More copy protection...

[FabienTDR]

I wrote this in agreement to your post. Wasn't a critique.

[Vertion]

My one year old son is quite the joker. I take something away from him (the TV remote) and he wants it back, if I freely give it back he no longer wants it. If he manages to pull it from my hands, he wants to keep it.

Perceived Mutual Fairness and the Ownership of Choice
You show me something I like, so now I want it freely, so that I might enjoy it.
You tell me I cannot have it. It pains me not to enjoy this which I want.
Is this a fair situation? If I judge it as not, I judge you as the source of my pain and that which stands in the
way of me and what I want.
Was what I shown true or false? Was I shown what I wanted or was I deceived?

Both Joe (Paying Customer) and Jack (Cracker/Unpaying Customer) enjoy using the product. Either they can pay or they cannot. If they cannot pay all at once, can they pay in installments (rent to own)?

"I only have 20 dollars on any given day. How can I afford a 150 dollar synth/effect? But I really want it and I can't wait.. plus it's not even worth 150. I'll just download the crack, yea I feel bad, but who cares, they just want a bunch of money I don't have." - Jack

Developer sees cracked software, loss in profit. Most potential customers are those without much money, but ego and wallet of developer sees deadbeats and thieves, so they up the ante with better copy protection and prepare for war.

Now Jack can't use the software, so he has options. He looks for a newer and better crack, and older release, or looks to torrents. If Jack has his "I'm so 1337" hat on, could crack it himself. Or gets bored and moves on to the next software. Still won't pay, and assumes he can't afford, because of the price barrier to his wallet. He weighs subscriptions, but already has no money, and doesn't want to feel a loss of control over his little money. Subscriptions means a loss of control, no feeling of ownership, and a loss of choice. The only working pricing model would have to bend to Jack's small wallet and bad saving habits. Jack prefers humble and fair companies, will buy on fairness and guilt. Jack will buy from an underdog modelled company that appeals to his sense of choice and poor saving skills.

Joe takes the collateral damage of this battle, now having to deal with extra hurdles to use his paid software, and always has more obstacles to deal with, another dongle, another download manager, another license manager, another license to transfer if he ever need to reinstall on his own machine, etc. Joe feels resentment towards the company, as he only sees the obstacle. Joe prefers companies/products with less copy protection.

Pride is the enemy. Don't go to war with Jack because he doesn't fit into your model. Jack has money, but not much at any given moment. Assume a crack will always exist for your software going forwards in your plans, it's the only way to counter the issue. Release your own cracks to compete with existing cracker groups, and mimic their releases with precision to undermine their credibility. I am on your side, as long as it is good and right I will back you up. If you attack Jack with pride, more cracks will be released. Humble yourself and work with Jack. If you can win Jack over to your side.. you win the war for good.

[Miles1981]

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?

There is a difference, you can't create a new car from nothing, whereas the pirates in your case may never buy the plugin anyway.
As I've said before, as long as you are confusing concrete examples for abstract objects, you won't convince the general population that pirating is bad.

[Miles1981]

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..

Still funds and stealing a car is the same. Stealing a plugin isn't. The former are a finite quantity, the second isn't. You can't use a metaphor of the second one with objects from the first category, the logic is by definition flawed.

[stratum]

... going out of business because I released wrong products or because someone released a crack is very different.

So make it imposible to crack. Few people can hear the subtle differences that harmonic distortion adds anyway. Put the license checking code to DSP code as Urs H. recommends and revert it to a linear EQ when license check fails. The cracker won't even notice it.

[lorcan]

Still funds and stealing a car is the same. Stealing a plugin isn't. The former are a finite quantity, the second isn't. You can't use a metaphor of the second one with objects from the first category, the logic is by definition flawed.

Perharps public transporation would be a better analogy for software. A ticket doesn't buy you the bus, it buys you the right to ride it for a day/hour.

Some people will say, hey if I don't buy a ticket and the bus isn't full, I'm not defrauding anybody ...
Thankfully not everyone follows this 'logic', otherwise there would be no one left to fund the service.
In effect the paying riders are effectively paying for those people who are fine with this individualistic behavior.

The costs of building and refueling a bus, paying the driver are fixed, so mechanically the price of fare goes up. Which gives an extra 'justification' for non paying riders to say, hey you know, I'd pay for the ticket if it wasn't so expensive.
Talk about circular reasoning ..

[PurpleSunray]

Perharps public transporation would be a better analogy for software. A ticket doesn't buy you the bus, it buys you the right to ride it for a day/hour.

