The lucky winner of my 'Catch the Pirate' contest is...

[rlsuth]

The logic has a basic fallacy if someone claims that they are not going to buy a program, but would use a pirated program, thus the author does not loose money. This is just not a good logic, and should not be used as an excuse.

I don't think it's used as an excuse though. If a chess program would sell 500 copies without protection, and be pirated by another 500, but would still only sell 500 copies with protection, it seems a complete waste of time and money to develop/purchase any sort of protection system. Surely that's logical?

[VP]

Please answer before seeing my next sentence.
I use COMODO firewall which is free and supposed to be the best one. Can they still do it?

Do not be too sure.
A dedicated hacker, can, if he desires, break into your system, firewall or no firewall.

Really? I mean really really?
It's difficult to believe!

Yes, really..sad but very true.
Firewall have been compromised because of some defect in the software. It is just a matter of a persistent hacker willing to get about it.

Or someone visited a site, which was offering a freebie, and you got infected by a worm. Or that you installed a BHO which came with a innocuous looking shareware program that you downloaded...

The only sure way of protecting your computer is to keep it offline, and make sure that you are the only one who can access it physically

So the only protection i can have is just to hope that:
1)There is no reason someone to select me to invade to my PC. But if someone insane wants a random person to harm then i can only hope:
2)Among the million internet users i have small probability to be selected.

Nothing more i can do?
Very small probability for 1) and 2) to happen thank god. But i wanted to be 0% to feel free and not under the continuous threat of some insane person.....

Yes, the probability of an average home user who uses a firewall, and a good anti-virus, and a spyware detector is quite low, but then, nothing is impossible in the world of internet.

[VP]

The logic has a basic fallacy if someone claims that they are not going to buy a program, but would use a pirated program, thus the author does not loose money. This is just not a good logic, and should not be used as an excuse.

I don't think it's used as an excuse though. If a chess program would sell 500 copies without protection, and be pirated by another 500, but would still only sell 500 copies with protection, it seems a complete waste of time and money to develop/purchase any sort of protection system. Surely that's logical?

Well, I beg to differ.
Whether an author decides to implement a copy-protection scheme is for him/her to decide, and, IMHO, a matter for optimizing revenues.

You might loose 10 customers who are scared of the copy protection, but there might be 20 more, who would go ahead and buy the software, since they want it immediately, and a free pirated version is still not available. (Before it has been cracked, because one day, it will be- and by that time, the author release a newer version )

I think it is not true that not even one among the other 500, who used pirated copies, would have bought the program. Again, would you buy a program, when you get it for free, and no risk of getting identified?

Things are a bit fuzzy in the world of 0 and 1, and often it is not possible to define what is piracy in black and white. If you do not think that sharing your copy of software with general public is piracy, then why is sharing movies piracy? The people who get a pirated copy would not have gone and watched the movie anyway, so , by the same logic, it is not piracy
Also, I am assuming that in both scenarios, there is no monetary transaction.
Tell me, if there are extra seats available, would sneaking in and watching a new block buster, without permission tantamount to piracy?

This concept is made more difficult to understand because in a real world, there is cost for each additional item, where as in computing, you are selling the software, which forces the execution of the same set of 0 and 1, only in a particular sequence which does some useful work in your hard disk, for which you have already paid.

Quote from a web site" All software comes with a license agreement that specifically states the terms and conditions under which the software may be legally used. Licenses vary from program to program and may authorize as few as one computer or individual to use the software or as many as several hundred network users to share the application across the system. It is important to read and understand the license accompanying the application to ensure that you have enough legal copies of the software for your organization's needs. Making additional copies, or loading the software onto more than one machine, may violate copyright law and be considered piracy. "

So, when you install a program, you enter into a legally binding contract to honor your commitment. If you do not honor that contract, then IMHO, it is piracy, whether or not there is a loss in earning. Of course, there are lot of free alternatives which are excellent and will give the commercial versions a run for their money. Go ahead with them if you are not satisfied with the terms of the contract with the commercial software.

Again, on the other side, I feel that software should be reasonably priced, and should be non-intrusive, and I would not like someone to ask for my hardware id to generate a key, or putting a spyware on my computer to detect if I am using a licensed copy or not.

At the end, the customers rule.

