Just found my cracked plugin listed on the web

[Vertion]

Anti-Piracy of the Future : "We've dedicated over 11.7 Trillion Dollars, 24 mega-structure graphene-composite state-of-the-art buildings holding over 72 Next Gen D-Wave quantum computers, 30 data centers processing over 99 exoflops, cryo-cooled to absolute zero, so that you can make the next Top of the Charts chiptune.

Just one question, did you happen to bring your dongle that activates the entire system? What do you mean you lost it while riding a rollercoaster? Apparently you can still activate and use it with a quantum fiber optic high speed cable. What? You only have a cell phone that has 500mb of 2G internet access per month? What do you mean you changed your mind and what the heck is One Ping Only?"

[Vokbuz]

Well off-hand I know entire industries built on Cloud Computing that does instant voice and face recognition.

This is ML and it uses vendor provided types of services that are maintained by that vendor. For your custom code it is your responsibility to deploy, monitor and maintain instances and code running on them even in "clouds".

I'm not sure if they have any pirated software out there, but if they do I''m sure it's malware. They also have a few online DAW's like Odesi also by Mixed In Key.

Online DAW does not mean that processing involves network requests.

DSP in real-time will come with Quantum Computing, otherwise that's heavy lifting you'll have to do on the client end. I'm not an expert, so you'll have to excuse my weak observation.

I heard the same about GPU. Quantum computers are completely different from modern computers. You can't run existing algorithms on them because quantum computers use completely different basic operations.

[Tj Shredder]

You should release your own „cracked“ version before the competition does, but place a crypto currency miner into it... I won‘t be fun to produce with such a CPU hog in there...

[quikquak]

You should release your own „cracked“ version before the competition does, but place a crypto currency miner into it... I won‘t be fun to produce with such a CPU hog in there...

That'll just give a moment of satisfaction and a long lasting bad reputation - people will see your plug and connect the poor performance to you directly.

[Topcheese]

You know there have been some good ideas, but the crypto miner might not be such a bad idea over offering limited demos. I think as long as it didn't degrade performance too much, then it's better than having a bunch of ads cluttering the interface?

[Vertion]

Too much copy protection and overbearing anti-competitive measures hurts customer relationships, put the customer first:

[planetearth]

I just found my best-selling plugin listed on "mod edit" which appears to be a cracked software sharing website disguised as a "forum".

OK, now what? Any way to fight this bane of the software world?

If you're based in the US, you can send the site a "take down" request, under the DMCA: https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/

Steve

[BONES]

I just found my best-selling plugin listed on "mod edit" which appears to be a cracked software sharing website disguised as a "forum".

Welcome to the internet. Our albums get cracked the week they're released and I once discovered someone selling a bundle of my free SynthEdit synths on eBay for $50. Some people are just c**ts and the harder you make it for them, the more likely they are to see it as a challenge. Best to forget about it, you certainly can't stop it.

[markryder]

just add code to wipe all their audio units if some check is not met at your server after about 3 months of trying to connect with the correct replay from the server! They will think twice about installing cracks again !

if they have any legit software plugins they can just go and get them again from the developer otherwise is a great session in theft.

[ralfrobert]

just add code to wipe all their audio units if some check is not met at your server after about 3 months of trying to connect with the correct replay from the server! They will think twice about installing cracks again !

if they have any legit software plugins they can just go and get them again from the developer otherwise is a great session in theft.

I doubt this is legal to do.

When I started to produce music "in the box" some years ago, I bought Reaper and then went for free plugins (Blue Cat, Melda, TAL, TDR, etc.). I see these pieces of software as "tools" (... and sometimes toys), so purchasing them is an investment for me. And I want the stuff for several years, including the possibility to contact support when something goes wrong. Plugins and other software have become a big investment over the years. But that's ok, because if my hobby was carpentry, I would need tools, too.

Honestly, I do not quite understand people using pirated software only. First, there are free alternatives. Second, one has to understand development, support and everything around a plugin is a lot of work and has to be paid for.

On last thing: I met several people on the second-hand market who had very little money. The software they bought cost them 5 Euros, and this was a serious amount of money for them, but they still tried to play by the rules and be honest. There are great people around everywhere in the world.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

Last year or so a good developer had a meltdown because they found their product cracked. That episode eroded the company and the products to the point they are almost gone. Not because people cracked it. But the reaction to it. Dont let it affect you
I would venture to guess 80% of the folk using cracked software would never buy software. Also their use and promotion of it drives the folk that would buy it to buy it.

....and then there is Karma. I certainly would not want to produce my "valuable music" with something I stole. Maybe struggling to get ones music heard is a result of one using cracked tools.

[S0lo]

I would venture to guess 80% of the folk using cracked software would never buy software. Also their use and promotion of it drives the folk that would buy it to buy it.

I have an opinion on this that I think most developers would disagree with!!

I think most people who use pirated software come from whole cultures that use them. And therefor they would never actually buy software. They are practically a dead market place. There is no protection that you can do that can make them change their mind and buy your software. If they can't get it cracked, they won't get it.

On the other hand, most people who buy software, never use pirated. May be they just used pirated when they where young teens but now they've grown out of this habit. Again in this case, lessening or increasing your software protection would probably not make these people change their mind.

It's like two cultures that exist is separate islands. There might be a minority that would move from one island to another. But for the most part, they are separate.

Thats why I deliberately just do a minimum protection. At least in this case a legit customer doesn't have to suffer too much of a hassle when changing computers or moving licenses. Activation limits, and these shenanigans.

[resynthesis]

Didn't Urs once write that he actually gets a fair bit of business from cracked versions? I think he pops a message and link up when his software detects a crack. Maybe some people just need a bit of encouragement (easier if your software is outstanding quality I suppose).

[JerGoertz]

If you read the big copy protection thread linked above, you'll see that there are clever ways to embed CP such that crackers "think" they've broken it, but later a time-delayed check reveals this as false. One relatively small developer said they hadn't seen new cracks of their products in over 2 years.

So, it sounds like effective CP is possible, but maybe just requires a bit of investment.

[Urs]

Didn't Urs once write that he actually gets a fair bit of business from cracked versions? I think he pops a message and link up when his software detects a crack. Maybe some people just need a bit of encouragement (easier if your software is outstanding quality I suppose).

Yes. The idea is to do delayed checks, which are hard to crack (can't find them with breakpoints). A really good delayed check is to trace how long an instance has been used and how much the user interacted with it. So if one can find a metric of "how much does this person rely on this software?" and react only if that's lot, then one can be sure that "oh, sorry, this demo has expired" will be quite encouraging.

It is also possible to quantify the effect piracy has on sales. We were once able to compare the development of Mac sales vs. PC/Win sales at a point of time where a crack for only one of the two platforms emerged. It's eye popping. Not devastating, but also not brushed off easily.