9 ms·

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

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, and if required, demanding such (with a DMCA notice or similar). If a distributor is unresponsive to both, DMCA Google, Bing, etc. to at least suppress the cracks in most search results; 2. Having some fun with it: make sure that a special page on your own site becomes the #1 search engine result for "<productname> crack" and similar. On this page, put a human face on your pricing, explain the available discounts, and finally offer to supply a free registration key to anyone that truly wants it, so they don't have to download all kinds of shady binaries. Of course, any such free keys don't come with support and display a prominent PIRATED VERSION notice in all window captions, printed outputs, et cetera, but you disclose all of that upfront and explain how that's a small price to pay... But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area.

1970-01-01 4y ago
Yes, this is a good problem for a developer. 2b. Free with Ads. Yes, this is not for everyone, but many devs will make this path an option. Your buyers must realize that all ads can be removed for a fair price.
netrap 4y ago
Completely agree. Great comment. Make it harder to find by simple means by requesting link takedowns, etc. Don't bother trying to make it harder to crack since real crackers will not be deterred.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
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 versions (can you detect the lack of signatures?)
- MrPowerGamerBR 4y ago
  > There was a videogame Game Dev Tycoon
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Here's the full story of that: https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when... It's important to note that they didn't use DRM or anything like that to detect whether a given copy of it was pirated. They made two builds of the game: a normal one that they gave to paying customers, and the special one that they uploaded a torrent of themselves.
- WASDx 4y ago
  I love this approach. If you can detect a crack and block it, it will get worked around. Injecting easter eggs is much more subtle. There was another game that made an otherwise easy jump between two platforms impossible, so the players who had cracked the game went on forums and unwittingly revealed themselves by asking how to complete that level.
  - kuboble 4y ago
    We have implemented something similar. The most obvious way to crack our software will trigger certain bug. Whenever people report that bug I feel a little joy
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > Whenever people report that bug I feel a little joy I hope you are super duper 100% sure the bug can’t happen otherwise. I would hate to be your paying costumer and ignored because your drm system is buggy.
      - kuboble 4y ago
        Yes. 100% super duper sure. It's something along the lines of: Pi+=2 in one place of the code. And Pi += 1.1415 somewhere else. And both are guaranteed to run at the start of the program so that Pi=3.1415 However one of those lines is hidden in a part of the code that the most obvious crack is going to remove.
908B64B197 4y ago
There's a third option: If the software supports getting updates, get the cracked copies to phone home and have a legal firm send them a warning they might be using hacked software. Home users won't care, but legitimate businesses might convert to actual sales.
- KomoD 4y ago
  How would you send them a warning, you'd know nothing other than an IP address? If you just send the ISP a regular ol' "copyright" notice, there's a lot of ISPs who do not forward those notices. And if you made cracked copies phone home, that's something that would get removed by the cracker anyway most of the time.
  - fest 4y ago
    In my country, there is a branch of police that deals with such things. They have a relationship with an organization called Business Software Alliance, which I believe is formed with this specific goal- to allow foreign companies or their local distributors reach pirate users. However, I'm only aware of the major software companies being members of this org: Microsoft, Adobe, Dassault (Solidworks), Siemens.
- wobbly_bush 4y ago
  If the business is from someone in a low income country, they likely wouldn't care about any legal warnings either. Some of the software prices in those countries are very expensive relative to prices of other things.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "and have a legal firm send them a warning they might be using hacked software." Rather send a message directly through the software and give a link directly to purchase it. A bit cheaper and more straightforward, than finding out adresses and involve lawers. That should be the last resort.
moralestapia 4y ago
>Congratulations! Indeed! There's a nice anecdote from Paulo Coehlo (I don't like his work but w/e) where he was stuck in traffic somewhere in LATAM and a guy passed by his car selling pirated copies of his newest book. He then says this event made him feel like he had finally made it and even became a strong promoter of piracy, heh.
- mobilio 4y ago
  Actually this happens in other country and Coehlo make free version of his own books: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/ https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/
omginternets 4y ago
A (possible) third option would be to distribute the product under a SaaS model instead of a binary.
bonestamp2 4y ago
Other options We had this happen too. In our case, our software required our hardware to function so we put the recurring license on the hardware instead of the software. It's been about 8 years since then and nobody has been able to crack that system yet. Some software that doesn't need hardware also uses a small hardware key to enforce licensing. Going forward, you could make it so the user has to login to your service when they launch your software. You could provide extra value to your paying customers through this channel too. You would run into some other challenges such as shared passwords, but those have some mitigation strategies too.