Some people will say, hey if I don't buy a ticket and the bus isn't full, I'm not defrauding anybody ...
Thankfully not everyone follows this 'logic', otherwise there would be no one left to fund the service.
In effect the paying riders are effectively paying for those people who are fine with this individualistic behavior.

The costs of building and refueling a bus, paying the driver are fixed, so mechanically the price of fare goes up. Which gives an extra 'justification' for non paying riders to say, hey you know, I'd pay for the ticket if it wasn't so expensive.
Talk about circular reasoning ..

Going from reasoning (there is no point in dicussing this - ppl are like they are.. you cannot change them) to solution - a city I was living in, did run (maybe the sill run it) the following program:
if you get busted w/o ticket on the bus, you can decide if you
1) pay penalty
2) buy a monthly ticket ex post facto
Both is about the same price.

Guess what most ppl do... so instead of all the huzzle with penalty, involing police to get personal data, a pissed fare dodger because he got busted.. and a person that is likely to drive w/o ticket again (since he has even less money now after paying penalty) ...
they create paying cusomter instead (until end of month at least).

[AnX]

I love a bus analogy

[sjm]

Yeah, the whole problem with the "Piracy is Theft" mantra is that it doesn't resonate. It's the same as claiming that lighting a cigarette with another (already lit) cigarette constitutes lighter theft. People aren't going to buy the argument. That undermines the actual point you are trying to make, which is "Piracy is Bad" (in simple terms).

I get it that "Piracy is Copyright Infringement" doesn't have the same scary headline banner feel to it. But that's good. If people want to have a rational argument about an important issue, muddying the field with simplified slogans and tabloid headlines is the wrong way to do that. That's the opposite of rational discourse.

The simple underlying reason why you should buy software is simply that if no one buys the software, there will only be the free stuff left. Software may be (essentially) free to copy/distribute, but it is not free to make. So all arguments about cars or whatever other physical products are also largely moot.

It's not about unit costs or whatever, is about whether you value another human or not. If you were forced to work for free, you would not be happy. So why should software developers? If you appreciate someone's work, you reward them for it. If you don't, you pass on their offering. Unless someone is really giving something away, you don't take their work like an ungrateful bastard without showing your appreciation. Not because piracy is theft, but because that is just plain wrong. If it happened to you, you would feel betrayed and insulted - that's how you know it's wrong.

If the argument against piracy is strong enough to be put into simple terms that most people can relate to, there's no need to make absurd claims like "Piracy is theft" that nobody buys into. All you get is people ignoring the message because the slogan is nonsense. Do you really want people to switch off?

On which subject...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

If that's what your message comes across, of course people won't take it seriously.

[Vertion]

The best analogy for software is software. Knowing the nature of software is first and foremost.

1. All bits can be copied without end.
Once software is traded, it's on everyone's hard drive to infinity and beyond.

2. All bits are hardware (state) configurations.
All bits are simply setting something in the universe into one of two states. Like that of a traditional plugin preset, it is a precise setting of states.

3. Software is output of the heart and the mind.
I believe the true reason for copy protection is this. This is what hurts about both piracy and copy protection alike. It's about the heart, and the heart goes on for the good within it. This is the goal.

4. All working labyrinths are solvable.
If the computer can use the software, so can the user. Therefore attempting to confuse (and annoy) the user, but not the computer, is a fruitless journey, as there is ALWAYS a path through. If there is for the computer, therefore there must be for the user. Therefore usable software is always crackable.



EDIT: Simple pricing model: Try to keep most plugins in the 20-40 dollar range, but for those that are more:

Rent to own: Pay 10-20 monthly until the plugin is fully paid for, and then the license becomes permanent. If the user misses a montly payment before it is fully paid, the license is revoked and they must start again from the beginning. This fuses the advantages of subscription model with the user's need of ownership and the solves many issues for Jack's wallet and attitude. You are welcome to use this idea as it will benefit you (less cracks, more sales) and the entire market will improve (relationships positive).

In it's current state, this market will benefit from direction, not competition.

Richard: I noticed a new preset bank (soundset) was just released for Dune 2. That must mean you couldn't beat my score of 20040 in Ninja on DosBox. hehe

[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?

There is a difference, you can't create a new car from nothing, whereas the pirates in your case may never buy the plugin anyway.
As I've said before, as long as you are confusing concrete examples for abstract objects, you won't convince the general population that pirating is bad.

