Not preposing it. but has anyone thought of displaying ads in pirated apps?
Sent from my iPhone On Dec 27, 2009, at 1:45 PM, Tyler Hall <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm glad this topic came up when it did. Over the weekend I found that > two of my own apps had finally been cracked. (Yay, for success.) This > got me thinking more about the problem than I had before. > > My views are pretty passive on the situation. I accept that piracy > will happen and that it's likely not worth my time trying to fight it. > So, my new approach is to at a minimum be informed about it. > > I'm doing this by pushing out two new builds of my apps that > > 1) blacklist the pirated serial numbers, of course, and > > 2) display a "please don't pirate me" warning message when it detects > the user trying to steal one of them. Here's a screenshot of the > warning: http://skitch.com/tylerhall/npngf/virtualhostx > > And 3) the app now phone's home to Shine *only* on launch and *only* > if the app is being pirated. > > I have *absolutely* no desire (and I think it's wrong) to phone home > on legitimate users. BUT for pirates? I wanted to know how widespread > the problem is. Is it three users? Or three thousand? > > I'm not sending any personally identifiable information. Just a unique > guid that lets me track how many individual users are using the > pirated serials. > > I'd love to get everyone else's thoughts on this approach as I can see > how it's borderline on what some might consider bad behavior. > > Cheers. > Tyler > -- > http://clickontyler.com > > On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Houdah - ML Pierre Bernard > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Dan! > > > > The press release is coming out on Monday morning. I did not want > it to get out over the weekend when the news sites don't publish > updates. > > > > Obviously specifying the version number worsens things. Overall my > web pages have a PageRank of 5. Some had a PR of 6 but I recently > lost that. > > I however tried a couple of other product names with version > numbers and did not dig up all that many pirate sites. > > E.g. for "sandvox 1.6.5" I found no pirated copy in the first 10 > result pages. > > > > Of course, I am kinda flattered that pirates rushed to crack > HoudahSpot within hours after the release. I however would like to > know if they actually succeeded. Past pirates distributions had only > the nag screen removed, but the limitation still in place. LOL. > > > > > > On Dec 27, 2009, at 5:07 PM, Dan Wood wrote: > > > >> Pierre -- > >> > >> I can imagine that this must be frustrating! > >> > >> I think that this is just going to happen. It's inevitable. > >> > >> However, I think that perhaps something else is going on. I think > that if you can work on improving your search engine placement > overall, that the legitimate sites will overpower the pirate sites. > >> > >> I can use an example of Fraser Speir's Viewfinder. Shortly after > its release, I did a bit of googling and he had quickly gotten the > "badge of honor" of being cracked." Because his app was so new, it > hadn't really made it into the mainstream websites. The pirate sites > are, unfortunately, fairly well placed by Google, and I"m guessed > that there is so much activity that they tend to get scanned daily, > if not more frequent. > >> > >> Either this will come naturally -- try the query again in a few > days, and see if more legitimate websites (that outrank the pirate > sites) show up in the first few pages of Google results. E.g. > websites like your own, Twitter, Yahoo groups, MacUpdate, Apple > Downloads, Cnet, facebook, squidoo, IUseThis, VersionTracker, MacNN, > TUAW, etc. > >> > >> Actually, you should take into account that many of these > websites may require some human editorial contribution, and a lot of > people are not working much during the Winter (northern hemisphere) > holidays like Festivus and Christmas. > >> > >> If you don't start seeing the legitimate websites out-rank the > pirate sites in a few days, then this probably means that these > websites are not noticing your application, and you need to work a > some Search Engine Optimization to get more links into your own > website, and also other websites talking about your product. > >> > >> (BTW I didn't find any press releases about HoudahSpot 2.6; the > only legitimate posts about 2.6 that I could find were just the > software tracker sites and echoes of that.) > >> > >> I have posted a bunch of tips that hopefully will be useful over > on the Karelia marketing blog: http://www.karelia.com/ > marketing/ .... Good luck! > >> > >> Dan > >> > >> Another note: It seems to me that specifying the version number > in the search string is more likely to turn up the > >> > >> On Dec 27, 2009, at 3:31 AM, Houdah - ML Pierre Bernard wrote: > >> > >> > Hi! > >> > > >> > I have just released HoudahSpot 2.6. The press release is > coming out on Monday. Out of curiosity, I ran a Google search for > "HoudahSpot 2.6" to see how far the news had already spread. > >> > > >> > The bad news: most first and second page results are links to > cracked copies. http://www.google.com/search?q=houdahspot+2.6 > >> > > >> > I can't tell if the cracked copy actually works. RapidShare > won't let me download without a Premium membership. > >> > > >> > Yet I am quite shocked by how fast and how far this has spread. > This happened within hours of the release. > >> > > >> > I have sent an email to RapidShare asking them to take down the > file. But they don't seem to be in a rush to react. Anyway I don't > see this do much good. The cracker will always be faster at > uploading the file than I will be at getting those sites take it down. > >> > > >> > Pierre > >> > > >> > - - - > >> > Houdah Software s. à r. l. > >> > http://www.houdah.com > >> > > >> > HoudahGeo: One-stop photo geocoding > >> > HoudahSpot: Powerful Spotlight frontend > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > ------------------------------------ > >> > > >> > MacSB email guidelines: http://tinyurl.com/2g55d6 > >> > Use MacSB-Talk for off topic messages: > >> > http://groups.google.com/group/macsb-talk > >> > Yahoo! Groups Links > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > >> > > > > - - - > > Houdah Software s. à r. l. > > http://www.houdah.com > > > > HoudahGeo: One-stop photo geocoding > > HoudahSpot: Powerful Spotlight frontend > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > MacSB email guidelines: http://tinyurl.com/2g55d6 > > Use MacSB-Talk for off topic messages: > > http://groups.google.com/group/macsb-talk > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