kabdib 4y ago
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 image running from RAM). Toward the end of one project, I spent about two weeks writing an encrypted, multi-stage anti-copy system. A few months after the game shipped, I asked my pirate "friend" about it. "That was a hard one," he said, "It took us nearly three days to crack it."
- andymccurdy 4y ago
  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.
  - kabdib 4y ago
    The Atari 800 was released (IIRC) in 1979. It was a surprisingly good platform, with a decent OS, a tolerable file system (for a slow floppy disk), and great documentation all around. I learned a lot reading the Atari docs, long before I worked there.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  These days the companies won and modern game DRM often doesn’t get cracked for the first year if at all.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Steam seems to have significantly reduced the market for pirated games. Streaming did that for movies for a while, until every single production company decided start their own.
frankzander 4y ago
Best is 2. because it's human and fully open and clear in communication and also sane because you acknowledge that every other step is a fight against windmills and swimming against the stream. Using what has been given to you is the best thing, the smartest thing and with that you show, that you outsmart the situation and also respect the users (payed and unpayed)
esel2k 4y ago
I think 1 is absolutely is fantastic comment. How many people define as finding product market fit is if people love your program and tell about it to their friends. Here they even go as far to crack it. A third option is a big looking what adobe photoshop did. Most people in the early days has an access to a cracked version and it became nearly the standard for image editing. And how did they then manage this: By adding cloud services. You could maybe start small and say: „You can download our free templates (don’t know what type of software but I thought of some 3D models) from the web (new template every couple of month) and this works only with an activated version. By this you actively provide more value for your paying customer at the same time instead of wasting time and money to just make it harder to crack.
hermitcrab 4y ago
>But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area. Very true. If they were never going to pay anyway, you haven't lost anything if they use a crack. It still irks though!
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Consider it free training, education, and marketing rather than a lost sale. It's literally the same reason most companies give students essentially fire sale discounts (often just free) versions of their software. They're probably pirating it because they aren't deriving much if any revenue from using it yet (it's either for personal use, they're learning a new tool, or they have no money). But having that person familiar with your software and trained on it means that if they reach a spot where they're using it profitably for business - it's basically a guaranteed sale.
  - lb1lf 4y ago
    This was how I got a licence for the Protel (Now Altium) PCB design software when back in university; the cracked version doing the rounds on campus was rather prone to crashing, so eventually I figured I had nothing to lose, called up the distributor and asked them if they did student discounts, as buying a full licence was definitely out of the question, but so was using the, uh, evaluation version with its stability issues. "Sure thing, how many do you need?" When I hesitantly reminded him we hadn't discussed prices yet, I was told it was free as they really wanted to snare us in as users before we wound up in paid work where we'd need to be productive employees fast. I have since had three employers buy full licenses and support deals. Good call by Protel back then.
- Enginerrrd 4y ago
  Yeah basically. Not only that, but, for all of the most expensive software I use, I used a pirated version first for months to ~ 1 year first. Once I really got a feel for it, if it provided value to me, I have pretty much paid for it everytime. And no, a 30-day trial doesn't cut it for evaluation. If I used the software enough to where a 30-day trial would have been enough to test it properly, the value proposition would have already been there to just buy it. Software trials should be based on hours used or something, and the eval periods are almost always too stingy. Instead, the value proposition to switching to paid became once it had established value to me, and I could benefit from the reduced exposure risk of running malware in the cracked version, and possibly get updates if they affected major things like stability, or new tool-sets or access to online data that was useful.
DarrenDev 4y ago
There is a third option which I'm surprised no one has mentioned so far: Ignore them. First, people or companies using the cracked version of your software were never going to buy it. These people do not pay for software, and nothing you do will convince them to pay for it. Secondly, whatever measures you put in place to combat the cracked versions will potentially have a negative impact on your actual paying users - the real people you built the software for. Extra security measures or hoops to jump through; extra validation or 'calls home.' - all extra things that can and will go wrong at some point for a real user. Why would you inconvenience paying users to combat people who will never be paying users? Ignore them, and spend your time improving your product for your real users. [I've had 3 desktop apps cracked and hosted on Warez sites over the past 15 years - even appearing for sale on eBay on some occasions. I was worried the first time it happened, then I stopped caring. They made no difference.]
- FlyingSnake 4y ago
  I agree. Ignoring them is probably a good strategy. #2 in the list is too time consuming and has opportunity cost for the small team already wearing many hats.
- creeble 4y ago
