Beware this type of Sofware security system

[Guest jmarcure]

>I don't want to read the whole thread (it's so damn loooooong>:)), but I have only one thing to say on this matter. >Well I think you should have read the whole thing because it had nothing to do with who owns what. In a nutshell, the thread is about whether or not the security systems employed by some software vendors is a burden to the customer and as such results in lost sales. Some of us think it does, some of us don

[Guest Steve Small]

Perhaps you are right. But perhaps not.>The people who object, in our experience, are most often I think the key words are "most often", which you seem to interpret as "exclusively". Selectively misinterpreting the clear intent of my statement, for your philosophical convenience, is disappointing.http://www.fsd-international.com/team/Steve_signature.gif

[Guest sbdwag]

"I'm sure the FSD wags will soon arrive accusing those of us who don't agree with FSD's protection practices as thieves and pirates."Hey you got it right Im a wag Waggoner is my name but Im not going to accuse you of being a thieve or disbursing FSD's Product illegally.Why because they already know who is doing it and they choose not to do business with them. You quys want to try to make FSD bad guys in this thread go right ahead. Actually you are the ones that are missing out and If you have already lost you privilidge to purchase from FSD I feel sorry for you. No one else is making the quality, guantity and kinds of Planes for FS like FSD and there would be a huge void in my enjoyment of the Simulator without the likes of them.Theres more to it than making money at FSD. If not why in the heck would they have ungraded the Commander so many times for free and why would that have developed upgrades for all of their 2002 products and made them available WEEKS after FS9 was release "can you say C421!". Why... because they enjoy what the do and they enjoy being associated with people who appreciate the love of the hobbie love of planes and aviation in general. By the way sorry guys if you dont want to or are force to be dissassociated with FSD because in a few weeks there with be another great product released and Im once again excited about it. RegardsDennis

[Guest TimD]

Your reaction to this is both incorrect, and unwarranted. Steve's post said most of the people. You clearly took that as all the people, which is not what he said.And what he said is quite factual. Most of the people who have registered philosophical objections about our, or other license protection systems in the forums never seem to show up in any of our databases. And on occasion we would check with some other developers, who do not seem to know who they are either. Even going back several years, before any such systems were even contemplated. But hey, that's OK. This is a public opinion forum, and all is fair game.Also, in your particular case, you are leaving out some critical information. That is, that we have manually reset our server to unlock the software for you a number of extra times. Very promptly in fact, every time you have requested it. Regardless of the fact that you did so four times in the first month of purchase. So it is a bit difficult to see where we have not given you first class support.http://www.fsd-international.com/team/TD_forum_sig.gif

[Guest TimD]

That's not a surprise Greg. You have never missed an opportunity to needle us in public. Going back a long time before we implemented any license management system. So please don't feign sudden outrage. You clearly have an agenda, and it has been obvious for a long time. Also, you might want to be a bit more ingenuous in your representations. We do not share confidential customer data in public, or publish the contents of private correspondence in the forums, as many others choose to do. Also, there is no correlation between anything said in the forums, and the level of support we provide. As openly hostile as you have been to us in the past, if you presented a support issue to us now, we would handle it for you promptly just as we would for anyone else. We do not hold petty grudges.Perhaps you should look in the mirror and try some of your statements out before you publish them.http://www.fsd-international.com/team/TD_forum_sig.gif

[Guest Elrond]

Hi Steve,As you clearly state, most companies actual objective when they turn to DRM is to stop or curtail "casual" copying/theft (among other unrelated motivations), not the well organized "pirate" underground that is so touted in the PR for DRM. But it is the organized underground that is the cause for the vast overriding majority of "loss" most companies talk about.Unfortunately, DRM *does not* curtail theft in the organized underground. It actually encourages it because of the increased "excitement" that is a result of cracking or bypassing such measures and spreading the resulting unprotected works as widely as possible (this is guaranteed to happen, regardless of technology used). Theft is not the principal motivation of these illegitimate hackers: insecurity, recognition, and status are the main factors. Consumers of these efforts *are* motivated by theft, but its already too late once the protection measures have been compromised. Whats more, most companies tally "losses" to both organized pirating and "casual" theft that in large part do not exist. Most of the "lost" revenue from this theft would never have been generated to begin with. Statistics and experience clearly bear this out.So, the real objectives need to be understood and researched to find out if using DRM is actually effective for the legitimate customer base. While existing customers are curtailed from casual copying with some success, many of those customers and a large subset of new customers can and will be turned away. Sometimes this is indeed because those existing or new customers would be one of the "casual" copiers or thiefs that a company is trying to stop. Again, perceived or actual "lost" revenues to such activities need to be fully understood, as actual loss is much less than perceived loss due to casual recipient purchasing habits.The problem with DRM is the folklore or actual difficulties with it (perceived or real) that are generated and spread so widely and in real-time on the internet. This is extremely visible to existing and potential customers. It is widely understood in consumer research that a customers willingness to purchase a product and remain loyal to a brand is largely based on perceived value, not actual value. DRM schemes dramatically reduce the perceived value of a product, regardless of actual quality of said product. Not only does this effect the product in question, but the organization as a whole.Short term success with DRM can be readily achieved where it is targeted: "casual" copying. It is the long term effect this has on ones existing and potential customer base that is the real problem (from the point of view of a company). Taking the perceived or real "freedom" away from a customer in such a visible manner is a major risk to the viability of a product or brand. There are many reasons why the copy protection efforts of the past faded away (hardware dongles, code lookups, etc). The introduction of the CD-ROM was a part of that, but by far not the only one.I'm not a marketing expert and the main focus of my work is not in consumer research. But through experience on the inside of large operations that have experimented with DRM, I have learned quite a bit. Beyond my personal beliefs, my overriding adage always is: once bitten, twice shy.Take care,Elrond

