I've found my software as cracked download on Internet, what to do?

Question

So, after 6 months of hard work finally released my application. Today I found the first web site where people download it cracked, and I was wondering if any of you fellow programmers know how to react to such stuff?

Is there anything the software author can do to get the cracked version offline, or I'm just boned and shouldn't create anymore software, but just work on client's projects? What's your advice? Anybody with experience in that?

edit: programming is what I do- so no question about whether or not continuing, just is that clients pay per project in real money, and I still don't know if indie development would pay at least for the time invested, and now with the cracked download I'm trying to evaluate what to do, and if there's way to react

post discussion: As I see how much interest this question generated I'd say even if not purely programming topic the community needed to say what they think. And I'd say this page became a very good read for any programmer interested in the topic.

Answer 1

Just accept it. most people that are pirating your software probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. But that's not a reason to stop making software, pretty much every major piece of software gets cracked and pirated, but Adobe, major game studios, etc. are all still in business.

Answer 2

Contact the site owner. They should remove the incriminated download. If they don't you'll have to sue them.

Anyway you should accept piracy as a natural part of your software lifecircle.

Answer 3

This is obvious a highly personal reaction. I don't expect anyone else to share it: Celebrate! Someone thinks your software's worth stealing!

(a) It's impossible to prevent people from stealing your software, (b) trying to only irritates your honest customers and (c) people stealing your software means that you have solved the single biggest problem: obscurity. If no one knows of your program, no one's buying it. At least if someone's taken the trouble to crack your software, people know about your product. Another answer here offered several interesting ways of getting people to pay for your product.

Answer 4

If someone thought your product was good enough to be worth their time to crack it, you must be doing something right. Remember that there are more honest people in the world than dishonest and you won't get the dishonest people to buy your product whatever you do. So concentrate on keeping your honest customers happy.

Answer 5

If you want to set up an encryption scheme and a networked authentication, you can deter crackers.

I believe Steam is probably the best-known example today.

It depends on how business-like your application is - gaming piracy is tremendous. Technical business apps I don't think get pirated much, certainly it doesn't have the "hotness appeal" of games or photoshop.

There was a notorious example this spring of a couple of "casual game" developers offering a "set your own price" sale on their games. People could pay 1 US cent for a game - but the software was at least 1/4 more stolen than paid for, as the numbers demonstrate. http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Saving-a-penny----pirating-the-Humble-Indie-Bundle

Answer 6

It's not possible to make your software crack-proof.

However, there are legal things you can do. You can send cease-and-desist letters to the owner of the website to remove the cracked version from their website. You can also sue. You can contact the ISP of the owner of the website to let them know of the illegal activity of that website owner.

But in short--there's not really a whole lot you can do otherwise.

About a decade ago I created some software for sale that was quickly hacked. Then I created a version with a rather complex anti-hacking scheme in it with a scary (but meaningless) warning that only popped up when partial hacking was attempted--the warning threatened to destroy all data on the C: drive. That seemed to work (it's never been hacked--though its now completely obsolete), but only introduced some ugly support nightmares.

Answer 7

The good news is that if somebody bothered to crack your software that means it is popular/useful enough that people actually really want to use it... so you must be selling some!

Secondly, there is a school of thought that says that usage of the cracked version may actually boost awareness of your product and result in MORE SALES long term... Try to think of it as a free marketing campaign... :-)

Answer 8

well nice job :D your software must be good if its worth cracing ;)

but to your question: you can always contact the webmaters to remove it but this is a tough and neverending job.

you can go the legal way but as this is a civil matter its probably not worth the effort and the money with little to no chance of success.

a good thing is to make your software not easy to crack, but this is only possible to a certain extend. a good thing is if clients are involved, you can let the clients only connect if the software id is correct or something.

another suggestin is to regularely include updates and maby som api or some sort of functionality that can only work in communication with your server and legally optained licences.

then the software can be cracked but legal customers are awlays a step ahead and benefit from a better working version, updates, etc

Answer 9

Also consider price. I have no idea what your software is but there are multiple markets for every product. For example Photoshop has a normal version that is a little out of the cost range of anyone wanting to touchup their vacation shots. For this reason they make elements, it doesn't do as much but it does serve a market. If your software is expensive and of limited personal use try releasing a home version. A trial version, an ad supported version.

What every you don't attempt to detect hacked versions. This type of DRM only annoys real users

Answer 10

I believe that widespread software piracy usually means you're charging way too much for the basic version of your product, and that you'll ultimately be able to make much more money by drastically lowering the price of this entry edition - the market may even want this edition priced free. The key is then to properly segment the market to figure out who is able to pay what.

