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Independent Developers Fight Piracy & Lose
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:39 PM
from the how-to-fight-it dept.
from the how-to-fight-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The author of the Echelon decided to take his fight against software piracy to the next level and then threw in the towel. After someone began posting new serial numbers on a well known hacking site, the author took matters into his own hands. With version 1.0, entering a hacked serial number causes the software deleted the user's Home directory. Yes, you read it right, the software completely erases it (aka rm -rf ~). A variety of people have voiced some some strong opinions on this. While some argue that piracy is good for established companies, a few large companies are battling piracy and having limited success. Small, independent developers, however, are recognising this is a serious problem and are generally stumped by what to do about it."
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Software Deletes Files to Defend Against Piracy 544 comments
teamhasnoi writes "Back in 2004, we discussed a program that deleted your home directory on entry of a pirated serial number. Now, a new developer is using the same method to protect his software, aptly named Display Eater. In the developers's own words, 'There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.'"
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Oh dear... (Score:5, Funny)
A Better Idea (Score:5, Funny)
The decryption key will be provided when the product is registered.
-Mike
Re:A Better Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The decryption key will be provided when the product is registered.
This is likely to be only slightly less illegal than deleting someone's files.
Effectivly you'd be holding someone's data to ransom.
Parent
Not portable (Score:5, Funny)
A few things... (Score:5, Informative)
I always thought it was kind of ironic when the small people back the groups like SPA / BSA. Those "industry" groups represent those who fund them, and AFAIK will do nothing for the little guy. They are funded by the big players.
There have been a few other similiar cases. I believe one of the popular Windows CD recording packages would burn garbage CDs if you entered the wrong serial number, or entered one of the popular serial numbers found on google.
While I sympathize, this is going to far. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:While I sympathize, this is going to far. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm working on designing my site so that the keys are available on a web-based DB. Do an MD5 on the key, and match hashes with with the one on-line at program startup. No match, no save capability. Too many people going for one key? Disable that key.
Have the program run OK if it fails once or twice in a row, but the third time, the program dies until it can check its key.
People may still be able to crack your software (No real defense against people rewriting your program...), but keygens and re-used keys become a rarity.
~D
Parent
Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Firstly, as far as I can tell your product is an HTML editor with no CSS support. Well, these days that's like trying to sell a graphics editor that doesn't do PNG, or an e-mail program that doesn't handle attachments. Even people who don't want to do their entire site design in CSS still want to be able to do the neat stuff you can only do with CSS.
2. Related to the above, HTML standards have changed a bit in the last 5 years, and you haven't kept up to date by the looks of things. Not valid XHTML, no DTD statement, and so on.
3. You've chosen a field where there is massive amounts of competition, and that's never a good way to make money. Everyone and his dog has made a simple text editor that handles HTML and makes it a bit easier. So, even if you had the best HTML editor in the world, I still wouldn't expect you to be raking in big bucks, because you'd be up against at least half a dozen big companies with big advertising dollars, shelf space in every Best Buy, and major mindshare.
4. Think about who your target market is. You're not going to stand a chance of cracking the pro web designer market with the product you have; pro web designers need CSS, template libraries, DTD validation, image slicing, applet and plugin integration, and so on. At the opposite end, you're not going to get the Joe Sixpack market either, because they'll see raw HTML and recoil in horror. So, you're going after what I'll call the "dabbler" market--people who've learned a bit of HTML for fun and want to build a small personal web site. That's a pretty small niche to be in.
5. You don't have enough differentiation from the free offerings for that niche, in my view. Every half-decent free text editor can edit HTML with syntax coloring, and usually validate it and generate IMG tags too. You clearly know what your differentiators are, which is good: they're the table editor, the form editor and the frameset editor, and maybe the font dialog if it supported CSS, which it doesn't. Trouble is, dabblers generally don't need forms or tabular data--they use tables for layout, which it doesn't look as if your table editor is suitable for. They sometimes use framesets, but most of them know by now that frames suck. So, what can your product do that makes it an essential $20 upgrade from vim or jEdit? Nothing as far as I can see, and...
6.
I don't honestly think that you can hope to make money in the market you're currently aiming at. To do so, you'd have to fix all the defects and shortcomings, and then come up with some "killer app" functionality to beat Mozilla Composer, jEdit and the rest.
So you'd have to get up to date with the standards, and support XHTML and CSS. Then you'd need to add all the other features the free text editors have that people just expect these days, like file browsers, folding, abbreviations/macros, regexp search and replace, autosave, bracket/tag matching, multiple cut/paste buffers, and spelling correction. And then, you'd need to add more compelling features, like a graphical color selector with tools to help users pick complementary colors, and something to search and replace across multiple pages.