  It was called "the WordStar effect" in the 80s. Your marginal loss to pirates is nothing compared to the incremental effect of becoming a standard. Not always effective for all applications though.
- freedomben 4y ago
  Yes, exactly! This is IMHO the best answer. You'd also be amazed at how many people pirated photoshop while they were youths and/or students, and later paid for a legit copy when they had a real business need because it was what they knew and loved. It's very bad economics to think of a pirated copy as a lost sale. In some cases the piracy helps drive sales!
- fragmede 4y ago
  > First, people or companies using the cracked version of your software were never going to buy it. I've heard this before but I'm not convinced this is actually true. Why? Because I use Netflix instead of torrent sites, and just accept the limitations of that format. Programs are tools vs of entertainment, but I don't know that the human psychology actually changes. A neat trick they did was to introduce downloading as a feature. Now search results for "Netflix download" all talk about the built in feature as opposed to teaching how to rip the DRM off the downloaded file.
fsloth 4y ago
‘But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area.’ The non-overlapping are is likely non-trivial. There are surprising many shops that use professional software for client projects, could afford the license, but that prefer pirated copy to paying actual license fee. Ofc persecuting non-professional users is pointless. Persecuting professional users in a smart way can lead to license sales.
- gtvwill 4y ago
  Lol everytime I read this argument I think of the software VirtualDJ. It was notorious for being the DJ software to use about a decade and a half ago as pirate copies were everywhere! Fast forward to today and you can read post after post from ex pirate user that's now a paid user. VirtualDJ have one of the more expensive software licenses on the market in that sector too. I wonder if many other software companies have had similar experiences?
  - fsloth 4y ago
    That describes the progression from a poor hobby user to a more affluent hobbyist/pro. The market I know and meant (CAD) there is no such progression and the way to make the pirate users licensed users is to give them one call, offer a chance to buy an official license, and if this does not work inform the authorities. Legal procedures though likely need a way bigger org than 15 persons.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    I'd imagine most of that is out of annoyance of dealing with pirate version or just them finally being able to afford it as it is now part of their job. I feel like easiest way to monetize apps like that would be free noncommercial license. Want to DJ your school party ? Go ahead, as long as nobody pays you it's fine, and if someone does, well, now you have money for license. You're also building potential user base, when everyone can play with your software without limits many will pick it when they will do something commercial
    - 4y ago
jspaetzel 4y ago
I like the special page suggestion. Humanizing the software is a great way to get people to pay for it if they have the means. And if they don't, then you're doing some good in the world (hopefully) by giving it away. Maybe at some point in the future they'll pay it forward or back.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
This depends on the market. I know a handful of people who got out of the VST plugin market because cracks were killing them financially. VSTs are pretty niche and the market is mostly people without much money. But you can find cracks being used in top studios, so...
lll-o-lll 4y ago
“But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area.” I’m seeing many comments saying this, but it’s simply not true for commercial/industrial software. Outside of the US, even in large swathes of Europe, it’s extremely common to lose significant revenue to piracy, and if you make it too hard to pirate they will pay. Companies (the customers in this case) that are happy to exploit workers in sweatshops? Also completely happy to use your software without paying for it.
- noyoudumbdolt 4y ago
  This pro-piracy nonsense is a point of faith for many nerds. They will twist themselves into pretzels to avoid the conclusion that piracy is costly and that enforcement of the law can be good.
huhtenberg 4y ago
> Having cracked versions out there indicates that your software is both useful and notable In the vast majority of cases it doesn't mean that. A lot of cracking is done for sport and to show off, especially when the protection is weak.
moritzwarhier 4y ago
Your comment is beautifully succinct and made my day. I don't use any cracked software, but I sure did when I was a kid without money. And I was so grateful for it, especially all the DAW and music production stuff. There is an utilitarian argument somewhere in there about free software. Copyright owners also habe legitimate interests in their products and are afforded with different ways to gain value from a software product that is locally installed. Also, something like a self-contained, "portable" linked binary that creates value without any dependency on any online service will always be trivial to copy but also maximally useful. (Edit: languages that depend on an interpreter don't differ too much, I think)
musicale 4y ago
If your app is a game and/or you think that DRM provides significant value to you, consider moving to an app store or other platform that manages the DRM semi-automatically, perhaps with OS support in the case of macOS/Windows/iOS/Google Play/etc.. If your app isn't a game and/or you think that DRM isn't worth the platform tax, remove the DRM and focus on building relationships with your customers.
randomdata 4y ago
> But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". The one time I had software cracked and pirated sales pretty much dried up immediately upon its release. This is probably true if your audience is primarily people who aren't particularly technically minded, but my product was no doubt most appealing to the same kind of people who know how to pirate software.