As an example of this, look at Visual Studio vs Delphi/C++ Builder. The two used to be very competitive, with old Broderbund/Borland perhaps even ahead of Visual Studio at one time. And then Microsoft figured out they needed to give away a base version of Visual Studio that honestly has enough features for most of us to get by if we really needed to. The result? Delphi/C++ Builder completely lost the low end of the market where the students are that feed into the more-lucrative professional market. Now they're fading fast into irrelevance.

Answer 11

IANAL but I'm pretty sure the folks here saying "It's just going to happen, don't worry about it" are wrong.

On the one hand: yes, absolutely, there is little you can do about it in general. It's going to happen, as long as your software is selling, be happy.

OTOH, my understanding of Intellectual Property law in the US (presuming thats where your work was created and published- but the internet makes that one a little dogy) any time you are aware of infringment on your intellectual property you must defend your intellectual propery rights. That defense can take any of several forms, but (at its most basic) you either have to give the pirates "permission" to use your work (thus making their work authorized) or you have to persue action against them (CND, lawsuit, whatever).

In all cases: consult a lawyer. The primary issue here, as I see it, is that if you want to continue releasing software (and you're good enough that people want to steal it) you at least want to ensure you maintain your IPR so any updates you make can be sold, instead of one of those theives deciding an update you make infringes on their IPR (say, you make an official modification that does what one of their cracked mods does).

Answer 12

whats the link? i would love to get a copy =)

if i were you I would build in a special auto-update into you next version so that you can brick the unregistered software (a la iPhone)

Answer 13

Let's ask Joe from NewsRadio what he thinks you should do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T-CreVC_6Y

But like they all say, it's a good sign that it's worth stealing.

Answer 14

I would keep updating the software. Sure there must be some bugs to fix and new features to add that your customers asked? When a user has a pirated version and is happy with it finds out that your current version has more features that might be an incentive for him to buy the latest version.

Adding new features doesn't only make your existing customers happy, they also attract new customers.

Answer 15

I agree with GSto... a lot of people aren't going to use a cracked version, I think really its a small minority of people who are willing to do such a thing since they are often wrought with viruses and it just isn't the type of thing that most people would go through the hassle of bothering with, the only way that it would be in jeapordy is if your app is some sort of hacking / black hat marketing app which is, itself, shady and therefore something sought after by the demographic who is most likely to use cracked software..

Don't waste your time trying to pursue the "websites" that have the cracked version as they are almost surely being traded through torrent websites and anyone should know that these are impossible to stop.. if Hollywood movie companies can't stop their films from being pirated the day after they are released to DVD (or often before), how are you going to fight the people trading your software online?

The only way to protect your software 100% is to use a cloud based method where you host part of the software on your servers, you can still put a lot of the code into the client's side but just have it run through yours for certain things, I have no idea what your app is so its hard to tell if this would work or not.

Answer 16

Not that this is necessarily the path for you, but many developers release their software for free or low cost, and gain their revenue from support. It might sound ineffective, but decreasing the cost of your product will massively increase the size of your user base, so even if only 1% need support you'll generate a nice income.

Answer 17

open source your software, then you won't have this problem :-)

Answer 18

Make you software work as SaaS in some cloud, so you'll be able to sell it for some traffic/features value, and will prevent it from cracking as it is.

Answer 19

There's nothing you can do. Once the software is out there, it's out there. Sure, you could send all sorts of legal threats and takedown notices to the sites in question. And then those who acquired the software will post it to other sites.

If the software hadn't already been made available for free, you could cram it full of DRM and copy protection and so on.... which just get cracked. Microsoft must have spent billions trying to prevent people from pirating Windows. I still know a good handful of people who run pirated versions of Windows 7 with no problems.

You can't prevent people from pirating your software. What you can do is make people feel your software is worth paying for. Some developers have noticed some effect simply from posting a polite and personal message on torrent sites. On the torrent for your software, post a comment saying you're the developer of this software, and while you're glad to see that people like it, the money from software sales goes directly to you and your dog and no one else, and you can't afford to keep making software if you don't get paid. So please consider buying a license.

Some companies try to combat piracy simply by treating their customers well. Make it something that people want to use. Sell it at a price that people are willing to pay. Provide extras for paying customers. Provide good support to people with a valid license.

Some people are going to pirate your software. There's nothing you can do to prevent it. And it only takes one copy to appear on one warez site, before it spreads and becomes impossible to take down. On the other hand, those people who pirated it most likely weren't prepared to pay for it anyway. If they hadn't been able to pirate it, they simply wouldn't have used it. So in that sense, you haven't lost anything. Remember who your paying customers are. They are the ones you have to satisfy in order to run a successful business. The ones who don't pay aren't your customers, so they're a lot less important.