That's a hell of a lot of work for a product which, realistically, people would still only pay $20 or $30 for. If I were you, I'd cut your losses and write software that does something nobody else has done yet, or nobody has done cheaply, or nobody else has done well.
Parent
Re:While I sympathize, this is going to far. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummmmm.... By definition, they are not customers becuase they haven't purchased anything yet.
Parent
Re:While I sympathize, this is going to far. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an example,
there are gobs of DVD authoring apps out there, Most in the $199-$399 price range with the most expensive beign Scenerist at $30K+ All the cheap DVD authoring apps suck and make you do their "templates" that all look cheezy and crappy. So DVD authoring apps are pirated by most Indie and enthusiast movie makers.
A year ago I found DVDlab, something with almost as much power as Scenarist and it costs $99.00.
out of the 20 or so Indoe film Makers that had pirated versions of other DVD authoring apps, all but 3 of them have bought DVDlab.
why?
because it's affordable.
software price is the #1 cause of piracy. why the hell pirate something when it's easier and cheaper to simply buy it?
Most people are suspicious of software today. they are used to spending big $$$ for utter crap that only barely does what is promised. (Final Draft for example!) They are tired of being extored at every turn and paying huge $$$ to some guy that thinks being a programmer is worth more per hour than the engineers making high end bikes and other physical items that they know they own.
Software is overpriced, espically consumer grade software.
Parent
Typo in the headline! (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, what was his clickthru license like? (Score:5, Insightful)
A New Slogan (Score:5, Funny)
What the h*ll? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disable your own software, do bad encodes, draw goatse/tubgirl images on the encodings, but dont, DONT mess with files that doesn't belong to your program.
This is just plain immature, not to mention very wrong.
And yes, it seems like the author already removed it, but putting it there in the first place is bad.
Mixed feelings about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
As a software developer, I feel that I ought to get paid for the work I do. I do work for a company that pays me to develop, so it's really their responsibility to make sure their software isn't pirated (if they want to protect their business).
Nevertheless, I feel that piracy can be benefically to any company, regardless of size. I think that it may even help smaller companies more than larger companies, because piracy may be the vehicle in which a particual software package becomes very popular. However, one has to realize that 100% of software can't be pirated, otherwise nobody would develop anything meaningful (excepting the free software movement, but that's something pretty special [and I do wholeheartedly support it, even with LOC when I can]--I am speaking in a manner of business). Like most things in economics, it probably requires the right critical mass (you need to have the right number/ratio of people buying your software to make you profitable, but you need to have a certian number/ratio of people pirating it to make it popular).
I never think that software should ever use measures that destroy your property (digital or otherwise) as a means to prevent piracy. I am glad that the author of the software mentioned above took out the folder deleting technique--I cannot believe he did that in the first place.
Completely Unacceptable (Score:5, Informative)
If the author of the software had simply deleted the software itself, or disabled it in some way, this could be acceptable, but deleting a user's home directory goes WAAAAY over the line.
A good general guideline for ethical behavior in CS is theACM Code of ethics. This violates several points, including: [acm.org]
1.2 Avoid harm to others.
1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
1.7 Respect the privacy of others.
(1.2 is the most applicable here, I think)
Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Free software depends on adherence by users to an agreement with the developers not to illegally use the software in a proprietary manner. If we expect people to abide by free software licenses, we have to abide by commercial software licenses too.
In my opinion, the only thing he did wrong was to not put a clause into his license that when the user clicks on it specifically authorizes the code to delete the home directory if it chooses to.
Stop stealing music, software, etc. while at the same time expecting free software to remain free. It's hypocrisy.
hitting back is illegal all the same (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I can understand the difficult situation of small companies defending theirselves (we've also had to deal with similar situations lately).
I just don't accept this course of action. It just doesn't make him any different. Acting like this just proves his ignorance and inability to come up with a suitable defense (has not to be perfect, just enough to generate some reasonable income).
Developers still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Spending time trying to convert them into customers is completely wasted. Stop them from using your program with a perfect protection scheme, and all they'll do is use a different program.
Do it in a rediculous manner like this joker, and all you're going to do is drive away your legitimate customers. I wouldn't pay for this thing in a million years. Who knows what crap this thing could pull in the future? All it takes is one bug, and suddenly it thinks legit users are pirates...
This stunt he pulled has caused far more loss of sales for him than any software piracy.