[VP]

This isn't about me? Ask ANY successful business what is most important to that business. Customers and potential customers. Customers are always right. This is pretty obvious and seems to have been lost on a lot of people. I said myself(I can't tell him what to do with his program) that he can do what he wants with his program, but my point was that it's senseless to offer copy protection. I'm telling you right now, people are not going to buy Naum because they can't find it for free off the internet. I'll reiterate that. People who don't find Naum for free off the internet are not going to give money to the author for the program.

How can you be so sure?

The logic has a basic fallacy if someone claims that they are not going to buy a program, but would use a pirated program, thus the author does not loose money. This is just not a good logic, and should not be used as an excuse.

You're not taking food from the author's mouths by copying a program. You can duplicate a million copies for free, and you're not depriving anyone of anything. The author probably won't even know about that instance. I'm not condoning piracy, but the problem is exaggerated to the point of giving actual customers headaches by enduring copy protection. I personally buy programs in support of the authors, and will not use programs when I don't want to support the author. You're right, the idea that someone won't pay for the program anyways shouldn't be used as an excuse for piracy, but enacting copy protection doesn't help and in fact only makes things worse.

You are right to an extent, and sadly (or gratefully???) things in real life are different in the world of software. Again, I think it is the author's decision. If he feels that he has got adequate return on the hours of man hours that he put in, it is fine. But what if he feels that he is being deprived of his fair share of revenues?
See from my reply in another post...

Quote from a web site" All software comes with a license agreement that specifically states the terms and conditions under which the software may be legally used. Licenses vary from program to program and may authorize as few as one computer or individual to use the software or as many as several hundred network users to share the application across the system. It is important to read and understand the license accompanying the application to ensure that you have enough legal copies of the software for your organization's needs. Making additional copies, or loading the software onto more than one machine, may violate copyright law and be considered piracy. "

So, when you install a program, you enter into a legally binding contract to honor your commitment. If you do not honor that contract, then IMHO, it is piracy, whether or not there is a loss in earning. Of course, there are lot of free alternatives which are excellent and will give the commercial versions a run for their money. Go ahead with them if you are not satisfied with the terms of the contract with the commercial software.
Again, on the other side, I feel that software should be reasonably priced, and should be non-intrusive, and I would not like someone to ask for my hardware id to generate a key, or putting a spyware on my computer to detect if I am using a licensed copy or not.

At the end, the customers rule.

I agree completely. No protection is hack proof. you may encrypt all you like, and the usability decrease with complexity and gives negative returns. But still, a really skillful hacker can still get past the copy protection. When people have been able to crack the hardware dongles with some scientific applications, I think the simple copy protection of the chess programs is just a formality.

That's really the point I'm getting at. Copyright protection is not going to help protect the program, so save the pain of the customers and simply withdraw it. You really are more likely to gain customers by doing this, because you're appealing to the morals of these people and make them want to support you by buying your product. The users who won't be affected by this are mostly going to be adolescent kids, and they really aren't potential customers anyways for a variety of reasons.

So you mean to say, leave it to the morals of the client and hope that they would not share it? Now that is food for thought!
Engine authors, chew on this suggestion!
Now that is a perfect world!

[revengeska]

This isn't about me? Ask ANY successful business what is most important to that business. Customers and potential customers. Customers are always right. This is pretty obvious and seems to have been lost on a lot of people. I said myself(I can't tell him what to do with his program) that he can do what he wants with his program, but my point was that it's senseless to offer copy protection. I'm telling you right now, people are not going to buy Naum because they can't find it for free off the internet. I'll reiterate that. People who don't find Naum for free off the internet are not going to give money to the author for the program.

How can you be so sure?

Think about the groups that are going to look for pirated programs:

A. Teenagers/adolescents
B. Young adults, such as college students. Many will have a technical backround.
C. Ordinary people with a certain degree of tech savvy but not alot of money.
D. Ordinary people who really don't know a whole lot about computers, but through word of mouth from friends, heard about this and decided to do it.

A isn't going to have money, and if they are, they probably won't have really any ability to buy it online.

B will be a group that will either buy it to support the author(if they REALLY like it, the group doesn't have alot of money usually), or otherwise decide not to pay for it whether they find it online or not. It's more of a group that doesn't think they'll be caught.

C aren't going to spend money on something like this no matter what, they just don't have the money. They either find it online or they don't.

D would do it because they don't think it matters, and they don't believe they'll be caught. Normally, these types of people wouldn't justify spending money on this sort of thing, but if it's free, they'll take it.