You might find this blog post an interesting read too.

And finally, because some people find it hard to accept that the world isn't black and white, and like to think that anyone who doesn't equate software pirates with some kind of evil zombie demon hitler are secretly pirates themselves, let me be absolutely clear:

I do not condone piracy. I am not saying you should love software pirates or treat them like your own children. I am merely saying that it is an unavoidable fact of life, and too many companies spend huge amounts on "piracy prevention" which doesn't prevent pirates from using their software, but does make the software less convenient to use for paying customers.

Answer 20

Ok, I've been selling software online for almost 10 years. I have had several products marketed to both individuals and businesses.

I am always shocked when I see developers are happy that someone thought their software was worth stealing. I mean, didn't you already know that? Why else would you spend time creating it if you didn't think it was worth anything?

I'd wager you would not say, "Wow, I had some great stuff and feel honored someone went to all the trouble of taking it." if someone broke into your house and stole your property. Stealing is stealing no matter if it is a Porsche 911 turbo, music, software or a pack of gum.

There is also another popular myth that pirated versions do not impact sales. I have done a few different experiments myself and also have friends in the industry that have seen significant revenue impacts due to piracy.

In fact, I had one product that I could always tell when it was keygen'd because sales would immediately dive as much as 70%. I was using partial key verification, and when I updated the verification to make the bogus codes stop working sales immediately went back to normal. I assume you would call thousands of dollars a month a significant impact on sales?

In one experiment I used the partial key verification to redirect customers who entered a pirated key to a special web page that explained they were stealing.

Guess what? Over 50% of people who went to that page bought the software. That almost brought sales back to pre-keygen levels.

Those people would have stolen the software if the code would have worked for them. This is a product with a fully functional 30 day trial, so they had already fully tested the software. Also, the product was under $20 USD, so it wasn't an expensive one.

Other people I know have tried the redirect bogus codes to a web page technique with similar (and sometimes significantly better) results.

I do agree that some people will never buy your software, and you have to balance protecting unauthorized use and inconveniencing honest customers.

But don't be fooled into thinking piracy isn't a big problem and not worth investing a reasonable amount of effort to prevent. People aren't as honest as most of us would like to think.

Update

First I want to say, as I stated in my comment below, I am not going to get into an argument or debate about this--especially one based on semantics. I have debated this for years in person, at conferences, and in private forums. I've heard all the arguments before.

Now I will try to answer some of the constructive questions.

I tried my own experiment on two different products.

One was an Outlook add-in to manage various hidden security settings. It was purchased by both individuals and companies. The numbers above are for that product.

I also did another experiment on a business targeted product that translated database schemas to various formats. This product had slightly less (around 10% less, so 40%) conversion from the page I redirected the bogus keys to.

I also am aware of several business owners that did the same experiment and discussed the results with me in private. These were a wide range of products. Some had a vertical market and some were very horizontal. Their conversion rate on the bogus key page was between 20% and 70%. Even at the low end that's a significant amount of extra revenue.

Answer 21

You may want to add something like this:

Answer 22

I have to admit that I haven't read all the answers and the slew of comments, but here my view on the topic:

1. Concentrate on making it as easy as possible to pay for the software. Think of Steam and iTunes. Dishonest people will always go to great lengths to avoid paying, but I think most people would gladly pay you if you make it easy enough.
2. Keep the price low. If the price is low enough (say $5), it falls below the threshold of "practically free", and people will start thinking "$5 is nothing, I might as well pay".

These two combined will prevent your honest customers from trying to get a hacked copy of your software.

Answer 23

Change your business model. Selling something that can be duplicated at zero cost and no limitations, isn't a smart idea.

Copyright and patents are only fake restrictions that can hardly work in the digital age.

Answer 24

What about an online verification system?? I mean.. if you (automatically)create the serials on demand and require an online verification to activate your software maybe you can slow down that bad activities.. I don't know your software, this is just an idea.

Answer 25

You can't stop piracy...people who desire your software (yet having no intention of buying it) will never buy it and will always try to find a way to get it for free...

Instead, focus on producing a quality product that people want to buy. Don't focus on producing a product that (attempts) to thwart piracy...doing so will distract you from producing a quality product and will only irritate your paying customers (DRM anyone?)

Think about it...spending x hours working on a cool new feature or the same number of hours delaying a would-be pirate from hacking your software. I'm sure the people who bought your software would really appreciate the cool new features over making the software "less" hackable any time of the day...

