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Turning Chinese Piracy Into Revenue
itwbennett writes "Weak penalties and a lack of enforcement have made China a hotspot for software piracy, but it is possible to turn some pirated software into sales, says Vic DeMarines, vice president of products for V.i. Labs, a company that helps makers of engineering and design software track the unlicensed use of their products. Forty of V.i. Labs' clients use code to track when an installed application shows signs it's a pirated copy. The data collected makes a record of what organizations in China are using unlicensed copies across how many different PCs. They can then use the data to reach out to those organizations, who might not be aware they are using unlicensed software. 'We think that's a better way to reduce piracy overall,' says DeMarines. 'You need to target the organizations that should have the ability to pay license versus going after individual users or the people who crack the software.'"
Like the BSA?
If only the RIAA paid attention: treating pirates as potential customers: why not (upon finding them) send them marketing emails and specials? "We noticed you've been listening to a lot of Radiohead lately, their latest album just came out, act now for 30% off. Help support a great band, and be a part of their art". It wouldn't work for everyone, but it would soften the RIAA's image and potential bring in some new sales in one clever move.
nough said
The United Kingdom can just pay £1,000,000,000 every year to the BSA on behalf of the Chinese people as reparations for the colonization, dealing drugs in China the Opium War, etc. And the BSA will distribute the cash equitably among impacted software development companies.
A lot of the time a pirate distributor will go and "sell" this software at deep discounts, pretending its the real deal.
Problem is that a few months later when the software company comes asking for money, the owners get pissed, because in their mind they've already paid. It looks like a shakedown when you've paid $100/license, and then are told, "Oh by the way, you owe us $5000/license."
I'm sure emacs could have done this too, but no-one can remember the right keystrokes to make it happen.
Nullius in verba
Reasonable prices and don't threat your customers like shit.
Then the lawsuits will fly. There was a time where every single Windows install failed WGA due to MS's servers being down for a few hours. If MS had decided to have machines shut down and encrypt data to lock users out, Congress would be having an inquiry and lawsuits would be flying.
Instead, the best antipiracy mechanism is to use CD keys and deny access to network based services (multiplayer games, online updates, backups to a core server). Trying to do Draconian tactics may just bring lawsuits, or at best people spamming review sites (a la Spore 3 and Amazon) saying how horrible the product is.
Strongarm antipiracy measures are not new. In the early 1990s, I knew a software company that was planning to bundle an IDE card that would function as a dongle with their product. If the dongle thought the software was hacked, it would dump a large amount of voltage via a cascade to fry the machine.
Or think that somehow the Chinese government would assist them in doing this. The Chinese government would probably point out to the trillion-dollar stack of US Treasury notes and say "paid in advance"...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Wait, how can you pirate vi, I thought it was open source!
ducks
Monstar L
Perhaps this could be an opportunity for linux or freebsd support companies to reach out to companies who pirate windows.
If it's detected, make it so that you hold their computers and data hostage by forcibly locking them out and threatening to erase their data if the proper verifications don't occur.
Yeah, it's strongarm tactics, but if you're living outside the law, you can't exactly complain to the cops to help you out that someone's bullying you.
Terrible Plan:
You can, in fact, complain to the cops. With limited exceptions for self defense against imminent threats, most jurisdictions take a very, very dim view of vigilante justice. Even if you are 100% accurate, and never hit a false positive, do you think that the fact that you have legal grounds for a copyright infringement civil suit against somebody is going to save your ass from the slammer after you've committed a bunch of unauthorized-access and extortion related felonies? Don't bet on it. This is particularly the case if the copyright infringement is going on somewhere where the local authorities make a policy of turning a blind eye to that sort of thing; but take a much less indulgent stance on economic disruption by outsiders, whatever their justification.
PRC + IAY = PIRACY FTFY
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
The "data collecting" code isn't just collecting data from unlicensed users but licensed users as well. So in exchange for paying the license fee you get software that phone's home about how you use it. In other words your computer now works for them in addition to working for you.
Strongarm antipiracy measures are not new. In the early 1990s, I knew a software company that was planning to bundle an IDE card that would function as a dongle with their product. If the dongle thought the software was hacked, it would dump a large amount of voltage via a cascade to fry the machine.
By "Planning" do you mean "pissed off geeks were fantasizing about it" or did this somehow make it as far as legal before being shot down?
if they can track pirated copies, maybe they should just send out upgrades that start displaying advertisements so that they can generate revenues in a different fashion? Both parties are happy!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
I may know of a company has a strict policy of licenenced software, but one of their engineers may have used a 30day demo past 30days, and were sent a nastygram saying pay $30k as one of these 'report to home' features were in the software. Now had it been more reasonably priced, or been offered as a rental, they might have seen the use in buying a licence, but even hinting at guilt could open them up to litigation, thus they couldn't even start a negotiation to purchase the software because the risk of a $30k expense was too much for a micro business.