In short, it's largely on the ability or willingness to pay. People that aren't able or willing to pay for Naum won't make the author money. People that are willing and able to pay for Naum probably will end up doing so, whether they pirated it before or not. The people that are able to pay and really do like the strength of the program don't have any incentive to keep using an illegal copy of a program on their computer.

The logic has a basic fallacy if someone claims that they are not going to buy a program, but would use a pirated program, thus the author does not loose money. This is just not a good logic, and should not be used as an excuse.

You're not taking food from the author's mouths by copying a program. You can duplicate a million copies for free, and you're not depriving anyone of anything. The author probably won't even know about that instance. I'm not condoning piracy, but the problem is exaggerated to the point of giving actual customers headaches by enduring copy protection. I personally buy programs in support of the authors, and will not use programs when I don't want to support the author. You're right, the idea that someone won't pay for the program anyways shouldn't be used as an excuse for piracy, but enacting copy protection doesn't help and in fact only makes things worse.

You are right to an extent, and sadly (or gratefully???) things in real life are different in the world of software. Again, I think it is the author's decision. If he feels that he has got adequate return on the hours of man hours that he put in, it is fine. But what if he feels that he is being deprived of his fair share of revenues?
See from my reply in another post...

Quote from a web site" All software comes with a license agreement that specifically states the terms and conditions under which the software may be legally used. Licenses vary from program to program and may authorize as few as one computer or individual to use the software or as many as several hundred network users to share the application across the system. It is important to read and understand the license accompanying the application to ensure that you have enough legal copies of the software for your organization's needs. Making additional copies, or loading the software onto more than one machine, may violate copyright law and be considered piracy. "

So, when you install a program, you enter into a legally binding contract to honor your commitment. If you do not honor that contract, then IMHO, it is piracy, whether or not there is a loss in earning. Of course, there are lot of free alternatives which are excellent and will give the commercial versions a run for their money. Go ahead with them if you are not satisfied with the terms of the contract with the commercial software.
Again, on the other side, I feel that software should be reasonably priced, and should be non-intrusive, and I would not like someone to ask for my hardware id to generate a key, or putting a spyware on my computer to detect if I am using a licensed copy or not.

At the end, the customers rule.

I'm still making the point that the decision to add copy protection to your program won't gain you any extra revenue. The author is free to think that he/she does, but it's a flat out wrong idea.

I agree completely. No protection is hack proof. you may encrypt all you like, and the usability decrease with complexity and gives negative returns. But still, a really skillful hacker can still get past the copy protection. When people have been able to crack the hardware dongles with some scientific applications, I think the simple copy protection of the chess programs is just a formality.

That's really the point I'm getting at. Copyright protection is not going to help protect the program, so save the pain of the customers and simply withdraw it. You really are more likely to gain customers by doing this, because you're appealing to the morals of these people and make them want to support you by buying your product. The users who won't be affected by this are mostly going to be adolescent kids, and they really aren't potential customers anyways for a variety of reasons.

So you mean to say, leave it to the morals of the client and hope that they would not share it? Now that is food for thought!
Engine authors, chew on this suggestion!
Now that is a perfect world!

The idea is simple: There is nothing you can do to stop people from sharing software. However, you can take the path of the Hiarcs team and alienate people so that they won't buy your product. Yet, at the end of the day, you can download Hiarcs just like you can download anything else.

[Uri Blass]

It is important that Naum should be protected. But who needs commercial programs now that Toga and Fruit engines are freely available. These are very strong engines. I would love to see instead of Zappa vs Rybka, Fruit matched against any of these engines or any other commercial engines especially against Naum as well. Fruit should put an excellent fight against Naum. Naum freeware is also very strong and only an unsatisfied soul would try getting a newer version just for that almost imperceptible little tiny bit of kick that shouldn't matter for anyone rated below 2500. Still there is no need to upgrade to a slightly stronger version. Even the latest Scid program is a lot better than Chessbase light and Chess Assistant Demos.

This is simply nonsense.
chess rating of the buyer is not important.

People will always buy better chess programs and the difference between naum2.2 and naum2.0 is not a tiny difference even on one processor.

from the cegt list
57 Naum 2.2 w32 1CPU 2828 18 18 839 54.4 % 2798 39.8 %
117 Naum 2.0 w32 2720 15 15 1231 44.5 % 2759 37.4 %

I did not buy naum but it is clearly a chess program to consider to buy if I play another correspondence tournament.

Uri

[Uri Blass]

Or you could just remove the copyright protection from your program.

