![]() I bet that all these programs are cracked in one way or another - at least those popular enough for crackers to care about them. Many are created by very small to medium sized companies - many even run by a single programmer/webmaster/marketer/entrepreneur. ![]() There are over 200,000 programs listed on and that’s just for Windows. I have been a microISV for over 10 years so lets forget about the entertainment industry and concentrate on my field, software. So if you discover your software illegally distributed in some warez website, you can send a so called “DMCA section 512 takedown notice” to the website host and they are expected to remove that particular file from circulation - or risk the wrath of the law. This law is very broad, and not without controversy, but it works – closing down websites that distribute illegal content and removing copyright infringing downloads from file-hosting websites with summary procedures, among other things. A little bit like the war on terror, isn’t it?Ī different line of defense for ailing copyright owners is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a US law with global reach for copyright protection (the european EUCD equivalent is not as broadly known). To add insult to injury legitimate customers are usually hurt by such reinforced software protection and activation systems. But usually crackers have no problem circumventing any protection system that we can dream up. Software authors and music enterprises are fighting back by tightening the DRM (Digital Rights Management) of their products in a futile effort to stop online piracy. Downloading the latest movie or windows software from somehow doesn’t strike them as theft - it’s not like stealing a loaf of bread! The traditional music industry is already down on its knees as a result, and software may be the next to follow. People around the world seem to have very lax morals when it comes to abusing digital content. Why buy something when you can download it ‘for free’? Billions of dollars are lost every year from illegal downloads of music, movies and software. He kindly agreed to write this post about software piracy, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and his CrackTracker product. ![]() So when I heard that fellow microISV owner Nikos Bozinis had created a tool to help software vendors fight piracy, I asked him to write a guest post. Software piracy is a real issue for every software company, large and small, and it isn’t going away any time soon. ![]()
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