Forget it, Jake. It's China.
also make site licenses work better / easier to work out.
The windows \ CAL rules need to be better.
Other software has license servers.
The twist is the phone home only happens on unauthorized uses, and it does so by vetting both the license and the software instance running.
Compliant users, authorized to use, have nothing phoned home, ever. Non-compliant, unauthorized users do get the phone home, and it's been quite effective.
They get a letter stating the use, user name, place, time, number of instances and a lot of other stuff. That same letter lets them know they can buy a license and how to do so.
We've seen everything from a quick, "oh shit" and a license purchase, to raving mad letters demanding to know exactly how that info got out of their network! Hilarious actually.
Going forward, the only way to realistically pirate is to do it off line, in a VM.
Blogging because I can...
Company: We've rigged our software to phone home information so we can identify you as an individual and/or the company you work for... but don't worry, it's only to help them become "legitimate" customers.
The arguments in summary;
It's an invasion of privacy.
Counter #1: "Then don't install it."
a. Most people install the software they do because it does what they want it to, it has a familiar interface, and it is cost effective.
b. IP laws exist solely to create artificial markets and categories of consumers, which in turn increase the cost of entry into markets where IP is prevalent. China, as a developing country, would never develop as quickly, if at all, if it "went legit" and that is an intentional effect of intellectual property. It keeps rich people rich, and poor people poor.
I can buy a functional computer with the same capabilities that was top of the line 7 years ago for $35. I can't buy a commercial software license for just about anything at that price. A hundred years from now, that software license will still cost me the same, long after the hardware to run it is in a museum and even emulators for said hardware can't run on modern systems. This is not accidental.
Conclusion: For some lines of business, there is literally not a choice: You either use Product X or cease to exist. Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple are leaders in the area of vendor lock-in. Legality for many businesses is secondary to survivability. And in the third world, enforcing IP is a death sentence for economic development.
Counter #2: The company is doing something illegal.
End User Licensing Agreements are actually quite legal, but mostly because nobody's had enough money to topple the businesses that write them. The majority of these EULAs are so restrictive that to use them only in the fashion prescribed by these contracts would make the software useless (or nearly so) for the purposes it is routinely used for. But... it's perfectly legal to sell something that is largely or totally useless, and invades your privacy as well.
I would suggest using a software firewall. They're designed to keep stuff from getting out more than in these days.
Damn you RIAA...
Counter: facepalm* RIAA isn't interested in your software, they're interested in your music. And the MPAA isn't interested in either of those two, just movies. Know your enemy.
Just ignore them
Because that's been so successful online. There was a time (it was called the 90s) when people thought the internet was anonymous, information would be free, and it would be the vehicle to promote democracy and free speech worldwide; And all these things would be impossible to stop. So when authorities started trying, people who were in a position to fight back did nothing out of arrogance that their opponent lacked the intelligence or resources to do so. Look how that turned out.
There's nothing you can do to fight them, so don't.
There is in fact a lot you can do. For starters, chances are good that if you are reading this post you have the necessary skills to dissect a piece of software and disarm the bombs its developers have put in it, bypass or remove the mechanisms preventing portability and enforcing copy protection. They're enhanced by the fact that the majority of developers don't put their best effort into these schemes. They always leave a hole somewhere, maybe as a form of sabotage. Historical footnote: Sabotage used to be workers flinging their shoes into the machines to shut them down. These days, it's writing shitty code and leaving debug codes in the finished product, which is basically a big neon sign saying -- "Cut on dotted line here to remove protection."
Contrary to popular media, most of us who work in this industry know it's wrong and few people are willing to do anything more than go through the motions for a paycheck when they're contracted to do this kind of thing. Don't buy into the propaganda; Lots of people are on your side, they just can't say so.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It actually got on a breadboard as a prototype. The reason it got knocked off the drawing board were not the legal eagles, but the cost of having the board mass produced.
I think company DRM fetishes should be an economic indicator. Software companies dropping DRM? The economy is decent. When Draconian copy protection comes commonplace, it shows things are on the skids.
You're forgetting about the potential for false positives. Imagine if you accidentally did this to a legitimate customer.
My programs should only be talking to the internet when I ask them to.
I block software that phones home at the router.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Yeah, it's strongarm tactics, but if you're living outside the law, you can't exactly complain to the cops to help you out that someone's bullying you.
TFA:
'You need to target the organizations that should have the ability to pay license versus going after individual users or the people who crack the software.'
What about the ones that genuinely believed they paid for the product they bought from a fence? Why should the one pay and not the fence?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
RIAA did their job well.
I have no idea who Avril Lavigne is or what she sounds like.
