Crack Versions

Al Hart

We noticed that several thousand usages of IRender nXt were all coming from the same email address.

A little research determined that IRender nXt was available on a crack site. (This means we have graduated to the big leagues - like AutoDesk and Microsoft:

A little more research revealed that the cracks were using 16 different license numbers for the last 24 months - but all registered with the same emails address and User Name. Which means they have found a way to crack our licensing scheme as well.

The "good news" is that the 1,000s of people using our software would probably never have paid for it, so we didn't really lose any money.

At first we were considering ways to close the loopholes. (There are a few things we can do). But we also remembered, that whatever we try, the software crackers are better and smarter than we are, and they probably have automatic programs to find and defeat anything we try. Also if Microsoft and AutoDesk cannot defeat crackers, how can we hope to?

We considered logging on to the crack site to see what they offered, but of course, we are hesitant to register our own email address with a crack site.

Has anyone else run into this?

solo

"several thousand" you say, I dunno maybe that is a compliment to your product that so many people are stealing it. You are never going to beat it, so why not join it the way Autodesk does, they almost encourage it as people learn their software and become proficient(mostly students) and when they get gainfully employed they then purchase legit licenses (so i am led to believe from an Autodesk forum post i read many moons ago)

driven

@al hart said:

...The "good news" is that the 1,000s of people using our software would probably never have paid for it, so we didn't really lose any money...

if you really feel that way you can defeat the crackers by offering a 'nagware' version for free...

it's quite common in the 'mac world' and come in a variety of flavours...
the least cracked are 'full featured' but have either delayed startup with message and links for purchasing or usage timers that cap number of starts per time constraint...

they are a bit like an extended trial and I regularly use a couple myself...

a good example is 'GraphicConverter' , v2 was bundled on osx for free by Apple, v3 I opted for the nagware, then when i changed jobs and needed it often, I bought v4 and paid for v5 upgrade...

then it fell back to occasional use for a few years, so I volunteered as a beta tester with free versions, but I eventually paid for the v8 upgrade anyway...

I'm currently on v9 [non beta], but every time I use it I consider paying again...

In the process, I have recommended it to hundreds of users who ended up buying it...

no-one has ever bothered to writing a crack for it as most people prefer to be honest...

john

srx

I think that all big software companies have their own "cracked" version to catch new users. When some of them become pro, they will by the best software - one they've been using for years. It is like prolonged trial version.

Al Hart

Actually it was about 5000 seperate usages - so it could be just 200 users 25 times each

Maybe we'll add a friendly message for that particular email address inviting them to enjoy the product now and considering purchasing it sometime in the future

Pixero

I remember Amrosias Escape Velosity game had a rather fun and different way of getting people to pay.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/windows/

You could play the game for free and after a while Captain Hector would fly by asking you to pay for the game.
If you continued without paying he would come more frequently and after still a while he would become agressive and start shooting at you.
He was also invincible so you could never win a fight with him. (I tried.)