[Guest SoarPics]

TimD wrote:"You have never missed an opportunity to needle us in public."And now I must demand that you provide proof of such. You have my public permission to support your claim in this or any other forum you choose. As soon as you do provide such proof I will publicly apologize to you and FSD.Again, just because a consumer may disagree with your protection scheme and therefore choose to not buy your product you feel you have the right to slander them. You, sir, are in for some harsh realities.I await your proof...

[Guest mikealpha]

Well, I think one thing that gets overseen is that piracy is a worldwide problem. But developers think only local, "what shall I care about laws in other countries".Answering illegality with, well, I put it mildly, legally questionable activation stuff is IMO contraproductive, as it undermines theft morality even more.As I said, it's a global problem and if the software industry and governments operate only locally against it (if at all), then you will probably never get rid of it. And as much the theft morality is the BIG problem, do developers not have to grab a bit on their own nose with unfinished releases, cheap shots to get the short time money and public betatests ? I think every unfinished release is a shoot in the own foot for all that make business with Addons on the long run. Also that hurts then all the excellent teams out there, that don't operate like this.Mike

[Guest jmarcure]

Really lame. If the same thing were said in a racial, religious or ethnic context you would be justifiably condemned. But because it

[Guest Ezdale]

Steve This was A Direct Responce To How You Delt With Me And Others You Brought This On Your self. You Make your way around the internet Ofending people with Your Better than you Attude. + You don't think it gets around how your relationships end with other developers as well as customers. Honestly We and Others Don't realy Care About What FSD Thinks About Us. We Just Consider the source. You Do not even come close to quality customer suport. We can only think of how bad it must be to work with you on any ones Team. We did not lose you You Lost US. Dale

[Guest TimD]

"most companies actual objective when they turn to DRM is to stop or curtail "casual" copying/theft (among other unrelated motivations), not the well organized "pirate" underground that is so touted in the PR for DRM. But it is the organized underground that is the cause for the vast overriding majority of "loss" most companies talk about."This is very true of "general application" and business/office software. But it is not really true at all for hobby and specialty software, such as FS add-ons. The losses are almost 100% from casual file trading.In general application software, where unit volumes are very high, it would be highly problemmatic whether a license management system would be worthwhile. But in specialty software like this, where a few thousand units is a typical sales volume, it's a whole different ballgame. Your files ending up on a Warez site can pretty much put you out of business.http://www.fsd-international./tab2Fteam/TD_forum_sig.gif

[Guest shanwick]

But not even the slightest hint of any possible small apology.Whatever happened to customer care, I wonder? I think I have made the right decision not to deal with FSD any more.David

[Guest TimD]

"The attitude of FSD is simply disgusting and is even more so with this lame attempt in further vilifying those that don

[Guest Elrond]

Hi Tim,As I said in an earlier post, I'm personally not aware of any good research that has been completed specific to small vendor operations when it comes to DRM. There may be some out there but I'm simply not aware of it. There is, however, a growing dataset of research based on large operations who have tested DRM and that is mainly where my experience lies. I'm sure there is plenty of cross pollination between the two, but as you point out there must be some differences as well.Even for a small operation, I can only imagine that the negative effect DRM has on the consciousness of customers from the larger scale tests will effect smaller vendor's DRM'd products as well.What is striking, however, is your response above. It seems your goal is indeed stopping your product from distribution within organized pirate operations, not casual theft: "Your files ending up on a Warez site", as you state. Thats clearly the definition of large scale pirating, not casual copying/theft.Unfortunately, DRM will have no effect on stopping or slowing down the warez operations that you speak of. Once their focus is turned in your direction and they begin cracking your DRM, it'll only increase the distribution of that cracked and unprotected product. The research on this is clear.Thats why I highly suggested to Rob that he do as much research as possible before taking the DRM path. Increasing amounts of data are already available, and I'm sure much of that would apply to small vendors as it does to large.Take care,Elrond

[N400QW 205]

Just my two cents again.....weren't we discussing the dilema that Real-Air and others are experiencing?While you guys feel like "developer bashing" the problem still exists for Quality Flight Sim Addon Developers like REAL-AIR, F1, DF, FSD, and yes I will include Eaglesoft in that list.Having only recently entered into this business and hopefully cementing friendships with members of each of the Teams mentioned I can say first hand that NONE of these men are trying to make things "difficult for customers". When quality folks like Rob Young and Real-Air are forced under because theft is so rampant....well what's next for the hobby?....do you really think that the quality you recieve in any package from the above mentioned developers is going to be given for free?The answer is no, simply because even the best freeware guys out there cannot afford the investment in time, energy, money, family schedule, etc. without a return on their investment.In short, FS addon developers have the same business challenges regarding theft as any other business faces. We will applaude Rob Youngs (or any other developers) decision to remain a viable business entity while continuing to develop the very Best Addons available anywhere:-)