Offener Brief an eine Warez Seite für Windows Mobile

Es ist zwar schon eine Weile her, seit der Brief geschrieben wurde, aber er hat nichts an seiner Aktualität verloren. Wenn das Bedürfnis besteht, übersetze ich ihn auf Deutsch. Bitte in den Comments posten wenn ihr eine Übersetzung wollt.
Der Eigentümer von WebIS mit Programmen wie PocketInformant, FlexMail, FlexWallet und weiteren hat einen offenen Brief an eine Warez Site geschrieben, welche ich wie er hier nicht nennen will.
Auch Programmierer hier im Forum sind von der Piraterie ebendieser Warez Site betroffen. Nehmt euch einen Moment Zeit zum lesen und überlegen.

"Piracy is a huge issue for the software industry, but to be quite honest its nowhere near as huge as what the RIAA and MPAA and SBA make it out to be. 50% or more of the software pirated would never have been purchased in the first place. But lets talk a bit more personally here.

Myself and a band of software devs here have found a *very* large pirate warez site which I will not link to. They have cracks for almost everything imaginable. They have our software on there with download ratios in the TENS of THOUSANDS. In many cases I find more downloads of our software on the warez site than I see on our own download servers. I've calculated that even if we only lost 10% of those downloads that could have been sales its a pretty major hit.

The fact is that companies like ours and most other WinMobile devs operate on a shoestring budget. Most of our software sells at a break-even point, some at a loss until it breaks even 2-4 years after introduction. For the amount of money I've "lost" I could have *easily* created a Pocket Informant for Desktop or BlackBerry or heck other major applications or improvements. I could have hired an extremely high paid developer for a year or two averagely paid ones. For a company that has only 3 full time developers that's a fairly major loss.

The fact is that piracy hurts those who pirate. They want our software obviously. Some just use it for a "test", but we offer a two week trial and with a bit of work you can probably get 2-3 months free usage of our products a year. And we don't sell for a large amount of money. Just wait and you can usually get our software for a steal - without actually stealing. I don't think paying $9.95 is such a huge issue if you need an app like VoiceMinder. Its barely a lunch and drink. But the reason piracy hurts those who pirate is because they are like vampires slowly killing the company that they are sucking the applications off of.

Who here would care if there was never a VoiceMinder, FlexWallet, FlexMail, or Pocket Informant upgrade again? I have personally had fleeting thoughts of selling WebIS or just closing it down because even as this market has grown the software market has not and while I'm not naive enough to think its *all* about piracy, I know that it just makes me depressed. And no, we're not closing down and yes there will be major upgrades of everything. And yes, piracy has been part of the software business from the very beginning but that doesn't mean I can't ask you to stop.

And therein lies my plea to you. If you actually use our software please pay for it. When you don't you personally are contributing to the financial downfall of a bunch of people who are working hard to make good quality software for you. If you don't want to think of piracy as theft, think of it as stiffing us. Would you stiff the waiter of a tip? How about the guy who built your house? How about the plumber or the electrician? Or the Taxi cab driver? And yes, software does cost money to make. I pay electric bills, Microsoft dues, travel expenses to meet with MS devs, trade shows, advertising, not to mention salaries. So if you wouldn't stiff the waiter at your favorite restaurant his 15% (or 10% if you're money concious) tip, why stiff us the few bucks we ask?

WebIS has always been extremely liberal in our licensing as well. We don't use activation (we've thought about it), we don't lock our license to your username, we don't do anything to make licensing hard. We let you run our software on as many devices that you personally use and we use the honor system. Heck, we even make 2-3 versions of our software in most cases and let you pay for one and get them all.

So that's all. Hope you guys have a great day!"

Link: http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forum...8&st=0&p=61900

Ja, unrecht hat er wirklich nicht. Und im WM-Bereich sind es wirklich vor Allem kleine Firmen, die die guten, weitverbreiteten und somit auch meist-kopierten Programme schreiben. Diesen tut wirklich jede Warez-Version weh.
Ich denke übrigens auch, dass die ganze Warez-Bewegung der Softwareindurstire langfristig schadet. Weil die Industrie gerät zunehmens unter Druck, Aktivierungs-Routinen und besseren Kopierschutz zu entwickeln. Das kostet natürlich Geld und Zeit, die dann bei der eigentlichen Software beide fehlen, bzw. draufgeschlagen werden müssen um die Entwicklungskosten zu decken. Also, ein Teufelkreis: Warez->Kopierschutz->Teurere Software->mehr Warez.

Aber was tun?

Vielleicht mal nach so einem Brief gut nachdenken und das nächste mal das Zeug kaufen :) oder etwas Spenden usw.
Wie man lesen kann: sie wollen ja gar nicht die Kopierroutinen verbessern, nicht so wie zB. linvosoft mit dem regkey.reg Datei und dem ständigen verbinden mit dem Internet usw.
Naja, vielleicht hat der eine oder andere noch gar nicht darüber nachgedacht, dass es vor allem die kleinen Firmen im windows mobile Bereich sind, die die Programme anbieten. Für sie ist eine Kopie viel schwerwiegender als für Microsoft und Konsorten..