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How I converted a software thief into a customer

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Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#61

Post by tghw »

gradstudent wrote: post #42
nyellin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I assumed he tried Googling the invalid numbers. And logging browser + geographic information in error handlers is standard practice.

"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…

To make this assertion also makes it clear that you probably haven't worked on much desktop software distributed to a large number of users. There are so many different configurations that the only real way to figure out why it isn't working for a particular user is to have it phone home with a stack trace and basic system info. Otherwise, pretty much every bug would not be reproducible.

If you don't like your software doing that (and, believe me, most of it does), then lock down your firewall and only let a whitelist of programs communicate with the outside world. A lot of your software will stop working, but at least you'll know that no information (well, not none, just less) is getting sent out to various servers.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#62

Post by gradstudent »

tghw wrote: post #61
gradstudent wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

To make this assertion also makes it clear that you probably haven't worked on much desktop software distributed to a large number of users. There are so many different configurations that the only real way to figure out why it isn't working for a particular user is to have it phone home with a stack trace and basic system info. Otherwise, pretty much every bug would not be reproducible. If you don't like your softwa…

Let me see if I have this right: instead of asking nicely for permission to send your errors and crash reports you want your users to setup a firewall and prevent your program from phoning home. What a dick move.

It shows you care not a whit for your customers' privacy or consent; only the data on their computers which, for some bizarre reason, you feel entitled to.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#63

Post by exDM69 »

shasta wrote: post #27
exDM69 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Does it matter? If you're an indie game developer, you can't do much about piracy. At least through legal means. Your game is going to end up in piratebay and it will get pirated. If it doesn't end up being pirated, it's probably not a very good game and won't make you money anyway.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#64

Post by einhverfr »

derleth wrote: post #58
gosu wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> should the developers be in violation? 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.

Depending on jurisdiction, though. In some jurisdiction authors cannot give up some rights, such as the right to attribution, in theory at least.

In practice, what are they going to do? Ban publishing things anonymously on the basis you are violating your own moral rights?

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#65

Post by belorn »

gosu wrote: post #39
belorn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While sounding fine, its a form of error in reasoning - A fallacy of a kind. The logic does not scale. If I go to the supermarket and buy cheap imported goods, I deprive the local market of the possible purchase of their goods. It is very easy, almost impossible, not to deprive someone of payment if payment is based on who has worked hard and what could have happened. The logic also demand that there is a zero sum ga…

In my completely uneducated view of the world, this situation is different because, whichever supermarket you pay at, you're cashing in on the skill and time which you previously contributed to society. You're also "voting with your dollar" and giving society some feedback about what it needs less and more of. When you take something without paying for it, and that thing has a price, then you're saying that society o…

You bring some interesting points so let start with the moral standpoint. If voting with your dollar should be the method to give society feedback what is needed, roads and water should be the most expensive items one pay for. Voting with your dollar sound fine in theory, but try to find a single study proving it. There is none, and studies like "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" by Economist George Akerlof, and those produced by Amartya Sen should shine some light on why.

Copying is as simple as needing, that is the amount of energy and action needed to copy something, is about the same as just simply needing something. Like star trek replicators, you ask for something, and a perfect copy materialize. If I was hungry and I asked the replicator for a piece of bread, would I be depriving the baker of salary? So the question ends up, how should the baker be payed for the first loaf of bread. A dollar for each copy made from it? When the poor is then denied said bread and dies because he does not have that dollar for a copy, is that then murder or good for society?

So how do we make it valuable to develop. My answer would be:

- Society should pay for infrastructure, be that roads, water, or network infrastructure. (Tax)

- Industry regulations should regulate the industry, not private people. If a company want to do earn profit by using software made by others, they should pay. (CC-BY-NC)

- Concepts like media tax would work quite fine, if distributed "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". The current media tax seen at places like Canada and Sweden are twisted forms of that where the collectors take the largest share, and then popularity in radio takes the rest. (Media tax).

- Products do compete against free and sometimes wins. Look at the "$9.99" bin at the supermarket. When the product is offered as convenience, it does not matter if at the back, down the stairs, through the window, next to the gutter, there is a "free all-you-can-eat buffet" of pirated goods. This goes back to Industry regulations. Regulate people who are running for-profit operations and that is enough to create value for the producer. (lets call that economics)

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#66

Post by derleth »

einhverfr wrote: post #64
derleth wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should the developers be in violation? 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.

Depending on jurisdiction, though. In some jurisdiction authors cannot give up some rights, such as the right to attribution, in theory at least. In practice, what are they going to do? Ban publishing things anonymously on the basis you are violating your own moral rights?

> Depending on jurisdiction, though. In some jurisdiction authors cannot give up some rights, such as the right to attribution, in theory at least.

Entirely correct. My post was based on American copyright law, which has no concept of moral rights.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#67

Post by raverbashing »

vacri wrote: post #34
iamdann wrote: post #18

The popup you wrote had a humanizing effect. It's not just a faceless piece of software anymore. It's a a genuinely nice guy who built a cool product and wants to get paid. As a concept, people know that there's a real person behind every application. But it's not until moments like these when they're actually confronted with that person. Much less offered a deal for trying to rip them off.

It may also have had an 'oh my god, I've been caught!' effect - no longer is the user anonymous, in their own eyes.

Yes

I expected "something nicer" maybe not using the word "stealing"

Still, my paranoid side thought of something:

"Oh, they're giving away this code so we give them our contact info, then they know who pirated the software"

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#68

Post by tikhonj »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #57
Karunamon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument (…

People may find arguments about semantics silly, but they are important. Just take a look at the whole brouhaha about evolution just being a theory: a large part of that whole disconnect stems from two meanings of the word "theory" that are not synonyms but are still very close. This is exactly the problem we want to avoid with "theft"--calling copying theft says as little about it as calling evolution a theory.

That is, there is either the proper meaning in context (e.g. infringing copyright) which does not mesh with the common definition or there is the common definition (depriving somebody of property) which does not mesh with the context. People framing copyright infringement as "theft" want to take advantage of emotional connotations of the word in much the same way as people capitalizing on the fact that evolution is "just a theory".

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#69

Post by Karunamon »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #57
Karunamon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument (…

>more observing the disconnect between the argument ("it doesn't hurt anyone") and the tone ("but DON'T call it stealing!!")

I don't think anyone is claiming it doesn't hurt anyone (if everyone did it... etc), rather protesting against the fact that the copyright maximalist lobby has campaigned, with great success, to conflate two unrelated crimes in people's minds. (I'm not even going to touch the whole 'piracy' thing) I don't know about you, but I hate seeing people be played for fools.

Copyright infringement and stealing have about as much to do with each other as speeding and vehicular manslaughter.

Re: How I converted a software thief into a customer

#70

Post by Karunamon »

activepeanut wrote: post #8

Isn't this incentivising people to pirate before buying a legitimate license?

Honestly? That's the only way to get a representative demo nowadays. I'm not at all ashamed to say I pirate the shit out of anything that costs more than about $20 to see if they'll fit my needs and run on my system before giving anyone a cent.
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