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Ask Slashdot: What Is a Reasonable Way To Deter Piracy?

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-to-their-house-and-verify-them-personally dept.

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."

10 of 687 comments (clear)

  1. You should be so lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    If your software actually gets pirated that means people like it enough to want it and need it to bother to pirate it. You should be so lucky to write a piece of software that is that popular. Quit flattering yourself.

  2. Re:life-long updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Paranoid much???

    So...you'll just give up your credit card info to anyone that says they're offering a good product?

    Boy, do I have a deal for you!

  3. Re:life-long updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    You must be new here!

  4. Re:life-long updates by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1, Funny

    Along these lines, make the program available in an App Store. This makes it easier for paying customers. It's tiring when I want to buy a program to have to do some background research on payment processors to see if a developer chose one that is trustworthy. But Apple already has my credit info, buying is easy and safe.

    But do graphics developers, of the sort who would be interested in a productivity tool, use the iPad as a development platform?

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  5. Re:Read This by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Read this. Memorize it.

    I did, but now I've forgotten C++. Thanks a bunch!

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  6. Re:life-long updates by Immerman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not giving your credit card info to some random person or "company" is paranoid now? Well shit, tell you what, I've got a lovely iPad I'll sell you for a nickle, just give me your credit card info...

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  7. Re:life-long updates by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Funny

    On a similar note, I once saw a utility that, if unregistered, would let you use everything in it, the only catch being that all of the fonts in the tool switched to Comic Sans.

  8. Just make something nobody wants by damn_registrars · · Score: 1, Funny

    After all, do you see anyone pirating slashdot? It is a fool-proof strategy that has worked for taco and the rest of the employees of this site for a long time now!

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    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  9. Re:life-long updates by ericloewe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Could be worse. Could be Wingdings.

  10. Re:life-long updates by hh10k · · Score: 3, Funny

    Most amusing (and effective) DRM I ever saw was actually a fairly loose and easily broken copy protection scheme

    I did this with my game. The code that checked the cd-key was easily bypassed, but that code also fixed a critical bug that happened on level 10. It was funny that we had people coming to our support forum asking for help, and we could easily call them out as pirates!

    We actually manage to convince one of them to buy the game properly.