Depressing piracy statistic

This week, 90% of the attempts to activate FeedDemon have been with cracked serial numbers.

Comments

[Russ W]

That is a disappointing figure! It is very sad to think that society as a whole has so little integrity.

I guess that some more work COULD be done in the area of security on this, but the real question is: "Do you want to change the licensing code encryption to make it any more complex?"

How can we as licensed users help you to "police" this?

[Ron Green]

That's just really sad.

[Nolan]

Can I play devil's advocate for a second? Perhaps some of those users are just looking to try out the full functionality of the program for a while, and after deciding it's worth the money, will convert their cracked serial number into a legit one? Just an idea. *shrug*

[Nick Bradbury]

Russ, I'm honestly not aware of a way that customers police this, but I appreciate the offer.

No matter how much I try to protect my software, there will always be someone with more time on their hands who can crack it. What's more depressing is that this statistic only counts those who have attempted to activate using a cracked serial number - it doesn't include those who have circumvented the activation, nor does it include those using a valid serial number that has been shared with others.

[Nick Bradbury]

Nolan, while there may be a few people using a pirated version who later purchase it, I have to think they're in the extreme minority. After all, the FeedDemon trial version is full-featured, and it enables 20 days of usage before it expires.

[S. Housley]

Hey Nick,
I don't know if this will help but I saw something earlier this week on usenet about someone being blocked from downloading and vowing "revenge". Perhaps all of these attempts (or the bulk) of them are a single source.

The post is in soc.culture.singapore and its entitled "Blocked Again This Time Downloading FeedDemon".

HTH
Sharon Housley

[Jeff Lewis]

It sucks. I've decided to start giving away my products soon due to people just stealing my code. (And some even resaling it at theirs!)

[Nick Bradbury]

Thanks, Sharon. I've seen this usenet post, though, and it doesn't look like he wants to retaliate against FeedDemon - instead, it looks like he was blocked from downloading it, probably due to Singapore's internet censorship.

[Jason De Arte]

90% is the sort of sensationalist number that I would use to convince a middle manager that something is important ;-)
If I were in your place, I would be interested in finding out what IP ranges the bogus requests are comming from and what those registrations look like.
Ask yourself (and you may not want to answer here for obvious reasons)
1. Is it a select few that are pounding your servers in a futile attempt to devine your registration system?
2. Is it the same code, over and over again - possibly from a crack serial number site? Google can help.
3. Presuming that you can track the ip, version of feeddemon, and how many days are left in the trial, and posibly other usage information with each registration attempt - is it possible that these failed registrations are the act of average users that are prompted with the trial registration dialog every time the product starts and exits? I wouldn't put it past some users (my sister in law comes to mind) to type in their windows username/password in the licensed to/reg key fields - or just make up something to see if it works. Remember when 111111111111 worked for some versions of the MS Office installer?

Just something to think about. Comming from a guy that's delt with this sort of stuff before in his software.

Happy New Year

[Nick Bradbury]

Jason, the failed activation attempts came from a variety of IP addresses, and the ones to which I'm referring all used serial numbers I've found on warez sites. So, these aren't random serial numbers, nor are the activation attempts made by a select few. Wish you were right, though :)

[Eric Rines]

That is a sad figure, and the exuse of trying the full version before buying isn't really legit for isn't FeedDemon a full 30-day trial?.

~ an extremely satisfied customer!

[Felix]

Well 2 good things are pointed to by your statistic:

- FeedDemon must be in high demand, if people are willing to go to the trouble of looking for a cracked version.

- The fact that you have caught the cracked serials proves that your activation system works, and hopefuilly some of the people denied activation will go on to buy a copy.

[Dustin Sacks]

That is a pretty depressing figure. Do you try and convince any of these people to become paying users? Give them a strong statement like "You tried to use a stolen serial number. I constantly scour the internet to eliminate such things. Your only solution is to buy now."