1970-01-01 4y ago

Yes, this is a good problem for a developer. 2b. Free with Ads. Yes, this is not for everyone, but many devs will make this path an option. Your buyers must realize that all ads can be removed for a fair price.

netrap 4y ago

Completely agree. Great comment. Make it harder to find by simple means by requesting link takedowns, etc. Don't bother trying to make it harder to crack since real crackers will not be deterred.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

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 versions (can you detect the lack of signatures?)

MrPowerGamerBR 4y ago
> There was a videogame Game Dev Tycoon
josephcsible 4y ago
Here's the full story of that: https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when... It's important to note that they didn't use DRM or anything like that to detect whether a given copy of it was pirated. They made two builds of the game: a normal one that they gave to paying customers, and the special one that they uploaded a torrent of themselves.
WASDx 4y ago
I love this approach. If you can detect a crack and block it, it will get worked around. Injecting easter eggs is much more subtle. There was another game that made an otherwise easy jump between two platforms impossible, so the players who had cracked the game went on forums and unwittingly revealed themselves by asking how to complete that level.
- kuboble 4y ago
  We have implemented something similar. The most obvious way to crack our software will trigger certain bug. Whenever people report that bug I feel a little joy
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > Whenever people report that bug I feel a little joy I hope you are super duper 100% sure the bug can’t happen otherwise. I would hate to be your paying costumer and ignored because your drm system is buggy.
    - kuboble 4y ago
      Yes. 100% super duper sure. It's something along the lines of: Pi+=2 in one place of the code. And Pi += 1.1415 somewhere else. And both are guaranteed to run at the start of the program so that Pi=3.1415 However one of those lines is hidden in a part of the code that the most obvious crack is going to remove.

908B64B197 4y ago

There's a third option: If the software supports getting updates, get the cracked copies to phone home and have a legal firm send them a warning they might be using hacked software. Home users won't care, but legitimate businesses might convert to actual sales.

KomoD 4y ago
How would you send them a warning, you'd know nothing other than an IP address? If you just send the ISP a regular ol' "copyright" notice, there's a lot of ISPs who do not forward those notices. And if you made cracked copies phone home, that's something that would get removed by the cracker anyway most of the time.
- fest 4y ago
  In my country, there is a branch of police that deals with such things. They have a relationship with an organization called Business Software Alliance, which I believe is formed with this specific goal- to allow foreign companies or their local distributors reach pirate users. However, I'm only aware of the major software companies being members of this org: Microsoft, Adobe, Dassault (Solidworks), Siemens.
wobbly_bush 4y ago
If the business is from someone in a low income country, they likely wouldn't care about any legal warnings either. Some of the software prices in those countries are very expensive relative to prices of other things.
hutzlibu 4y ago
"and have a legal firm send them a warning they might be using hacked software." Rather send a message directly through the software and give a link directly to purchase it. A bit cheaper and more straightforward, than finding out adresses and involve lawers. That should be the last resort.

moralestapia 4y ago

>Congratulations! Indeed! There's a nice anecdote from Paulo Coehlo (I don't like his work but w/e) where he was stuck in traffic somewhere in LATAM and a guy passed by his car selling pirated copies of his newest book. He then says this event made him feel like he had finally made it and even became a strong promoter of piracy, heh.

mobilio 4y ago
Actually this happens in other country and Coehlo make free version of his own books: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/ https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/

omginternets 4y ago

A (possible) third option would be to distribute the product under a SaaS model instead of a binary.

bonestamp2 4y ago

Other options We had this happen too. In our case, our software required our hardware to function so we put the recurring license on the hardware instead of the software. It's been about 8 years since then and nobody has been able to crack that system yet. Some software that doesn't need hardware also uses a small hardware key to enforce licensing. Going forward, you could make it so the user has to login to your service when they launch your software. You could provide extra value to your paying customers through this channel too. You would run into some other challenges such as shared passwords, but those have some mitigation strategies too.

kabdib 4y ago

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 image running from RAM). Toward the end of one project, I spent about two weeks writing an encrypted, multi-stage anti-copy system. A few months after the game shipped, I asked my pirate "friend" about it. "That was a hard one," he said, "It took us nearly three days to crack it."

