More copy protection...

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

They will learn it is a boomerang

What boomerang?
There is no boomerang for the user.

If you go out of bizz beacuse of piracy, it's your problem not the users one.
He will just steal another software that can do same.

Also I do not agree that software piracy does same dmg as stealing a Car, or even more.
What dmg does Zaphod have I steal his plugins. I say 0$, because I would not have not bought it anyhow (nothing against your plugins, just an example ).
If I steal a Mercedes from their factory, the dmg they have is equal to the cost to build that Car.

So everyone shouting out that software piracy is same as grand theft auto, makes things worse.
Everyone can see immediatly that it is not - you buy a license to use a product not a product. So don't try to convince ppl about, they know its wrong will become even more leery

Not true at all, since development has a cost

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Since time and financial resourses spent while producing the software could be spent for something else, I can see immediately that this logic is false.

You build a software just for me?
If you do b2b this is true.
If you deliver to mass market, you don't spend any time or financial resourses to build a product for me.
Let simply try it: @Zaphod I'm going to pirate your next Nebula release.
So Zaphod is now supposed to not release a new Nebula version anymore, but spend time on something different, cuz I'm going to pirate it?

Yes it could happen. I have to fill the fridge, you know.

[PurpleSunray]

Not true at all, since development has a cost

Do the cost increase because I pirated your plugin?
Ofc development has a cost, but it is not related to how many pirates steal your software.
This affects the revenue, not the cost, and it only affects it if, and only if the pirate buys your software instead of pirating another one.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Since time and financial resourses spent while producing the software could be spent for something else, I can see immediately that this logic is false.

You build a software just for me?
If you do b2b this is true.
If you deliver to mass market, you don't spend any time or financial resourses to build a product for me.
Let simply try it: @Zaphod I'm going to pirate your next Nebula release.
So Zaphod is now supposed to not release a new Nebula version anymore, but spend time on something different, cuz I'm going to pirate it?

Yes it could happen. I could invest my time on different things, not necessarily software. I have to fill the fridge, you know. And if you are a potential customer you loose a potential tool. So yes, in the long term the potential customer loses new tools, new upgrades, a sort of plurality of things. This is the direction, though: big companies with large monopoly and a very little choice.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Not true at all, since development has a cost

Do the cost increase because I pirated your plugin?
Ofc development has a cost, but it is not related to how many pirates steal your software.
This affects the revenue, not the cost, and it only affects it if, and only if the pirate buys your software instead of pirating another one.

It causes less revenues, so it affects FUTURE investments. Basically you go out of business. The "effect" is an "unexpected" cost.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Let's suppose audi releases a new car, and the key of this new car is broken so a lot of Audi cars are stolen from clients.
Apparently audi is not affected, but the client
Anyway, new potential customers will not buy a car from audi again
Audi looses customers and it goes to bankruptcy.
See it?

[Richard_Synapse]

This affects the revenue, not the cost, and it only affects it if, and onld if, the pirate buys your software instead of pirating another one.

We have people every week who buy our DUNE 2 soundsets without actually owning DUNE 2, and despite the shop warning that a full, legit version is mandatory. Those customers complain then because they cannot use the purchased soundsets with their stolen version, since we protected the sets. So there is quite a number of people who apparently pirate in order to save money.

I often hear the idea that pirates would never buy anything anyways, but this is simply not based on facts. So we need to find ways to convince people to go legit and that purchasing our software is the right thing to do - we worked very hard on our plugins after all.

Richard

[PurpleSunray]

Not true at all, since development has a cost

Do the cost increase because I pirated your plugin?
Ofc development has a cost, but it is not related to how many pirates steal your software.
This affects the revenue, not the cost, and it only affects it if, and only if the pirate buys your software instead of pirating another one.

It causes less revenues, so it affects FUTURE investments. Basically you go out of business. The "effect" is an "unexpected" cost.

Ok, so we agree on that using a product without having a license to do so, so not same as stealing a product.

About the furture invest, I think you know my point on that already.
If you assume that ppl buy your product if they cannot get a crack - you are right.
If you assume that ppl just click on the next donwload link to get a different product if they cannot get a crack for yours, you still run out of business, even with 100% safe copy protection.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

It's the same. If we want to argue about semantics, also stealing cars and stealing funds is different, but it is stealing. Once you steal, someone has a loss.

The problem you seem to understand, going out of business because I released wrong products or because someone released a crack is very different. In the second case something illegal happened. It is more like a thief overnight subtracted all our computers and we were not able to buy other ones and we decided to close the company
They are simple examples, I don't know what we have to argue here... Basic logic..

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

This affects the revenue, not the cost, and it only affects it if, and onld if, the pirate buys your software instead of pirating another one.

We have people every week who buy our DUNE 2 soundsets without actually owning DUNE 2, and despite the shop warning that a full, legit version is mandatory. Those customers complain then because they cannot use the purchased soundsets with their stolen version, since we protected the sets. So there is quite a number of people who apparently pirate in order to save money.