Oh, the irony... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure Echelon had legitimate uses (yeah, right) but how many of us can say that we use programs like this in order to convert our holiday movies from mpg to avi, and *never* rip a DVD?
In other news, local pot calls kettle black...
Re:Oh, the irony... (Score:5, Informative)
So, he wrote a program whose main audience was people who violate copyright, and was then surprised to find people pirating his software? Oh, cry me a river.
I feel the same way about people who write shareware "file sharing" applications, and then act all irate when we share the registration codes for those applications. If you don't want your work to be ripped off, it'd help if you didn't go out of your way to assist people in ripping off the work of others. I've registered fifteen pieces of shareware, but I'm sure as hell not registering "file sharing" software.
Plus, the "meat" of his software was apparently GPLed projects such as ffmpeg anyway...
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tools like these should also have a built-in sunset date. If, in fifteen years, someone is using this ancient copy of your software b/c they can't purchase it... just let it go.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:chroot jail (Score:5, Insightful)
Still kind of funny that a textbook suggests this
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think he'd have faced a lot of criticism if the software's reaction was that mild. However, he might have caught a lot of heat if it happened accidentally with a legit user.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Interesting)
At the time, they weren't using serial numbers as copy control. The floppy had some kind of copy protection on it (a "diskcopy" wouldn't work), and it wrote some files in the install directory that were marked system and read-only. You couldn't touch these files. If they got moved by a defrag program (for example), the program would zap itself. (I found that out the hard way. It was not mentioned anywhere in the manual.)
Doing this is probably the only legally defendable kind of destructive copy-protection. If the user pirates your software, he has done something illegal. That does not give you the right to do something illegal back to him. If he has no right to run your software in the first place, then there's nothing wrong with your software deleting itself, since he shouldn't have it in the first place.
As with my example above, when implementing destructive copy-protection, you must be very careful to make sure it won't backfire on legitimate users. I did own a legal copy of Lotus 1-2-3, which I had installed from the original disks. I didn't know that allowing the file to be moved by my defragger would cause the program to think it was pirated. Suppose Lotus had decided to delete my data files (no "home directory" on DOS) instead of just the 123 program? Then I would have lost my data even though I was a legitimate owner of the program and I was doing nothing wrong, according to the software manual. As it was, instead of losing my data, I only lost about half an hour of time performing a re-install.
Parent
Re: Not far enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
What, excatly speaking, does open source movement have to do with piracy ? Open source is all about making the source code of the program available to the end user; it has nothing whatsoever to do with removing copy protection from closed-source programs.
Furthermore, all the various stupid copy protections do is make cracks sometimes an absolutely neccessary part in getting the program to run. For example, the (legally bought) game Morrowind kept crashing on my machine at startup because of copy protection check; applying the no-cd crack solved the problem completely. Copy protection does not slow pirates in any significant way, it simply annoys legal users.
And deleting the users home directory simply ensures that no one will buy your products out of fear of them deleting their directories because of typos when entering serials or programming errors.
Parent
Illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the program instead followed your suggestion (never minding the permission issues - it would have to be run as root) and deleted system software, what would happen if the program was run on a production server? Sure, it really ticks off the user, but a lot of things on the server for all users would grind to a halt until the deleted files are replaced. You just can't justify doing something this drastic.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Rediculous extremes (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of anti-piracy measures is, presumably, to reduce piracy. When you decide you're going to take revenge on anyone who pirates, all you are going to do is drive away people who might otherwise pay for the software. Nobody says "gee that guy wiped out my hard drive. I should pay for the software I stole from him." Would you do it if you were in that position?
The pirates will continue to pirate, while finding a way to make the program work without permissions to do anything harmful. The innocent user who enters the activation key incorrectly will likely be harmed by this. And the developer will lose future business, and rightly so. And if serious damage were caused, they will face a lawsuit.
If there are any developers out there thinking about doing something stupid like this, please reconsider. It will not help you in any way; it will only hurt you. I for one will never install software that has provisions to wipe out my home directory. What if it does so by mistake?
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
When you download something of the official site, it will not work, spy on you, advertise random crap and now delete you home directory; but if you download it from a warez site, it is clean and functional. This counts even for software bought in shops, like Windows XP, which doesnt require "activation" in the cracked versions.
No wonder piracy is on a rise!
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
-jcr
Parent
Better yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, in order to get the code, the person in question must prove their own identity... Opening themselves to criminal and civil charges.