andymccurdy 4y ago
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.
- kabdib 4y ago
  The Atari 800 was released (IIRC) in 1979. It was a surprisingly good platform, with a decent OS, a tolerable file system (for a slow floppy disk), and great documentation all around. I learned a lot reading the Atari docs, long before I worked there.
Gigachad 4y ago
These days the companies won and modern game DRM often doesn’t get cracked for the first year if at all.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Steam seems to have significantly reduced the market for pirated games. Streaming did that for movies for a while, until every single production company decided start their own.

frankzander 4y ago

Best is 2. because it's human and fully open and clear in communication and also sane because you acknowledge that every other step is a fight against windmills and swimming against the stream. Using what has been given to you is the best thing, the smartest thing and with that you show, that you outsmart the situation and also respect the users (payed and unpayed)

esel2k 4y ago

I think 1 is absolutely is fantastic comment. How many people define as finding product market fit is if people love your program and tell about it to their friends. Here they even go as far to crack it. A third option is a big looking what adobe photoshop did. Most people in the early days has an access to a cracked version and it became nearly the standard for image editing. And how did they then manage this: By adding cloud services. You could maybe start small and say: „You can download our free templates (don’t know what type of software but I thought of some 3D models) from the web (new template every couple of month) and this works only with an activated version. By this you actively provide more value for your paying customer at the same time instead of wasting time and money to just make it harder to crack.

hermitcrab 4y ago

>But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area. Very true. If they were never going to pay anyway, you haven't lost anything if they use a crack. It still irks though!

horsawlarway 4y ago
Consider it free training, education, and marketing rather than a lost sale. It's literally the same reason most companies give students essentially fire sale discounts (often just free) versions of their software. They're probably pirating it because they aren't deriving much if any revenue from using it yet (it's either for personal use, they're learning a new tool, or they have no money). But having that person familiar with your software and trained on it means that if they reach a spot where they're using it profitably for business - it's basically a guaranteed sale.
- lb1lf 4y ago
  This was how I got a licence for the Protel (Now Altium) PCB design software when back in university; the cracked version doing the rounds on campus was rather prone to crashing, so eventually I figured I had nothing to lose, called up the distributor and asked them if they did student discounts, as buying a full licence was definitely out of the question, but so was using the, uh, evaluation version with its stability issues. "Sure thing, how many do you need?" When I hesitantly reminded him we hadn't discussed prices yet, I was told it was free as they really wanted to snare us in as users before we wound up in paid work where we'd need to be productive employees fast. I have since had three employers buy full licenses and support deals. Good call by Protel back then.
Enginerrrd 4y ago
Yeah basically. Not only that, but, for all of the most expensive software I use, I used a pirated version first for months to ~ 1 year first. Once I really got a feel for it, if it provided value to me, I have pretty much paid for it everytime. And no, a 30-day trial doesn't cut it for evaluation. If I used the software enough to where a 30-day trial would have been enough to test it properly, the value proposition would have already been there to just buy it. Software trials should be based on hours used or something, and the eval periods are almost always too stingy. Instead, the value proposition to switching to paid became once it had established value to me, and I could benefit from the reduced exposure risk of running malware in the cracked version, and possibly get updates if they affected major things like stability, or new tool-sets or access to online data that was useful.

DarrenDev 4y ago

There is a third option which I'm surprised no one has mentioned so far: Ignore them. First, people or companies using the cracked version of your software were never going to buy it. These people do not pay for software, and nothing you do will convince them to pay for it. Secondly, whatever measures you put in place to combat the cracked versions will potentially have a negative impact on your actual paying users - the real people you built the software for. Extra security measures or hoops to jump through; extra validation or 'calls home.' - all extra things that can and will go wrong at some point for a real user. Why would you inconvenience paying users to combat people who will never be paying users? Ignore them, and spend your time improving your product for your real users. [I've had 3 desktop apps cracked and hosted on Warez sites over the past 15 years - even appearing for sale on eBay on some occasions. I was worried the first time it happened, then I stopped caring. They made no difference.]