I really can't tell you what to do with your program, but I'm certain that your losing customers because of the copyright protection. I myself was interested in purchasing Naum(seems like a good engine), but I tend to shy away from programs with copyright protection. It's basically the reason I won't buy Hiarcs, yet I'm a faithful customer of Rybka.

This is not about you. Although I am a big advocate of free sources, the author has the right to employ his own copy protection if he deems suitable. You may, or may not buy because it is copy protected, but I am sure that people who like the strength of Naum will definitely buy it.
And BTW, Rybka has a big customer base because of so many different reasons. Just a couple- strongest engine, and excellent support direct from the author.

At the same time, the author should be mentally prepared that if his stuff is good, it is going to be hacked sooner or later.

Do you really feel like you're losing money on this? I'm willing to bet that the people who pirate your program weren't going to buy it in the first place, whether they could download it or not. In short, you're not gaining any customers from the copyright protection, but I'm sure you're losing them.

The logic has a basic fallacy if someone claims that they are not going to buy a program, but would use a pirated program, thus the author does not loose money. This is just not a good logic, and should not be used as an excuse.

Here's an thought: How about posting this in a few hacker forums(I'm not just talking about cracker forums, but ethical hacker forums as well), and let's see how "unbreakable" your copy protection is? That's what Microsoft said about the Xbox 360 filesystem, and that was broken within a week.

I agree completely. No protection is hack proof. you may encrypt all you like, and the usability decrease with complexity and gives negative returns. But still, a really skillful hacker can still get past the copy protection. When people have been able to crack the hardware dongles with some scientific applications, I think the simple copy protection of the chess programs is just a formality.


Again, I feel that Pedro is innocent unless proved guilty, as was the case with Tony. If he says he doesn't know anything about his shared (??) key. I believe him.

1)My opinion is that in most of these cases people are quilty and not innocent.
I also agree that it is better not to post full details of people for the small chance that people are not quilty.


2)Another note is that I am not sure if it is a good idea to go to court against people even if you are right.

The problem is that honest customers may also decide not to buy the program because of that reason.

personally I also do not think that I can be sure of protecting my computer.

Probably this is not going to be a reason for me not to buy naum because I think that the probability is very small but I can clearly understand people who decide not to buy naum because of that reason.

Uri

[GenoM]

Think about the groups that are going to look for pirated programs:
A. Teenagers/adolescents
B. Young adults, such as college students. Many will have a technical backround.
C. Ordinary people with a certain degree of tech savvy but not alot of money.
D. Ordinary people who really don't know a whole lot about computers, but through word of mouth from friends, heard about this and decided to do it.

you forgot
E.People from East Europe which salary is about 150 Euro

[Ovyron]

The only sure way of protecting your computer is to keep it offline, and make sure that you are the only one who can access it physically

This is true. Some years ago I had a friend that was a "White hat" hacker, and I challenged him to hack into my computer, before the challenge I protected my computer in the highest possible way that I could (Using proxies to surf, and firewall and whatnot), yet I think it took him like 15 minutes to get into, and then he was communicating to me by using pop up windows (similar to those that appear when a program crashes) I could not stop from appearing. He explained to me that he had total access to my files...

Since then, I just stopped using those useless security measures...

Yes, the probability of an average home user who uses a firewall, and a good anti-virus, and a spyware detector is quite low, but then, nothing is impossible in the world of internet.

Beware however that sometimes being protected may be a bad thing (!), the other day I was infected by a worm that attacked a vulnerability on McAfee Anti-Virus, and it wouldn't let you start windows (Because McAfee was loaded before windows); later I discovered that if I didn't have the McAfee Anti-Virus, nothing would have happened at all!

And more recently I was attacked by a trojan horse that turned my computer into a SPAMBot, that there's only one Anti-Virus that detects it (AVG), so you also have to have the right Anti-Virus running at the right time (I was using Kaspersky and it failed)...

[menniepals]

You have far more different reasons why you bought Naum. I don't play correspondence chess or computer vs computer games. If this makes you happy go ahead. But what makes me happy is what counts. I enjoy playing against chess programs and humans. If you play against Freeware Naum, do you feel the difference playing against Naum 2.1 or 2.2? I bet you won't. This is the reason why I don't entertain buying commercial programs anymore. There are just too many strong freeware engines out there. With protecting Naum, I agree that Naumov has the right to protect his work. It is his work. I personally thank Naumov for being so generous releasing a very strong freeware for everyone to enjoy. This goes not only to Naumov but everybody who graciously shared their works for everybody.