I like that.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides that you have a legal problem. I'm fairly sure that somebody could argue that even though they caused you a $100 of loss (or whatever it costs), the nuked home directory caused $10K of loss. That kind of thing could turn out *really* ugly.
Parent
How about enlightened self interest (Re:Too Far?) (Score:5, Insightful)
However, consider the consequences. The publisher could get sued. Sure, he probably will (might?) win, but it costs money to defend. Oops, there goes more profit. The publisher loses goodwill (hard to define-but not all publicity is good publicity....). Oh, and maybe the publisher gets hacked/cracked by someone he has pissed off (people pirating software may not have the strongest morals/ethics/logic but some may be good at computers). Oops. There goes more profit.
In short, I see a lot of downside and little upside. And I sure as heck wouldn't want to use a product as a LEGITIMATE user if I knew it was designed to screw up my system (even if only for illegitimate users).
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whats funny is you mention this in the terms of being a musician.
I have worked on a number of music software applications over the last few years from anything from being a beta tester to designing the GUI for guys that have a great product, but a shitty interface.
And this is this same exact arguement used everywhere -- its just free advertisement. Or if I use it to make money, I'll pay for it. Or I'm just a little guy, and the pros should have to pay since I haven't had my first hit yet.
In this area, I've *NEVER* seen a pro pay for professional music software...if you are making money off of it, you will more than likely get it given to you for free. Hell, I haven't paid for 90% of the software I've been given -- and most of it sits in its box on the shelf as the software I *USE* is almost the inverse of this (for some reason, I'm more likely to use the stuff I pay for -- it has real value to me).
But the thinking goes, being a paid musician is like winning a spot on a basketball team -- there are only so many spots opening a year, and most likely its not going to be you. So the software is given to the professionals to advertise to the little guys...I don't know how many times folks will come to my studio and ask what I'm using, only to run out and buy it thinking that it means they can leave me outta the mix, so to speak...only to realize you can't buy talent out of a box -- it comes from years of hard work.
So honestly, the software is sold entirely to the guys that can't make a buck and most likely will never make a buck. Great guys -- and a lot with real talent, but really don't want to do anything but play on weekends with a bunch of friends.
Anywho, the companies advertise as they feel like advertising and need no help from anyone else. I wish there was a decent way to prevent piracy but the folks that want everyone elses hardwork without doing anything for it want to be rebels. Its like the fuckwad kids that think stealing their instruments make them an authentic punk band even though they are from the suburbs.
I love free software and have contributed to some of it -- in my day job we give away several packages I've solely designed and developed, but all in all, folks need to respect the opinion of those that provided the software...even if there were no laws preventing the copying of software or music or whatever, you'd think folks would have the decency to understand that if someone creates something they should have the ultimate say on how its used. If ya don't like that, you are free to develop your own...its not like the ideas are that hard to come up with, and an army of OSS programmers should be able to replicate anything who can give their software away under the ideals they wish it to be released...
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a civilized society, consequences are doled out by a court of law, not by vigilantes their software.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if my hard drive were trashed by such a program, I would sue (yeah, it's probably in the EULA that they can do that, but there's a good chance that such a clause will be neemed null and void).
In normal (non-internet) society, such an action would be the revenge a phycho would extract by killing the person sleeping with his girlfriend.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Untrue
It's not common, but when I lose my key to a software product I have paid for, I don't bother with the (sometimes) huge hassle of trying to get it again. Over the past 7-8 years I'm sure I've registered many different software packages with many different email addresses so I usually have no idea what one goes with what software package.
I am in no way stealing. This guy is out of line. Removing the home directory of a user is ridiculous. Just delete the f'en product directory.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAH, but I play one on hackthissite dot org.
I have spent hours learning to hack websites, applications and databases, I'm not great, but I found the process of learning fun.
I don't think you can dissuade people from cracking your apps by making it hard work, the harder it is, the more credibility you get in cracking circles.
The thing that gets to me is that coders and packagers can spend so long trying to lock up their apps that they spend time on that which could be spent debugging or advertising, fundraising for the next version or putting eye candy in the app so that the people who actually pay for software will find it attractive and pay for it because it looks professional.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
if status=valid,
run normally
else
delete all files
end if
If the stupid program can tell when a fake number is entered, it should simply refuse to run.
Parent
Re:Too Far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Check the EULA (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Check the EULA (Score:5, Insightful)
A provision in a license does not give someone superpowers over you. The only remedy legally available to software distributors/makers/developers that have users who are breaking the terms of the license is: termination of the license. There is no way to legally destroy files on a user's machine no matter what they have done to you.
-Jem
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