FlyingSnake 4y ago
I agree. Ignoring them is probably a good strategy. #2 in the list is too time consuming and has opportunity cost for the small team already wearing many hats.
creeble 4y ago
It was called "the WordStar effect" in the 80s. Your marginal loss to pirates is nothing compared to the incremental effect of becoming a standard. Not always effective for all applications though.
freedomben 4y ago
Yes, exactly! This is IMHO the best answer. You'd also be amazed at how many people pirated photoshop while they were youths and/or students, and later paid for a legit copy when they had a real business need because it was what they knew and loved. It's very bad economics to think of a pirated copy as a lost sale. In some cases the piracy helps drive sales!
fragmede 4y ago
> First, people or companies using the cracked version of your software were never going to buy it. I've heard this before but I'm not convinced this is actually true. Why? Because I use Netflix instead of torrent sites, and just accept the limitations of that format. Programs are tools vs of entertainment, but I don't know that the human psychology actually changes. A neat trick they did was to introduce downloading as a feature. Now search results for "Netflix download" all talk about the built in feature as opposed to teaching how to rip the DRM off the downloaded file.

fsloth 4y ago

‘But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area.’ The non-overlapping are is likely non-trivial. There are surprising many shops that use professional software for client projects, could afford the license, but that prefer pirated copy to paying actual license fee. Ofc persecuting non-professional users is pointless. Persecuting professional users in a smart way can lead to license sales.

gtvwill 4y ago
Lol everytime I read this argument I think of the software VirtualDJ. It was notorious for being the DJ software to use about a decade and a half ago as pirate copies were everywhere! Fast forward to today and you can read post after post from ex pirate user that's now a paid user. VirtualDJ have one of the more expensive software licenses on the market in that sector too. I wonder if many other software companies have had similar experiences?
- fsloth 4y ago
  That describes the progression from a poor hobby user to a more affluent hobbyist/pro. The market I know and meant (CAD) there is no such progression and the way to make the pirate users licensed users is to give them one call, offer a chance to buy an official license, and if this does not work inform the authorities. Legal procedures though likely need a way bigger org than 15 persons.
- ilyt 4y ago
  I'd imagine most of that is out of annoyance of dealing with pirate version or just them finally being able to afford it as it is now part of their job. I feel like easiest way to monetize apps like that would be free noncommercial license. Want to DJ your school party ? Go ahead, as long as nobody pays you it's fine, and if someone does, well, now you have money for license. You're also building potential user base, when everyone can play with your software without limits many will pick it when they will do something commercial
  - 4y ago

jspaetzel 4y ago

I like the special page suggestion. Humanizing the software is a great way to get people to pay for it if they have the means. And if they don't, then you're doing some good in the world (hopefully) by giving it away. Maybe at some point in the future they'll pay it forward or back.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

This depends on the market. I know a handful of people who got out of the VST plugin market because cracks were killing them financially. VSTs are pretty niche and the market is mostly people without much money. But you can find cracks being used in top studios, so...

lll-o-lll 4y ago

“But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". In 99% of cases, the Venn diagram of those has very little overlapping area.” I’m seeing many comments saying this, but it’s simply not true for commercial/industrial software. Outside of the US, even in large swathes of Europe, it’s extremely common to lose significant revenue to piracy, and if you make it too hard to pirate they will pay. Companies (the customers in this case) that are happy to exploit workers in sweatshops? Also completely happy to use your software without paying for it.

noyoudumbdolt 4y ago
This pro-piracy nonsense is a point of faith for many nerds. They will twist themselves into pretzels to avoid the conclusion that piracy is costly and that enforcement of the law can be good.

huhtenberg 4y ago

> Having cracked versions out there indicates that your software is both useful and notable In the vast majority of cases it doesn't mean that. A lot of cracking is done for sport and to show off, especially when the protection is weak.

moritzwarhier 4y ago

Your comment is beautifully succinct and made my day. I don't use any cracked software, but I sure did when I was a kid without money. And I was so grateful for it, especially all the DAW and music production stuff. There is an utilitarian argument somewhere in there about free software. Copyright owners also habe legitimate interests in their products and are afforded with different ways to gain value from a software product that is locally installed. Also, something like a self-contained, "portable" linked binary that creates value without any dependency on any online service will always be trivial to copy but also maximally useful. (Edit: languages that depend on an interpreter don't differ too much, I think)

musicale 4y ago

If your app is a game and/or you think that DRM provides significant value to you, consider moving to an app store or other platform that manages the DRM semi-automatically, perhaps with OS support in the case of macOS/Windows/iOS/Google Play/etc.. If your app isn't a game and/or you think that DRM isn't worth the platform tax, remove the DRM and focus on building relationships with your customers.

randomdata 4y ago

> But above all, make sure not to confuse a "pirated copy" with a "lost sale". The one time I had software cracked and pirated sales pretty much dried up immediately upon its release. This is probably true if your audience is primarily people who aren't particularly technically minded, but my product was no doubt most appealing to the same kind of people who know how to pirate software.