (https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual) and you can compile it yourself and, thus, remove the "you gotta pay" checks and such. If you can do that you are free to do that... or you can just pay for it and don't have to bother. It's not crazy expensive ($5.99), but I decided to go for the former just because it was more fun to me. If I had used his software for much longer and more often, I'd have eventually paid for it, I suppose.

Post reply on HN