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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 22 2014, @02:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the questions-without-answers dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?

It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by akinliat on Saturday March 22 2014, @03:07AM

    by akinliat (1898) <{akinliat} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday March 22 2014, @03:07AM (#19586)

    Yes. Charge a fair price.

    It's really just that simple. Take Snow Leopard, for instance. I could have pirated it, because I really wouldn't have wanted to spend money on something that I wasn't really going to use or need (I was just curious and wanted to play with it a bit).

    But Apple only charged $40 for a CD. Forty lousy bucks. I pay more for a tank of gas. For that little money, it just wasn't worth the effort to pirate a copy.

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  • (Score: 1) by ramloss on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:29AM

    by ramloss (1150) on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:29AM (#19610)

    In addition to a fair price, sell it to me! Please shut up and take my money!. Look, I'm not in the USA or Europe; but I can walk into a Walmart or equivalent and buy an iTunes card with cold, hard cash an then proceed to buy apps for my ipod or mac. No (international) credit card, nothing, just cash and I can buy reasonably priced software. Imagine selling hundreds of millions of copies of your software, that way you can afford to sell it for a few US$. Think about India, China, Latin America or Africa, there are literally billions of people that could potentially buy your software if only you could sell it to them, bonus points if it doesn't cost more than one month's salary.
    On the other hand, if you software is so specialized that only a few people would want it, just use a hardware dongle and be done with it; hell, in that case just keep a registry of all your clients, make the software phone home and contact the client that dares to install it in more machines that you allow them to. Better yet, make your lawyers contact them, that'll teach those bastards!.

    • (Score: 1) by spxero on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:22PM

      by spxero (3061) on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:22PM (#19733)

      I agree wholeheartedly with this- make it easy, but if only a few people use your software make it phone home and require a USB dongle.

      The only other option if you want to completely lock down AND charge a premium for your software is to change to a SaaS model. Supply your app in a terminal server environment, Citrix, or some other VDI environment. But also be prepared to keep up with supporting the infrastructure, keeping a tight grip on customers, and rely heavy on support.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @06:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 22 2014, @06:13AM (#19622)

    But Apple only charged $40 for a CD.

    I chucled at the prices on eBay for it since
    you can buy it today for $20 from Apple.

  • (Score: 1) by Cyberdyne on Sunday March 23 2014, @06:55AM

    by Cyberdyne (403) on Sunday March 23 2014, @06:55AM (#19893)

    "Charge a fair price. It's really just that simple."

    Not quite. It is also a matter of "available payment options" and issues with identity theft. i.e. I wouldn't buy anything with Paypal, no matter how cheap it was. I get stuff for free because it's quicker and more anonymous. Price rarely has anything to do with it.