Software Theft
Posted by: YATESP <YATESP@...>
I am writing this letter to you as an open letter to the mail list since I
thought you might get a few ideas from the assembled users ....
I have just returned from a business trip in Asia, which ended up in
Singapore. On a day off, I went to a shopping mall called Sim Lim Square ,
which is five floors of electronics, cameras, and computery.
Browsing around the several hundred shops, there were many small shops
selling pirated software - all of which are on CD. Since this was the first
time I d seen such a mass of pirated software, I took a closer look.
As you might expect, 99.9% of the software was DOS / Windows related, but I
came across three CDs full of Mac software. One single CD had on it full
installer versions + registration codes for every big software package for
the Mac - Adobe Photoshop 4.1, Illustrator, Clarisworks 5, numerous big 3D
packages, etc. On one single disc, they had around 50 different software
packages, and some of this was software I d only just bought in the UK before
I left. These were printed CDs, by the way, not CD-R.
If you looked at the Windows stuff, you could buy virtually anything,
including NT servers, etc. The CDs almost certainly originated in Thailand.
And as you ll have probably guessed by now, a full and complete version of
FBII was on one of the discs.
My own personal view is that you ll never stop this kind of piracy - if Bill
Gates can t crack it, you don t stand much chance.
For what it s worth, I think that all you can hope to do is to reduce the
usefulness of your software in electronic form - perhaps only release
electronic versions of the documentation to pre-registered users, or require
dynamic passwords every time the software is installed. For example, I can
more or less work out how to use Adobe Photoshop without a manual, but I
could never crack FBIII in the same way.
Now there s nothing to stop someone in Thailand buying a full copy of FBIII,
and the electronic documentation, and then pirating it. And so you need a
registration code you can backtrack from, and at least try to nail the
originator.
As always, there s a balance between causing major annoyance to your
legitimate customers, and reducing the effectiveness of the piracy. As I only
sell very small numbers of specialised packages, I use a dongle, but this
would be out of the question on something like FBIII.
Speaking personally, I will do everything I can to help in reducing the
effectiveness of piracy on products such as FBIII from small companies, if
only because the more the product is pirated, the less revenue Staz gets, the
higher the cost for the rest of us, and the more difficult it becomes for
Staz to support the product.
Oh and by the way, how much does each CD cost ? Eight Singapore dollars -
just under Five US dollars.
I open this to your suggestions ......
Phil Yates
Phil.Yates@btinternet.com