Even if I could pirate a copy, the name does not stand out enough to me to make it worth the time to download.
RIAA, you wanted us to not share. I did not. Nor did anyone share with me. I am quite ignorant of the music scene these days.
I still enjoy my old stuff, but its been several years since I have spent a dime on music, cause quite frankly, buying music these days is like me going into some strange ethnic restaurant and being offered various bowls of goo, most of which taste bad.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Just have them print the money instead of the federal reserve, they already print fake money that is such a good forgery that it takes a mass spectrometer to determine if it is real or not so they can they can pay themselves off and we can save a bundle on printing costs, win-win!!!!!!!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Is getting confusing out, when only Americans get sent to the gulag for pissing the ruling elite off.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
...what? Have we finally gotten spambots actually tailored to Slashdot? (I don't know about you, but as a 6' 5" white guy I'm not all that into "cheap Ugg boots".)
What's next?
CHEAP Geiger Counters DISCOUNT beakers BEST QUALITY bread boards HIGH AMPERAGE lasers (sharks not included)
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I work with the producer of this software in a close enough capacity that I would know otherwise.
There is somebody right now doing expensive battle in court, currently headed toward a loss. The data is factored, and matched against the user-base, which is known, and under signed contract. Quite simply, a false positive is damn near impossible, because the data exists to know who is authorized and who isn't. Every single seat is known globally. Not hard to sort out the false positives, and if it's a marginal case, I'll bet they don't bother because there are plenty of solid ones.
There is a slip of paper shipped with each box, and that is presented in binary form with original distributions of the software informing people of the system, and the basics of how it works. Authorized use sends NO data. It's authorized use. Wouldn't want the people who paid and are using things properly dealt a bad hand, now would we?
It's really a nice piece of work. If you are authorized, you've read and signed a real contract, not some EULA, so the terms are clear, limiting the kinds of legal you mention. Having done that, your software won't be sending anything as it's operating on a known license authorization. Those are actually quite difficult to get wrong and have the software function. Somebody has to modify the software to execute a unauthorized use, and that's the trigger right there. And since there is no signed contract in place, there can be no expectation of fit, form and function can there? See how that works? Brilliant, if you ask me.
And this isn't DRM. The subtle bit here is simply detecting and communicating unauthorized use. The user will experience no difference in functionality, the cracks out there will still work, etc... Nothing prevents the unauthorized use. Said use is simply communicated with enough data to make the case cut 'n dried.
Been through a few of these now, and it's quite potent.
Oh, and as for your threats of dumping the software? This stuff costs some significant money. Nobody using it would even think twice about the authors dealing with piracy. Nobody cares, because they being the users who are authorized and such, have exactly zero worries. Again, no data is communicated. Non issue.
So far, the few who have had serious firewall setups, and who are pissed about it, appear to not have serious enough firewall setups, which is why they are pissed, with most of their effort fixated on how the data got out in the first place, and not on the unauthorized use part of things.
The way I see it, if you go and grab some binary, particularly a complex and expensive one, crack it, or get a crack from somebody, you pretty much are asking for it, right? I know I would be, and frankly, have never let anything out on the net like that, early adopter of VM technology for a lot of reasons, that being one of them, as this kind of thing has been out there now for a number of years. Data gets tagged too, just so you know, but only when it's unauthorized data, generated on a unauthorized use session. When that data gets communicated, well you get the idea.
All that said, there are still outs. Just keep it a learning experience, off the net for good, data isolated, maybe moved into neutral formats when desired, and the piracy can happen as it always has, leaving the door open for people who learn that way to do so. Hell, I did in the early 80's, and a lot of people I know did. Still can happen.
But, what isn't going to be practical is business use for profit under that scheme.
Your rant is a lot like the guy with the "secure" system, finding out it isn't, caught with pants down, running software unauthorized, more than it does anything else, because again, the authorized users are known, all of them, accounted for, under contract, with no worries at all, actually experiencing a easier get up and running experience than the pirates and their cracks and keygens are.
Blogging because I can...
No matter how hard they--piracy can't be removed. It's because purchasing power of $50 in US is not equal to that in China/India. $50, u can easily have food for 1 month ! they should have different prices for different countries !
Dog eat Dog! Just being a little radical today nothing like a good chinese takeaway ;-)
All cows eat grass!
They don't need to convince the unauthorized users, they just have to convince their client companies to pay for this.
Just like spammers don't need spam to be an effective advertisement method, they just have to convince their clients to pay for sending it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
...send in DeMarines.
Their they're doing there hair.
I dunno. The other side of the coin is that if China doesn't start cracking down on IP violations, the businesses that send all that work over there are gonna start looking elsewhere. Hell, some of them already are.
Wow, that's gutsy.