Of course it is impossible to convert some users. However the ones that actively search for a FeedDemon code obviously want it. I bet you could get some as paying users.

[Duane Mohney]

That is a sad statistic.

[Basil]

And I was one of them!

[Dante Evans]

Perhaps you should lower the price? $29.95 seems a little steep, why not lower it to $19.95?

[Brad]

Hello Nick,

I'm not aware of the precautions you use to combat software privacy, but one idea (if you're not already doing this) is to authenticate every time FeedDemon is started.

This would prevent users using fake serials.

Of course the actual EXE can be tampered with and distributed, but you can check for thinks such as file size (If the file's size has been modified, don't start the program).

I remember hearing about FlashFXP doing unexpected things when it found a user with a fake serial. It would delete all of your sites, change your settings, etc..

Basically they made it very frustrating to use a pirated version. I'm not sure how that worked out for them, but I think that might be a way to force users to register and avoid all of the headaches.

Best of luck,
Brad

[Sharon Housley]

Hey Nick,
Sorry misread the post - I thought you might be blocking regional IP's or something. I know that can be done with FileKicker - I just assumed that was the case.
That statistic really stinks - especially when you consider where the money is going this week.
Sharon Housley

[Will]

Sad stat, and suprises me. I just don't know how they could get away with it. Through one person distributing their legit serial to others? Although free software is ideal, I don't mind paying for good software especially from small/sole developers like Nick. My only other non-freeware software is Trillian (who, Nick, I think check your registration as soon as you open it by pinging their servers. If it's not correct (or if you're not online) then it goes back to the freeware version).

Regardless - keep up the great work for us paying customers :)

[Jeff]

Nick,

Sorry to hear that. I wouldn't worry about lowering the price -- for what it does, it's a great value and I rely on FD heavily. There are, sadly, plenty of people who will try to steal it regardless of the price. If it's not free, then they see it as a challenge.

I've worked with a couple of people in the past who were into warez -- they get off on the hunt and figure anything digital should be free... And these were salesguys responsible for selling our company's software product. Pathetic.

Keep up the good fight,

JD

[Sharon Housley]

Nick,
Don't know if you have realized this yet - but this thread is now the number 1 search in Google for "FeedDemon crack" :-)))))
Sharon

[Chris Wigginton]

One of my all time favorite encryption techniques is to create a signed 128 bit license file that must be in the app directory for it to operate and
have enough personal information in it (like the credit card number and expiration date) where the owner would be totally stupid to give it out to anyone.

It does mean you would have to eliminate any automated payment methods by requiring human review, which would let you reject any registered name like the "CrackMaster".

[Rob Mientjes]

That seems bad, but it may also be told that people frown when I tell them I buy music. That's also pretty sad.

[Nolan]

Per your earlier comment "the FeedDemon trial version is full-featured, and it enables 20 days of usage before it expires"

...I know I've been in situations before where I install a 30 day trial, then get slammed with work and can't really touch it for a few weeks, then poof, the trial has expired.

I'm sure you're right that the idea I brought up is a minority, but I think it is at least part of those that download cracked versions of things.

Happy holidays. :)

[Lisa Williams]

Hi, Nick -- I love FD and my husband and I have 3 registered copies between us. I also named it as one of my top 5 software apps I installed in 2004: http://www.cadence90.com/wp/index.php?p=3430

Happy and prosperous 2005 to you!

(On the piracy thing. I was a bike advocate for many years. I would tell people, obey traffic law on your bike, and they'd laugh. The fact is, I could ride from my house to downtown and run every red light and go the wrong way down one way streets on my bike -- and I'd never get arrested. If I tried that in my car I'd be in jail. Laws that aren't enforced or are unenforceable will get broken routinely. If someone steals from your house and you get a license plate number, you can call the cops and you'll get a response. What do you do when someone pirates software? Who do you call? I wouldn't even know where to start. My hope is that lots of people register FD and TopStyle in 2005!)