51–60 of 87 posts
Isn't this incentivising people to pirate before buying a legitimate license?
Let say that 5 out of 10 000 users triggered this. Then say that 2 out of those 5 would have bought a full copy but read/heard/noticed this method of getting a cheaper copy. Is that then a problem? My guess is that the time this guy spent on this info box and coupon code far exceed the money from one license.
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"Standard practice" for whom? The CIA? Gah! The very idea that some bit of desktop software needs to surreptitiously phone home in the event of an error really rubs me the wrong way. Not only is it wholly unnecessary but it's also a serious intrusion of privacy. OP: does your software tell people up front (i.e. not hidden in some 10 page EULA) it's going to phone home? Do you allow them to opt out? If there is an opt…
It asks the user for a registration code. It obviously needs to communicate with a server to verify the code. When someone enters an invalid code, it will clearly be logged and the OP notified. It is not doing anything like "phone home" in secret (From what I can tell after reading the article).
1. The user is not ever made aware that their registration attempt will involve sending out information over the Internet. The application is therefore surreptitiously phoning home.
2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.
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We have a winner! After I discovered people were doing that, I was rather surprised that they thought that the trademark serial number would be a valid registration key. I guess people don't read. Edit: Thanks for the heads-up about the typo. Oops!
Mind the sampling method, it only suggests that software pirates don't read ;)
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Some indie game producers release on piratebay right from day zero. Usually with some kind of easter egg version, e.g. all in-game characters have a pirate hat, no other hats are available like in a legitimate version. This makes sure that no-one pirates a badly cracked buggy version and gets a bad experience and decides not to buy the game. Thankfully free demos are coming back so it is easier to test a game legally…
But then are pirates still in violation of copyright law?
Certainly not from getting the game from the developer, assuming the developer owns the copyright as opposed to having signed away the right to control distribution.
Also, copyright law doesn't control use. So using it is legal assuming you don't find a way to use a game that is in violation of some other law.
If the developer doesn't want the pirates redistributing the game, though, any pirates who do are violating the law. Redistribution and the right to control it are granted by copyright law. Again, this right can be sold or given to others.
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Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Also, you've extrapolated from "non-zero sum, not all equations balance" into "there is no math", which makes your argument more fallacious than that to which you were responding.
>Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Call me extremist but, I don't agree with this. There's no deprivation happening. It's a crappy thing to do, no doubt, but I can't see any analogy to the 'lost sale' meme tossed around by the various *AA groups that doesn't break down immediately upon any kind of scrutiny. On another note, I pretty much wince…
I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument ("it doesn't hurt anyone") and the tone ("but DON'T call it stealing!!")
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But then are pirates still in violation of copyright law?
Also: should the developers be in violation? I imagine it's a little like (sorry) kiddie porn, where, even if you're the kiddie, society doesn't want you supporting a community that it considers to be negative.
Legally? No, copyright law doesn't work that way. The people who own the copyright to a given work have an absolute right to give away the rights copyright law gives them, to conditionally give them away, to sell them, or to share them with others.
Morally? Of course not. We must fight tooth and nail to prevent copyright laws from becoming that insane.
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It asks the user for a registration code. It obviously needs to communicate with a server to verify the code. When someone enters an invalid code, it will clearly be logged and the OP notified. It is not doing anything like "phone home" in secret (From what I can tell after reading the article).
I have two issues with this argument: 1. The user is not ever made aware that their registration attempt will involve sending out information over the Internet. The application is therefore surreptitiously phoning home. 2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.
It's 2012. This should be assumed. Mentioning it explicitly is nice to do, but at this point it feels like it should be taken for granted that a registration key will be checked against an auth server. There's not really anything that you can categorize in good faith as "surreptitious" about it. It reads more like you just want to harsh on the guy.
2. There is no reason to keep logs such as the OP currently has -- the kind that enables him to segregate people into buckets like "honest", "pirate", "converted" and then crow about it online.
Why not? Should a developer not keep track of the number of times a key (valid or not) is active? Why? It's his software. It's his business. I can't think of an argument why it wouldn't be his job to keep that data.
Interesting tidbit: > I couldn’t figure out where those numbers were coming from. The people trying the invalid numbers seemed to have nothing in common, and my Google-fu failed me. You seem to suggest here you track user information to such a degree that you can Google for the individuals in question. That's creepy as hell! I think you've scared me away from your software forever.