If your application is useful, it will be cracked and released whether you use drm or not. Just sell it without activation and go after the pirates as you would have before.
Don't bother - you won't stop pirates, but you will put off genuine customers.
Even the best can get this badly wrong. I own Macromedia Studio MX2004 and Adobe Creative Suite CS2. I recently had to wipe and reinstall my system. The first thing to note - I had enough problems with activation over this last time (several years ago) that it's the primary reason I have not cleaned up my system for so long. Since then, I've only ever restored from a hard-disk image where activation was already done - until now.
When I went to activate, both failed internet activation, even though I had no other apparent problems with internet access. Telephone activation wasn't too bad for Creative Suite, but Macromedia was of course bought out by Adobe years ago. All the old Macromedia phone activation stuff is no longer there. You can find Adobe activation numbers on the web site, of course, but they don't support activation of Macromedia software.
Interestingly, Adobe seems to run the "keep them on hold for a while, then disconnect them" system of telephone support.
Eventually, I resolved a firewall issue and managed to get internet activation to work - but that was after a couple of wasted hours and a fair amount of call charges.
The point here - if companies the scale of Adobe can't ensure easy activation, and companies the scale of Macromedia can be taken over - what chance have you got of credibly claiming this won't cause problems for paying customers?
When you buy software that requires activation, you are buying a timebomb. There will come a time when you cannot use it because you cannot activate it - except by downloading some pirate crack of course.
Potential customers know this, of course, and unless they have extremely compelling reasons to buy your particular product, odds are they'll go elsewhere. Or, since they're going to need that pirate crack some day, there's no time like the present of course.
Why should you care about customers who don't upgrade regularly? Better to ask - why should I be strong-armed into upgrading something when I don't need any new features. Even the perception that ceasing to support activation might be used this way is enough to make me and others think twice about software that needs activation.
Nothing ventured nothing gained - if you're unwilling to take some risk, you'll never make a profit. And while most pirates can never be turned into paying customers whatever you do, it is most certainly possible to turn paying customers into pirates. All you have to do is make sure that they get a better experience pirating your software rather than paying, which is precisely what activation, DRM etc achieve.
EDIT
Incidentally, what I don't object to is the idea that everyone gets a unique "watermarked" download, so if you see widespread piracy, you can trace it to its source. There are binary watermarking systems that can ensure tracability even when someone has multiple copies to compare, though I have no idea how they work.
Watermarking can discourage people from making your software available but, even then, it's unlikely to stop piracy. It only takes e.g. one person to buy your product using an untracable fake identity.
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如果你的应用有用,无论你是否使用drm,它都会被破解并发布。只需在不激活的情况下出售它,然后像以前一样追捕海盗。
If your application is useful, it will be cracked and released whether you use drm or not. Just sell it without activation and go after the pirates as you would have before.
到目前为止,我发现这个链接很有趣:
http://www.emoreau.com/Entries/Articles/2007/12/Licensing-a-VBNet-application.aspx
不过它已经有几年了。我想我可以将MotherBoardID和CPUID合并到上面的服务思想中。
我仍然希望听到知道如何扮演这个角色的人(专业人士)的意见。这对我来说是非常有益的,因为我只是一个 n00b。
So far, I have found this link interesting:
http://www.emoreau.com/Entries/Articles/2007/12/Licensing-a-VBNet-application.aspx
Its a couple years old though. I am thinking that I can incorporate the MotherBoardID and CPUID into the service idea above.
I would still love to hear from someone that knows how to role this (a professional). It would be very beneficial as I am just a n00b.
别担心——你不会阻止盗版,但你会推迟真正的顾客。
即使是最优秀的人也可能犯下严重错误。我拥有 Macromedia Studio MX2004 和 Adobe Creative Suite CS2。我最近不得不擦除并重新安装我的系统。首先要注意的是——我在最近一次(几年前)的激活方面遇到了足够多的问题,这是我这么长时间没有清理系统的主要原因。从那时起,我只从已完成激活的硬盘映像中恢复 - 直到现在。
当我去激活时,尽管我没有其他明显的互联网访问问题,但互联网激活都失败了。对于 Creative Suite 来说,电话激活并不算太糟糕,但 Macromedia 当然在几年前就被 Adobe 收购了。所有旧的 Macromedia 电话激活内容都不再存在。当然,您可以在网站上找到 Adobe 激活号,但它们不支持 Macromedia 软件的激活。
有趣的是,Adobe 似乎运行“让他们保持一段时间,然后断开连接”的电话支持系统。
最终,我解决了防火墙问题并设法使互联网激活正常工作 - 但那是在浪费了几个小时和相当多的通话费用之后。
这里的要点是——如果 Adobe 规模的公司无法确保轻松激活,而 Macromedia 规模的公司可以被接管——你有什么机会可信地声称这不会给付费客户带来问题?
