Software Piracy Protection Gone Mad!

I’ve recently upgraded my iPaq, which I do whenever I need to, if the newer models warrant the outlay. This time I upgraded to one that had a mobile phone built-in because I was tired of carrying a mobile and an organiser wherever I went. So on my organiser I use TomTom as my primary navigation software and I’ve been very happy with it apart from one thing. Firstly it’s important to mention that although this issue exists with TomTom, it is also a problem with other pieces of software that are on my iPaq which to be honest is quite daft.

The iPaq has a unique hardware ID for every unit, not dissimilar to the old Intel serial number thing that was the source of so many headlines a few years back, the difference is that the Pocket PCs have always had these so no one is upset about them being introduced, they’ve always been there. As a result of this companies and individuals that write software for the Pocket PC and Windows Pocket PC 2003, have used the Hardware ID in order to generate a hash, which must then have an authentication code generated in order for your software to work. The concept behind this is that as a result software is pirated less. That may have been the case before the advent of Peer-to-Peer clients and P2P networking, but to believe that the case is unchanged is simply a “head-in-the-sand” approach to software development.

Here’s my problem, everytime I upgrade my hardware, all of my software stops working, obviously because the HardwareID has changed the previously generated licences are no longer valid. So, in order to reinstall my software, I have to either fax proof of purchase, or in the case of repair/replacement of unit or mainboard I have get proof from HP to show that the unit has had the mainboard changed, I then have to fax this information to whomever is in charge of generating new keys. In another case, one of the software vendors I use insists that they will only regenerate the keys once, and once only, they don’t say what you do after the “once” but I’m assuming that you either re-buy their software (yeah, like that’s gonna happen every second upgrade I do to my iPaq) or I buy a competitors software that doesn’t have the same restrictions.

Now anyone that knows me knows I have a very Libertarian approach to life, and as such I’m not going to whine that they have no right, or they owe me something, because they don’t, they have the right to sell the product of their mind under any terms they see fit and at any price they think that the market will bear, it’s mainly my fault for not paying proper attention to the licence agreement.

The moral of this story is, anyone who looks on the eDonkey network or has a copy of Kazaa, or has access to some other P2P Portal, will realise that software companies as a whole have a big problem right now, with others distributing “cracked” copies of their software over P2P networks. People far smarter than me are reverse engineering their algorithms and checksums for their licence keys, people are generating patched executables, in order to circumvent protection. But here’s the deal for any software companies/developers that are reading this post.

If you want to prevent piracy, sit down and have a think about another method of doing so that isn’t so damned inconvenient. See the problem is that the people who are ripping you off are downloading your software already broken, from their P2P clients and file sharing networks, people that want to use your software without paying are doing so, fact! There’s not an immediate solution to that problem, but, don’t you think you should be doing everything in your power to help the people who are paying for your software to have an easier life? Especially if you want residual income from upgrades and the like.

The only people whose life is being made difficult are your paying customers, everyone that has no intention of paying, already has your software, and is using it, and has not paid for it. More importantly they are not likely to try and make contact with you to ask for new keys to be generated.

Think about it!