Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!snjsn1!bilbo!greg From: greg@bilbo (Greg Wageman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Making Piracy work in your Favor Message-ID: <1108@snjsn1.SJ.ATE.SLB.COM> Date: 21 Jun 89 22:55:19 GMT References: <4332@druhi.ATT.COM> Sender: news@SJ.ATE.SLB.COM Reply-To: greg@sj.ate.slb.com (Greg Wageman) Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA Lines: 138 In article <4332@druhi.ATT.COM> terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE) writes: > >If I were a software developer victimized by piracy, rather than just >complain, I would change the way I do business: I would (1) ensure that the >users of my software derived significant advantages from purchasing the >product, and (2) exploit piracy to my advantage. > >How to make purchase of the product advantageous: > >1. Provide real customer support. Define "real". This requires a knowledgable person or persons to be available to answer phone calls. The knowledgable person will then be unable to do other useful things, like fix bugs and/or write new programs. This also requires phone line(s) dedicated to customer service. Who pays for the call? An 800 number costs big money, and extra phone lines and customer-service people aren't free. >2. Provide timely updates/upgrades/new products. Make sure that your > distribution methods are faster than the pirates'. If the product has bugs, updates/upgrades are certainly in order. But what about a relatively simple program which is released essentially bug-free (they do exist)? Just how many disks do you want a company to provide for the initial purchase price? The second part of this is impossible. Pirate BBS's have been known to have cracked copies of the latest versions of programs within days of their release. Other than distribution by BBS, a manufacturer has no cost effective, faster delivery mechanisms available. The BBS route is called "shareware", and no rational programmer expects to make a regular income solely from shareware. >3. Provide complete, comprehensive user documentation. A paper manual > is more attractive than a disk file, and it cannot be distributed > on a BBS. True, but with the advent of cheap, hand-held scanners, it takes only a matter of hours to scan-in a paper document, complete with pictures. Besides, fancy documents with plastic binders, color covers and disk holders cost money too. >4. Provide a monthly user newsletter. This requires quite a bit of time to produce, and is only as good as the material submitted. Or should it be filled with advertising for the company's products? It, too, costs money for preparation, printing, and mailing. >5. Keep users informed (by advertising, product reviews, press releases) > of the current version of the program. Pirates with old versions > of the program will consider upgrading by purchasing the product. Advertising costs money. Reviews are not under the control of the company producing the product, but of the magazine printing them. Pirates will just steal the latest version when it comes out and is cracked. >How to exploit piracy to your advantage: > >1. When someone calls up your telephone support service, get the > caller's name and address. Then try to get the caller's > registration number. If the caller can't furnish proof of > purchase, either politely decline support, or better still, > provide the support. Now you may have a new customer for > subsequent releases of the product, related products, etc. What kind of proof should you demand? I have lived at two addresses since I've had my ST. Many of the registration cards I've mailed in were send from my former address. Should I be denied support because I've moved? You're requiring the company to keep a database of all known users; this takes time and money to enter and maintain. And what's to stop software thieves from registering one copy and spreading the name of the imaginary user around with the stolen copy? > If you're providing timely updates, the pirate is likely to > be requesting support on an out-of-date version of the program. > Sell the caller the new version! Do people with stolen programs actually have the chutzpah to call in for customer support?? >2. In the program's documentation, give ordering information, and > list the advantages of purchasing the product. If a pirate > is convinced, you may get an order. I doubt it. How many people actually send in payment for shareware programs that they use, even if they use them frequently? >3. Because of piracy, much software is copy-protected. Don't copy- > protect your software and advertise the fact. This will give you > a competitive advantage over similar products that are copy-protected. Better yet, use an "enter the nth word on page x" protection scheme, which at least requires a copy of the manual. >4. If you find your program on a BBS, don't call the FBI. Get the > sysop to remove the posting, and place an advertisement of the > product that every BBS user will read. If you've been > providing timely updates, the pirates will be interested in > purchasing the updated version from you. No, do call the FBI. Copyright infringment is a serious crime. Chances are if your program is on the BBS, there are tens or hundreds of other stolen programs as well. The sorts of things you describe here can only be afforded by companies who can charge (and get) hundreds of dollars for a product. This leaves out all of the smaller manufacturers with products in the $20-$100 range, which is most of them. What kind of customer support do you provide for a game? Just how many disks do you think a publisher can afford to mail for that $45 purchase price, of which 30% goes to the retailer, and %10 to the programmer, after deducting the cost of manufacture (duplication), disks, boxes, manuals, binders, shipping and overhead? The reason you are seeing software companies dropping the ST in droves is because they can't get the sales volume necessary from our small market in the US (less than 300,000 machines) to make a reasonable profit and keep the price affordable to ST users. Why should they try when there are over 1,500,000 IBM PCs out there? Capturing 10% of the U.S. ST market (which I understand constitues a "hit") would be a sale of just 30,000 copies, while 10% of the IBM market would be 150,000 copies. That's half of the installed ST base! Software theft is just another nail in the coffin. Longish .signature follows. Skip now. Greg Wageman DOMAIN: greg@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: ...!uunet!sjsca4!greg 1601 Technology Drive BIX: gwage San Jose, CA 95110-1397 CIS: 74016,352 (408) 437-5198 GEnie: G.WAGEMAN ------------------ "Live Free; Die Anyway." ------------------ Opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the author.