We use "phone home" authorization that uses machine-specific info. In
case of a user with two computers, a hard drive crash, etc., we let
people authorize additional computers with their email address and
password so they always have access to what they've purchased.
We "police" our database in case someone gives out their info, we can
"pull the plug" on any pirated installs.
Works great, in tens of thousands of customers, only encountered a
tiny handful who were not connected to the Internet. In these cases we
can do a "manual registration".
Cheers,
Josh
On Mar 4, 2010, at 8:59 AM, Richard Gaskin
<ambassa...@fourthworld.com> wrote:
Tiemo Hollmann wrote:
In the first years our software was - in your intention - completely
free of copy protection, later we implemented a copy protection on
some
programs, which were running off the CD.
We made the experience, that nobody ever thanked us the ease of use
and lack
of licensing. Just the opposite. Just because our target market is
so small
and lots of people know each other, our software was copied, given
away
without control.
"Completely free of copy protection" is very different from the
industry-standard per-user license keys I described, and not
something I would advocate for any commercial product.
In markets where piracy is an unusually serious consideration,
server-based activation can provide reasonable control over license
key redistribution. If smartly implemented with grace periods,
"phone home" activation should pose no inconvenience to the end-user.
But most successful products don't even do that, they merely use pre-
generated keys. Per-user license keys have made Adobe, Microsoft,
Apple, and most other software vendors quite profitable.
Not having any protection at all is, IMO, only appropriate for free
products. The early years of the computer industry's "shareware"
experiments proved that convincingly. The difference between "free
demo" and "full version" need not be onerous to the user, but there
must be some incentive to motivate the user to put in the additional
effort to fill out an order form.
This is one reason why having PayPal as a payment option is so
valuable: it reduces the payment process to just a single password
field and one click.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com
revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv
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