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Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

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Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#111

Post by junon »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #100
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a videogame that got famous because it was pirated, it was a management game about setting up a gaming company. Turns out, the pirated copy had a special feature where the player would feel immense economic pressure from piracy, so a bunch of players asked how to win against this, it was pretty hard and really fun for people who knew what was going on. Point is, you could hide an Easter Egg for pirated vers…

Crysis 3 would let you play an hour or two and then some special weapon wouldn't have ammunition essentially soft-locking you out. Great way to sell too.

Mirrors Edge too. You'd get through the first couple of levels then she'd just slowly come to a halt right before the ledge and you couldn't move anymore.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#112

Post by ROTMetro »

Zurrrrr wrote: post #47

Now nothing. Piracy is the natural order of things, and likely isn't hurting sales at all as counter-intuitive as that seems. You could perhaps offer cheaper versions in lower income countries, but if you try to 'beat' piracy too much, you're just going to lower the overall user experience of your software.

How would lowering your revenue and decreasing the competitiveness of your paying customers (because they now have to pay MORE than their competition who probably already have lower operating costs because they are operating out of a lower income country) make any sense?

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#113

Post by paxys »

nullish_signal wrote: post #3

Gabe Newell, CEO of Steam, once said that "Piracy" is a Service Problem. If an Illicit Downloader has your Software for Free, then they must become interested in Paying to Install Updates, or to Pay for a License to Access a Web Resource. This actually happened to me with NieR: Automata. I downloaded it for free, played for 60 Hours, then discovered that the CREDITS were a playable minigame which was not feasible to…

> Gabe Newell, CEO of Steam, once said that "Piracy" is a Service Problem

And yet nearly all games on Steam, including Valve's own titles, have DRM. What an executive says in public for PR purposes doesn't always reflect their or their company's actual views on the issue.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#114

Post by nullish_signal »

paxys wrote: post #113
nullish_signal wrote: post #3

Gabe Newell, CEO of Steam, once said that "Piracy" is a Service Problem. If an Illicit Downloader has your Software for Free, then they must become interested in Paying to Install Updates, or to Pay for a License to Access a Web Resource. This actually happened to me with NieR: Automata. I downloaded it for free, played for 60 Hours, then discovered that the CREDITS were a playable minigame which was not feasible to…

> Gabe Newell, CEO of Steam, once said that "Piracy" is a Service Problem And yet nearly all games on Steam, including Valve's own titles , have DRM. What an executive says in public for PR purposes doesn't always reflect their or their company's actual views on the issue.

And yet I skirted Steam DRM in my example and downloaded Automata for free?

Then Bought it because of a SERVICE that was not available to me.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#115

Post by paxys »

Here's the standard playbook for dealing with this:

- Let hobbyists and tiny companies pirate your software. You don't have to encourage it, but you can still turn a blind eye. They weren't going to pay you anyways, and this is a good way to get people familiar with your products.

- Ruthlessly go after mid-large sized companies if you find their employees pirating your software. They have money to pay, and will be happy to do so (at least in the face of legal threats).

The interesting part is that the first demographic (students, hobbyists, tiny companies) directly feeds into the second when they start working corporate jobs. So in that sense piracy is sometimes a key part of the sales funnel. This is exactly how companies like Microsoft and Adobe have been able to maintain complete hold on the market.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#116

Post by fxtentacle »

With newaudiotechnology.com we eventually switched to using USB sticks as dongles.

The reason is that we noticed some paying users were cracking it, too, because our licensing system didn't allow dual boot or having a workstation and a laptop.

But our licenses were supposed to be per user and people wanted to carry our software around with them. If setup correctly, the same USB stick is now used both as licensing dongle and it also contains installers for Windows and Mac.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#118

Post by jansan »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #59

The solution here is pretty simple: make your software free and open source. Transition your business model to paid support tiers, or paid hosted/managed offerings. I have been advocating for the promotion of FOSS software for years, and this model has worked very well for many software businesses. People will always crack and pirate software; not only will be a never-ending cat and mouse for you, but also inhibits t…

That is a very naive proposal. There are a few open source projects that are actually successful, but far more that make no money at all.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#119

Post by andymccurdy »

kabdib wrote: post #110
PreInternet01 wrote: post #29

Congratulations! Having cracked versions out there indicates that your software is both useful and notable, which is a point where many developers would love to arrive at, maybe, one day. As to what to do about it, there are two basic tracks, neither of which is incompatible with the other: 1. The legal route: notifying distribution sites that they're hosting content in violation of copyright law, requesting takedown…

When I was working on video game cartridges, I discovered that one of my neighbors in my apartment building was a prolific pirate. I introduced myself and we had some fun chats. The Atari 800 cartridge address range could be populated with RAM, and cartridge images simply copied to RAM and run. Copy protection techniques usually involved figuring out sneaky ways to write to that address range (which would crash an im…

The Atari 800 was my first console and where I typed my first lines of Basic code. While it wasn't obvious as a 7 or 8 year old kid, I reflect back on this experience fondly and recognize that it was instrumental in my development as a self-taught software engineer. Thank you for your role in my personal development.

Re: Ask HN: We found a cracked version of our software on the web, now what?

#120

Post by remote_phone »

The first PC software I got back in the early 80s was a copy protection cracking program. I think there were 2, copywrite and copyiipc. Since then, the battle between copy protection and cracking has been going on.

You will never stop cracking. The only way is to convert the application to SaaS. Otherwise just try to minimize casual pirating and leave it at that.

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