I often hear the idea that pirates would never buy anything anyways, but this is simply not based on facts. So we need to find ways to convince people to go legit and that purchasing our software is the right thing to do - we worked very hard on our plugins after all.

Richard

The problem is, we have to convince rationale people discussing these matters on this thread, go figure a young boy on torrent.

[mystran]

You are probably correct that the damage from stealing a car is proportional (not necessarily equal) to the cost of the car. In comparison, when someone illicitly distributes software (or a crack, whatever), that's comparable to stealing the design for said car and then producing free (or cheaper, whatever) cars to anyone who wants one. You could argue that you wouldn't have bought such a car if you didn't get it for free, but it should still be obvious that the total damage to the original manufacturer (who probably invested quite a bit on R&D to get those cars made) is likely to be far greater than just stealing a couple of cars, don't you think?

You talk about what dmg the cracker does to the company. That can be potentially huge, I agree.

Actually I don't think crackers can do much damage on their own. The people that are really causing damage are the crack distributors and these people are certainly not into it for any intellectual challenge, rather they are obviously there to serve a market (whether simply for street cred or actual monetary gain via ad revenue or similar). That market is created by people searching for said cracks in the first place.

If there was no market, there would be no distributors. If there was no distributors, then nobody would care if some college students (or whoever) want to entertain their brains by deciphering copy-protections. So ultimately the damage is caused by people creating the market for cracks and that is precisely all those people "who wouldn't have bought it the first place."

[FabienTDR]

I often hear the idea that pirates would never buy anything anyways, but this is simply not based on facts. So we need to find ways to convince people to go legit and that purchasing our software is the right thing to do - we worked very hard on our plugins after all.

IMO, repression is the wrong answer. An adequate answer would be a business model that embraces the downloader as a new potential customer rather than annoying him. In 2017, all newbies have a cracked software background. Mess with crack users and you effectively mess with all your future customer. The huge difference with this approach is the smile on ppls face when get their first Paypal account and rush to your shop and buy your affordable products. That's much easier on the nerves of all involved. At the end of the day, non legit uploads turn into free billboard adds for us.

The main copy protection in our case is the business model and presentation. Our clear commitment to B2C and fair pricing. A model that doesn't try to enforce the irrational notion that audio is a B2B business in 2017 (were costs are declared expenses of a company, not of an individual).

In 2017, a software business model that still depends on copy protection to breath isn't very clever. Moaning won't help, repressive copy protection doesn't solve anything either, it just moves the problem elsewhere (toward your legit customers, which is even worse).

"When two people quarrel, a third rejoices"

[PurpleSunray]

It's the same. If we want to argue about semantics, also stealing cars and stealing funds is different, but it is stealing. Once you steal, someone has a loss.

Well, if we don't argue about semantics we can close this topic.
Cracking is illegal. Pirating software is illegal. Period.

Stop working on copy protection and add a honey pots instead - let ppl crack and install the crack and then collect information about the user and send it to the next police station, your lawer and sue them so that you get your money. You maybe even get indemnification so a person using a cracked version would actually bring more revenue than one that has legal copy.
Do like the movie instrusty.. upload movies to your own torrent on puprose, collect IPs of users that download it and send adhortatory letters. There are lawers out there that do nothing else but this.. collect IPs, get postal address from ISV and send the bill.

For you a priate is a lost customer that could have paid instead. So you try everthing to avoid pirates.
All I'm asking for is try to consider a pirate a potential customer for a moment. One that might want to buy your software in the future.
The advantage a pirate has over a potential customer that does not know you company yet - is that he is familiar with your product and knows you.
This was a the very first on our sale strategy: get distribution.
People must install the software, so that they get used it, you can show update notices, link them to your page, ..
we had varios channels to that: demo donwload, OEM version, magazine freebies, ... illegal copies.
If you strip illegal copies out from that list, just because stealing is illegal, you dropped connection to this potential customers.

But I feel like I'm repeating myself
I can only quote our old sales director with "getting money from a priate of our sotfware, is way easier than convincing a person to buy our software that has never seen it before."

[PurpleSunray]

IMO, repression is the wrong answer. An adequate answer would be a business model that embraces the downloaded as a new potential customer rather than annoying him.

At least one got what I'm trying to say

[Richard_Synapse]

I often hear the idea that pirates would never buy anything anyways, but this is simply not based on facts. So we need to find ways to convince people to go legit and that purchasing our software is the right thing to do - we worked very hard on our plugins after all.

IMO, repression is the wrong answer.

I never wrote that. My point was to debunk the myth that pirate users are always broke and could never afford software in the first place. There even has been cases of successful music producers using cracked plugins.

Regarding young people, we offer a 50% educational discount and quite a few other companies do as well, to my knowledge. And even for people who are completely broke there is ways to get full versions for free - see all the competitions, giveaways, etc. Or simply become a beta tester, most companies reward beta testers with full unlimited versions.

Richard