Answer 26

I find it disappointing how much people accept defeat nowadays and ignore ethical trespasses and things like fairness.

Answer 27

This reminds me of the autodesk/kinetix response, tho they claimed that the response was a complete accident, a byproduct of the crack itself.

A cracked version of 3DSMax had a nasty side behavior - each time it opened a model file it corrupted the vertex coordinates just a little bit more- not enough to be noticable on any given run, but over time, a lot of damage could take place. The cost of the program might be thousands, but the cost in time and dollars to repair the damage dwarfed that.

The mfgr claimed this was a complete accident/side effect of the crack, and to their credit here, I believe repaired something in their software - that said, they certainly delivered a powerful message to their user base......

Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not recommending this, especially since IANAL - on the other hand, I've always found it's an interesting anecdote

Answer 28

My friend wrote this article describing how he handles this situation.

Answer 29

i think that developing your programs considering a sponsor will protect your rights (espacially financial ones ) remarkably.

Answer 30

It's simple. In the old days, if you couldn't afford or didn't want the cops to protect your well, or if -- in fact -- the cops didn't care, know what you'd do?

You'd POISON THE WELL.

If I were you, I'd increase prices by 5%. Then I'd release a fully-functional demo that says "Registered to [crack]" that accidentally cracks up and malfunctions.

Publish this new version everywhere. Bitorrent, edonkey, usenet, all the pirate sites you find. Drown out the competition!

Then direct cracked users to customer support and offer them a 5% discount if they register now and give the site where they downloaded the crack.

Use the crack as a promo code to drive sells.

Answer 31

You never told us if the cracked version is from a demo version or not - but you should identify this directly from your builds.

Is my practice to identify customers in the build's with a ID constant in several places. That way I can find the source of the leak just downloading the cracked one.

Demo versions are prone to be cracked (but you should identify them too - one ID for tucows, other for major, etc). I don't have a easy way for that, except if you can consider online usage all the time.

Regards Rafael

Answer 32

Make your software contact a central server while it is being used. Roll patches/etc through the server connection. Also, make 1 or 2 main features that occasionally contact the server to do the processing. Require a valid account that auto-logs in in order for the main features to work. Make the valid accounts pay a small fee like 1-2 dollars a month. Ask them to put a credit card on file and roll the charges into 6-month billing increments or something so you don't just waste a bunch on CC fees.

Also, keep an easy to find, low cost version of the software out there. Something people can use 5 times per month for 1 dollar. Bump the fee with increased usage. Make it cheaper and easier for people to find and install your free version than it is to find and install a cracked/hacked version.

Answer 33

My view - it's unsurprising if your reaction is an emotional one, but that probably isn't the best reaction to have.

Just because the pirate version is out there doesn't mean you'll lose all your income. If you give up straight off, you're probably just cutting off your nose to spite your face - certainly the pirates won't feel sorry because of it. You may lose some income, but anger/frustration/depression are most likely to do even more damage to your business.

People will generally bare disproportionate costs to keep/protect something they percieve as theirs. This is used in lots of sales tricks and cons, and it may be affecting you here. It's easy to see each pirate copy as a lost sale (and some of them no doubt are), but trying to protect your software from the pirates may not be the pragmatic thing to do.

The pragmatic thing to do is whatever builds your business, your income and your wellbeing. In general, I'll bet positive/constructive measures will leave you better off overall than defensive ones - though of course defense has its role to play. Too much anger/frustration/worry/etc will certainly count against the wellbeing bit (though I'm not advocating suppressing your feelings).

One idea is to be in touch with your customers as much as possible (without spamming them). The better that people know you, the less likely they are to rip you off. Even the pirates (other than the hoarding non-users) are likely to read your online support archive - it might be a good place to "make eye contact" (I think O'Reilly use that term for a style of writing).

Just don't complain too much - that'll only convince people you deserve to be ripped off.

Answer 34

making your software more hack proof the next time, will only make the hackers curse you more... and essentially make the chances of them buying the software even lower. take the music industry, instead of chasing after people as the record companies did in the past, they decided just to make it easier for people to obtain the music in the first place, like on itunes. getting music on itunes nowadays is quicker then limewire! limewire, you might not find what song you are looking for, and you might get a virus, or a bad version, while downloading from itunes is probably quicker as well! also, instead of chasing every joe blogs that illegally posts their song on youtube, they post their own songs on youtube, and link it to a purchase... good marketing i think, but a bit off the point i suppose. If someone has a choice of going to another room, finding their credit card, typing in ALL the details, or just getting it quicker for free via torrent... they will chose option B. So my advice is:

1)Have a pop up like someone suggested, with "shame on you bla bla bla". If someone doesn't then go and pay for the software after that message.. they weren't going to pay for the software in the first place. PS. also say: "this is a pirate version you are using, cannot guarantee the integrity of this software, which may be harmful to your computer. To purchase a certified version click here", scare them a little, without threatening them.

