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Developer Demands Pirate Bay Not Remove Torrent
An anonymous reader writes "This week TPB got a very unusual e-mail. It was a 'Notice of Ridiculous Activity' from a company that had found one of its apps cracked and listed as a torrent on TPB. The app in question is called Memoires, developed by Coding Robots. Memoires is marketed as the easiest way to keep a journal on your Mac. It costs $29.99 to buy after you've enjoyed a 30-day free trial. That, of course, didn't stop someone from cracking the software and making it available for free as a torrent. Dmitry Chestnykh, founder of Coding Robots, noticed the cracked torrent and decided to download it to see what had been done. After using it, he was upset — not because the cracked version was available, but because the cracker (named Minamoto) had done such a bad job of cracking it. The best section of the e-mail has to be this: 'I demand that you don't remove this torrent, so that people can laugh at Minamoto and CORE skills. However, I also demand the[sic] better crack to be made, so that it doesn't cripple the user experience of my beautiful program.'"
Developer Demands Pirate Bay Not Remove Torrent
Translation:
Developer Demonstrates Cutting Edge Advertising Techniques
My work here is dung.
Many people (including myself, hint hint) wish that their work was popular enough to show up on torrent networks.
You aren't anyone unless your stuff is available in a torrent.
Living With a Nerd
Probably right, but now I want to buy it just to support that kind of chutzpah (or however you spell that word).
Translation:
Probably right, but now I want to prove that you are right by reinforcing his behavior with cash tendered and also he is badass and I wish to make babies with him.
Quite the PR campaign a developer started. Good to see small companies stepping it up on all fronts.
My work here is dung.
why _would_ someone include an .exe file for a cracked Mac program? :\
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
At least hes taking it in stride and realizing that you can't fully protect your software. Its better than trying to sue them for millions and looking like an ass.
This man just made my day. I'm glad to see he realizes that you can't stop people from moving around data, and he is willing to work with, not against it, in true hacker spirit.
The pride in his work is admirable. I always appreciate a developer who's concerned about his user experience. This characteristic is, to me, Steve Jobs' most admirable trait (though I think marketing geeks must appreciate his gift for generating interest in his products.) This guy is following Jobs' finest example here.
I'm left to wonder how he 'discovered' it in the first place...
A few months ago Dmitry Chestnykh, the founder of Coding Robots and copyright holder of Mémoires, discovered that his program – like many others – was being shared via The Pirate Bay.
So while he was looking for a cracked Photoshop, for example, he was amazed to see his own stuff up there? It's rather like a priest complaining about poor service from a prostitute, isn't it?
I do google searches for my name and the names of the program I write all the time. It seems logical to me that he saw his program listed on pirate bay while doing something similar.
The ORIGINAL developer has posted more info here!
i mean, doesnt anyone else agree with me this is pretty crappy journalism?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Compact Cassette is an analog audio storage medium that filled much the same role that MP3 and Vorbis audio files fill now. It was also used for data storage on home computers circa 1980, with various inefficient modulations, before floppy disk drives (the predecessor to USB flash drives) became affordable to home users.
Metallica appreciated trading copies of amateur concert recordings but not copies of the studio CDs.
1. Develop app
2. Crack the app then distribute it
3. Send hilarious email to pirate bay
4. ???
5. PROFIT!!
Once it is out there, the free version will pretty much take over. There are so few people that are interested in paying - even if it means better quality - that it is best to just think about moving on.
Fighting the pirates is pointless. They have access to better tools for promotion than legitimate small businesses do, so the free version is going to almost always come up first on searches. It will be linked to by every hacker/wares forum that exists. Anyone asking "where can I get something that does X" will be responded to with a link to the pirate version, or the words "use the google".
Once our consumer software got hit by thieves we saw retail sales drop sharply. In this case "thieves" is the only think to call people that purchase the software with stolen credit cards so it can be posted on free download sites.
Face it, people want stuff for free and there are plenty of people out there that agree with that mindset. All software should be free and we should all be supported by the government so we don't have to beg for money or work as slaves. Food should be free. Houses should be free - what possible right does someone have to deny people a place to live?
If you don't think piracy is political, you haven't thought about it long enough.