Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Is a Reasonable Way To Deter Piracy?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an indie developer about to release a small ($5 — $10 range) utility for graphic designers. I'd like to employ at least a basic deterrent to pirates, but with the recent SimCity disaster, I'm wondering: what is a reasonable way to deter piracy without ruining things for legitimate users? A simple serial number? Online activation? Encrypted binaries? Please share your thoughts."
Paranoid much???
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
..and for me, making it an app store purchase virtually ensures I'll never buy it. I don't do business with indian givers who have no problem taking my money while the store license agreement allows the author to revamp the application at any time...or in the worst case, revoke the application entirely leaving me shit up a creek.. See, the bottom line is I depend on my tools. If I can't depend on them being there when I open the tool box in the condition they were purchased in, they're useless. This applies to 'app store' gimmickry as well as 'cloud services' that get 'updated' until they're virtually useless.
A traditional application purchase, with no crazy DRM that needs 'online activation' or otherwise prevents me from running the software independently, is acceptable.
Sorry, but I've had fraud committed against my credit card twice, so I do have an idea of how it "can fuck you over". Or in fact, how it really doesn't if you have any kind of intelligence.
Seriously, you missed all those payments cause someone charged $3000 fucking dollars on your fucking credit card? What are you, a fucking moron?
Who doesn't save up at least a tiny bit of money (say 3 months salary) in case of a fucking emergency? Seriously, what would you have done if your fucking furnace suddenly needed fucking replacing? What the fuck would you have fucking done if your fucking roof had fucking leaked?
For me, it took all of 2 hours on the phone, and perhaps an hour reading/signing an affidavit indicating it in fact was fraud. Someone had gotten a hold of our card and/or number, copied it, and was getting cash-back at gas stations in another province. I was pretty annoyed, as it was a chip-card (so should not have been easily copyable), but was informed "oh, we haven't activated the chip system yet". I was also pretty annoyed that they managed to get out $7000 in cash over the course of a week, and the credit card company didn't think this was suspicious behaviour.
It did take a couple of months to get things fully straightened out and get our money back, but it didn't affect our credit at all.
And seriously....based on your post you make $117,000 a year. Grab a fucking clue and get yourself some fucking savings.