当您购买需要激活的软件时,您就是在购买一个定时炸弹。总有一天你会因为无法激活它而无法使用它——当然,除非下载一些盗版破解版。
当然,潜在客户知道这一点,除非他们有非常令人信服的理由来购买您的特定产品,否则他们很可能会去其他地方。或者,因为有一天他们会需要海盗破解版,所以当然没有比现在更好的时间了。
为什么要关心不定期升级的客户?最好问一下 - 当我不需要任何新功能时,为什么我应该强行升级某些东西。即使认为停止支持激活可能会以这种方式使用,也足以让我和其他人对需要激活的软件三思而后行。
没有冒险就没有收获——如果你不愿意承担一些风险,你就永远不会盈利。尽管无论你做什么,大多数盗版者永远不会变成付费客户,但将付费客户变成盗版者是绝对有可能的。您所要做的就是确保他们在盗版您的软件时获得更好的体验,而不是付费,这正是激活、DRM 等所实现的目的。
编辑
顺便说一句,我不反对的是每个人都会获得独特的“带水印”下载,因此如果您看到广泛的盗版,您可以追溯到其来源。有一些二进制水印系统可以确保可追溯性,即使有人有多个副本可供比较,但我不知道它们是如何工作的。
水印可以阻止人们提供您的软件,但即使如此,也不太可能阻止盗版。例如,只需要一个人使用无法追踪的虚假身份来购买您的产品。
Don't bother - you won't stop pirates, but you will put off genuine customers.
Even the best can get this badly wrong. I own Macromedia Studio MX2004 and Adobe Creative Suite CS2. I recently had to wipe and reinstall my system. The first thing to note - I had enough problems with activation over this last time (several years ago) that it's the primary reason I have not cleaned up my system for so long. Since then, I've only ever restored from a hard-disk image where activation was already done - until now.
When I went to activate, both failed internet activation, even though I had no other apparent problems with internet access. Telephone activation wasn't too bad for Creative Suite, but Macromedia was of course bought out by Adobe years ago. All the old Macromedia phone activation stuff is no longer there. You can find Adobe activation numbers on the web site, of course, but they don't support activation of Macromedia software.
Interestingly, Adobe seems to run the "keep them on hold for a while, then disconnect them" system of telephone support.
Eventually, I resolved a firewall issue and managed to get internet activation to work - but that was after a couple of wasted hours and a fair amount of call charges.
The point here - if companies the scale of Adobe can't ensure easy activation, and companies the scale of Macromedia can be taken over - what chance have you got of credibly claiming this won't cause problems for paying customers?
When you buy software that requires activation, you are buying a timebomb. There will come a time when you cannot use it because you cannot activate it - except by downloading some pirate crack of course.
Potential customers know this, of course, and unless they have extremely compelling reasons to buy your particular product, odds are they'll go elsewhere. Or, since they're going to need that pirate crack some day, there's no time like the present of course.
Why should you care about customers who don't upgrade regularly? Better to ask - why should I be strong-armed into upgrading something when I don't need any new features. Even the perception that ceasing to support activation might be used this way is enough to make me and others think twice about software that needs activation.
Nothing ventured nothing gained - if you're unwilling to take some risk, you'll never make a profit. And while most pirates can never be turned into paying customers whatever you do, it is most certainly possible to turn paying customers into pirates. All you have to do is make sure that they get a better experience pirating your software rather than paying, which is precisely what activation, DRM etc achieve.
EDIT
Incidentally, what I don't object to is the idea that everyone gets a unique "watermarked" download, so if you see widespread piracy, you can trace it to its source. There are binary watermarking systems that can ensure tracability even when someone has multiple copies to compare, though I have no idea how they work.
Watermarking can discourage people from making your software available but, even then, it's unlikely to stop piracy. It only takes e.g. one person to buy your product using an untracable fake identity.