Make Software Pirates Your Friends

Rather than launch a galleon against their fleet, Uniloc USA, a content protection firm, promotes 10 steps to using code smugglers to your advantage. Uniloc USA officials say creative licensing allows software vendors to create new revenue

Do not succumb to the hype that all piracy is bad. Bill Gates discussed how Indias piracy ultimately created a huge market for Windows in a recent Time magazine article. Instead, implement ideas on how to use warez and bit torrents to expedite viral mark

Turn software pirates into software resellers, allowing everyone to make money. Instead of hosting a cracked version of software, allow the warez boards to host affiliate versions. Each download can become revenue to the warez site instead of being a stol

Do not believe all the industry reports on piracy or guess how bad your organization’s piracy problem is. If spending any effort on researching piracy, start by figuring out just how bad the situation really is. New tools that allow 100 percent accurate p

Do not use rigid licensing models that stop people from using your product. If licensing is harsh or evaluations result in pain, the prospect of return business is greatly reduced. One of the advantages of new techniques such as throttling i

Base every licensing decision made on the principle of fair use. A polite software copy control policy is the profitable choice.

Reward consumers for sharing software with others. Create an affiliate program that gives users an incentive to distribute a legitimate version of software.

Reward peer-to-peer networks with affiliate programs the same way one tackles the issue with warez sites.

Resist punishing users for using software on more than one or two computers. Most people install software titles on two or more computers within one year of buying the license and it is not motivated by theft.

Refrain from punishing users for changing or upgrading hardware. There is groundbreaking new technology available to software vendors that use a concept called Tolerance to recognize hardware upgrades and update a computer fingerprint. Lever

Throttle back on licensing terms over the life cycle of a product. This involves increasing the overall availability of seats per license over time. Throttling allows users to re-install on their new laptop during month 15, as well as allowing the old ver

One call to technical support can eat the profit margin on one or many sales. Empower users to self serve.

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