In reference to anti-piracy measures

Hello everyone, Over the last several days our company and its members have been overwhelmed with threatening and strong words to us about our recent decision to put an end to Piracy and illegal unauthorized access to our servers. It is quite sad that those who are illegally using the software feel it is their right to use our products for free, and by us stopping them, we are somehow doing something unethical and illegal. They feel so strongly about this that some even threatened physical harm to us and our assets. Quite the contrary, we have absolutely no other option that we can see to continue to provide access to our legitimate customers. Pirate access has resulted in significant damages and availability of our network resources, as many legitimate customers may attest to who've witnessed weather network performance degradation over the past 6 months. So, either we just shut our doors down and end all server access to everyone (like the pirates seem to suggest), or, we do everything we can to continue to stay in business and provide access to our legitimate customers. Since the pirate access is so rampant, and despite our every attempt to prevent this, it still occurs after new "hacks" are created, almost on a daily basis, our only option we see is to prosecute those who are illegally accessing the system, after many warnings and full notice of the damages they are causing. I think most fail to realize that not only is AS a software program, it's also a series of network components, servers and infrastructure to support AS. Not only are pirates stealing our hard work and efforts, they are costing us dearly (as well as seriously inconveniencing our legitimate customers). If you feel we are wrong, we'd love to hear your suggestions on how to better handle this. We're not bad guys, believe it or not, and I think our history has proven that we are loyal and dedicated to being an example of integrity and good will within our community. As always we are open to all input and thoughts. Please feel free to contact us via our helpdesk with your suggestions.