Tell them, my song.

Every once in a while the discussion about how to protect your software against illegal copies pop ups on indie developer forums. Over time, I have developed the following opinion about copy protection:

People who want to steal your software will steal your software. Like all other people paranoid about illegal copies, the developers who implement rigid copy protection mechanisms are only punishing their paying customers.

Here’s what I think software developers should do: Just don’t worry about illegal copies. You cannot avoid them. Serial numbers and license certificates are ok, because that is an acceptable symbol, like giving an ignition key to the customer. Nobody has a real problem with that.

But everybody has a problem with copy protection and otherwise crippled software, because it is always user-unfriendly. The only smart copy protection system that I have ever seen was used by INFOCOM, the company that brought us the legendary text adventures games in the late 70s and early 80s. Their games shipped with so-called “feelies”, physical objects that resembled an important virtual object in the game and that contained certain information that the player needed to solve the game. That was a very smart approach, but, of course, it can only work for few types of software.

My simple advice is: Make life as easy and comfortable for your paying customers as possible. You want them to be happy with your product and you want them to return to your shop and purchase more of your products. But that is not going to happen if you treat them as suspects, as for example the movie and music industry does.

I am sick and tired of DVDs that don’t let me fast forward through the “license agreements” and company title screens, and to the same degree I am also sick and tired of software that wants to be activated and that can only be activated two or three times or that installs malware disguised as drivers on my computer. The worst part is that we actually have to pay for being treated like this. I believe in paying people for their work, because I also want to be paid for the work that I do. But people who download illegal copies of software and movies from file sharing networks don’t have that kind of negative experience that paying customers have. Their DVD players won’t show copyright notes that they cannot skip. They won’t have to call a bored and uninterested tech support person because the online activation failed or the copy protection “driver” of their new game disabled their DVD writer software.

It is just the paying customer who has to suffer through all this, and I think something is terribly wrong with that picture, because the common practice rewards those who steal and punishes those who pay.

There are still people out there who want to pay for your product. Focus on them and make them happy, because these are the people whose money will pay your bills.

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