2)Make payment very easy, maybe try and sell it through a software company has already stored peoples card details so they can get it with one click. The only reason I now use itunes, is because it's quicker then limewire, and i get a preview :)

3)make the price right :) i honestly think if adobe lowered their products to a fourth of the price, they would have quadrupled their sales. Unless it is going to take a hacker longer then 70 hours (10$ an hour) to hack adobe software (aprox $700), only then might they buy it. if a program is 5 dollars, it might be better for them just to pay... however i release sometimes products need to be priced higher for the amount of work put in.

4)Essentially, all these tips link back to.. try to get the hacker on your side, through guilt, persuasion and saving them time!

Answer 35

The most elegant solution I've seen was putting text along the lines on "cracks, warez, keygens, torrent files, free downloads etc. harm the publisher of this software" in small text at the bottom of all your web pages. It games the PageRank and (hopefully) causes users searching to cheat you to be sent to your site.

Answer 36

You'll never make your application crack-proof, but some copy protection is better than others. For instance, whatever the copy protection on Cubase is, it's hell to get through. It was cracked eventually obviously, but after much much more effort. Might be worth a shot.

Answer 37

There's not much you can do. You can use an activation scheme which calls home. Every purchase will have a unique serial # which is in your database. If the keygen creates a # which is not your database, it's not genuine. If too many users (different ip addresses) are using the same serial #, the serial # has been leaked and the activation will disable the installation.

However if it's a cracked version where the call home routine has been disabled, you're out of luck.

Keep adding new good features so that the people who have an old copy/cracked version will be encouraged to buy it. Make sure a 'look for updates' is implemented so they get the prompt as a reminder.

Answer 38

Just take what money you have, and move into another business. I gave up coding after the last bubble burst, and now own a couple of gas stations.

My staff have shotguns to protect our product, it seems to work better than vague legal threats and keygens/drm do in the software world.

Answer 39

Without knowing your software market it's a bit hard to know who your audience is, but providing they have some disposable income, and you're not aiming at the teen market:

Make your software affordable enough and nobody will need the crack, including adding upgrade options for more features, support. Some money is better than none at all. Alternatively make it nagware, like Winrar - although that could obviously be cracked.

Answer 40

I saw this interesting response today:

Answer 41

Make sure you properly version every update and version of teh product. Then store the hash of your executable file on a server and on first launch check to see if the exe file is altered. then you can take action if it is, like closing the program or deleting some of the file You installed so that the program won't start

Answer 42

Trying to get cracked versions removed is a cat-and-mouse game of underwater boxing, dead-horse beating, swimming in quicksand. You might want to try using a tool like Crack Tracker, but it's still a pretty useless struggle, imho.

The only thing you can hope for is "keeping honest people honest", and persuading some of the almost-honest people to try a bit of honesty. No matter what crazy protection scheme you think up, eventually your protection will be removed... especially if it's interesting. Crackers have done crazy stuff like RE'd program features implemented in hardware dongles and re-added them to software...

As Dana mentions, partial key verification is a really interesting idea. Combined with a "OK, I give up" kind of message (including a link to your order page, and possibly a discount) might work wonders... but everything depends on how specialized your app is and what your market is like.

Don't think you can make the "I'll never pay anything" pirates pay, and don't inconvenience your legitimate customers too much.

Answer 43

I don't know for sure what I would do in your position, but at least one developer who found his cracked software available as a torrent emailed the host to complain -- not about the crack, but about the quality of the crack. It seems that the cracker didn't do a very good job and made the software less desirable. The developer was apparently horrified that his product, with his name, was going out to people and would ruin his product's good reputation, and demanded that if someone was going to crack it, that they needed to do a better job!

This story showed up on Slashdot:

Developer Demands Pirate Bay Not Remove Torrent

Answer 44

I'd like to add, not paying for your software is like not paying your taxes. You may be getting ahead, but you are doing so by screwing everyone around you.

Answer 45

I was so infuriated with some of comments and answers that justify software piracy that I had to write long rant: Is Software Piracy Stealing? .

Answer 46

Technical protections will fail sooner or later, try something else.

Apple has made a brilliant technique avoid pirating iPhone apps: they sell apps $1/copy. The cost of getting the pirate copy is higher than using AppStore (searching, downloading, installing).