Pirating is bad, and illegal by definition, there is nothing to discuss. You are trying to make a distinction between software and hardware in 2017, where even a car like tesla is almost completely software and most of the car value is the autopilot, where the company is addressing almost all efforts and costs. This is anachronistic. Let's suppose you can print your car using a giant 3d printer and using illegally the autopilot paid by elon. He researched and paid for a thing he cannot make a business on any more. Which is translated to missing incomes and bankruptcy (and it could happen soon). But this is not related with my example, which is a reply to a different sentence, where I'm trying to explain why a security problem which apparently doesn't affect the company directly (cars are stolen from customers) is indeed affecting the whole business model creating financial issues (which someone a bit pedantic is here and there describing as missing incomes, forgetting apparently both costs and incomes are addends of the same equation, the "balance")

Btw: saying that software, because it is "soft" should be copied without being persecuted is basically against the new concept of hardware and software. Soon everything will be software and basically if we don't find a solution there will be a lot of cheap and strangely maintained matter which will affect our security, our lives and our healthiness every new second of our existence.

[Vertion]

A man travels back in time from today to the 80s, he warns the music business about the mighty MP3 that will one day swoop through and destroy the music business as they know it. But they all laughed, except for one guy, Tim.. who also believed in aliens. Tim was concerned dearly about the MP3, and wanted ways to stop the MP3 from existing, or if it did, to somehow control it. He researched how to stop all computers from exisiting, he researched how to monitor and control every radio by implanting a special chip, he researched how to keep the public in the dark on technologies. When the day came, none of these things works. People just found yet another work around, and copied those MP3s anyways. So the man took a nap and remembered he just traveled back to the 80s, what they heck is he doing? It's time to start google and retire on a private beach. Start MP3 and google.. go with it, not against it.. duh. We need to evolve, relying on old models of reality won't work moving forwards. The developers need to cross company lines and work closely and trade techniques and ideas to boost the field. Overcome the cracking obstacle with a new solution, we are makers of dreams that solve problems and make life better for everyone after all. If we can design a superior system in code, then we can design systems out here even better helping each other. Order has only one destination.

[stratum]

A man travels back in time from today to the 80s, he warns the music business about the mighty MP3 that will one day swoop through and destroy the music business as they know it. But they all laughed, except for one guy, Tim.. who also believed in aliens.

Back in the time when Steve Jobs was introducing the iPod (then iPhone and iPad) I could never guess it was all about raising money for self driving electric cars and that these gizmos were just a side show. Somehow some people actually know such things.

[Miles1981]

Pirating is bad, and illegal by definition, there is nothing to discuss. You are trying to make a distinction between software and hardware in 2017

Yes, I do make a difference, and you are misinterpreting what I say.
There is a difference, because you can't have Tesla software without the hardware. It's so blatant that their last iteration without Mobileye is not as performant as their Mobileye releases. It's not just about the software, it's also the hardware.

You are confusing two different worlds, as sjm says. One is theft, the other one is copyright infirgement. They are different issues and you can't educate people with mistakes like that. They just don't understand, and for a good reason, as they are indeed different problems with different solutions!

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Pirating is bad, and illegal by definition, there is nothing to discuss. You are trying to make a distinction between software and hardware in 2017

Yes, I do make a difference, and you are misinterpreting what I say.
There is a difference, because you can't have Tesla software without the hardware. It's so blatant that their last iteration without Mobileye is not as performant as their Mobileye releases. It's not just about the software, it's also the hardware.

You are confusing two different worlds, as sjm says. One is theft, the other one is copyright infirgement. They are different issues and you can't educate people with mistakes like that. They just don't understand, and for a good reason, as they are indeed different problems with different solutions!

Today, in a perfect moment where 3d printers are affordable and you can use 3d printers for printing other 3d printers, and you can use them for printing a car, the distinction between hardware and software doesn't make a sense any more. Your car in the immediate future will be "software".
They are printing "buildings", "boats", go figure smaller hardware objects.
Your car manufacturer is just a giant 3d printer.
And now tell me about your copyright infringement. And tell me how do you think the economy should work in this scenario.

To an other poster: the first time I used a mp3 (it was 1998 I think) I was mixing a song with a friend and I told him: "this is the end of the music as we know it". But even if I was aware about the problem there was just a little to do. Today I create audio software instead of mixing, and it was a good decision. I'm not rich (answer to the poster) but my forecast helped.
You cannot stop the future, like today you cannot stop ai, printers and the current trends. You can just try to surf the wave, possibly figuring the right future events