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AnonTechie writes:
"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?
It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Saturday March 22 2014, @07:30AM
Try asking yourself, "how much profit do you make by preventing unlicensed copying?"
Answer: negative money. You make money by getting people to pay for your software, not by stopping them from not-paying for it. This is a subtle distinction but it is a critical one to understand because the harder you fight against "piracy," the more money you will lose. This, BTW, explains why no one does a better job of it. That would cost more and not improve revenue.
The real question you should be asking is "how do I get people to pay more money for my software?" There are two answers, equally obvious: convince them it's worth more money, or sell to more people. DRM does not help you with either.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight who is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:35PM
You make the key point - a lot of companies have yet to learn this lesson. (Typical attorneys hate to lose anything, including a possible license fee.) In my experience you lose customers/revenue or have to refund customers because of DRM problems.
We could spend X hundred hours building a hack-proof DRM system which cash paying customers would hate and not add any value to the product. Or put the same time into adding new value to our products and services. Which will increase sales?
Another twist to the DRM debate is that some large companies apparently don't really care about piracy in some markets because they know their pirated copies are preventing local competitors/startups from making sales and getting established.