How to stop Piracy?

Several days ago, I got one call from my under-classmate in Notre Dame. Now he worked as the sales director in one famous design software company. He asked me about the electronic design industry in China. He told me that everyone knows that China is a huge market but most company hesitates to enter China market due to piracy.

Everyone knows that piracy has a significant impact on the high-tech industry, resulting in lost jobs, decreased innovation and higher costs. As a Chinese who has been working in USA for more than 10 yrs, I understand his worry and I also believe Chinese government has realized this. But it seems a mission impossible to stop piracy in a country like China. But could anyone tell me what's the best way to solve the piracy problem?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

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One way to protect your knowledge is to not give it away. Eg, let the hardware be produced there, but fill the firmware after it is delivered to you. Yes, if the function of the firmware is trivial, then it can be re-engineered easily, but in this case you didn't have lost much anyway.

The whole looks different when there is actually zero knowledge involved. There are many "zero invention height" patents (the majority) that can be implemented with a PIC and 10 lines of ASM or even less ... It appears the patant lawyers want some work too.

Rene

I don't know about Europe and Japan, but one of the problems with piracy in the US is that the concepts of patent and copyright are so distorted that piracy often can't be defined. Such laws were originally put in place to protect creativity and get people to invent things, but they often end up doing exactly the opposite.

It's pretty obvious what happened if you find another producer marketing a product that is absolutely identical to yours, and it's true that you can't get away with that in the US. But we've got patented products that are so trivial there's nothing but the laws preventing anyone and everyone from making their own.

Maybe we should start thinking of the Chinese market as a place where ideas can compete on their own merits, instead of trying to turn it into another venue where the first one across the desk at the Patent Office wins.

Simple: use piracy as a marketing tool. Every attempt to protect software has failed and will fail because it is impossible to protect software.

The only thing you can do is make sure your software is spread massively through pirated copies. Meanwhile, start making people aware someone needs to eat by making that software. In the end you'll have a lot of people around which are familiar with your product and are willing to pay for it because they know how it works and have designs which cannot be read by other vendors.

I'm quite sure the makers of Orcad are following this strategy; the latest version of their electronics design package can be found in any pirated software shop throughout Asia.

If you make the software free there is no need for piracy.

If you make everything at Wal*Mart free there is no need for shoplifting.

Um, so how would a software business function. Maybe software should be resonably priced.

Regards Dave

Thats not far from the truth. Over here a shop has lowered the prices of the 10 most stolen products by 25%.

Did it work?

No results have been published yet. The price reduction was announced just a couple of weeks ago.

--- You seem to be trying to say that it's the software authors' faults that piracy exists because they they didn't give their work away in the first place.

It's not. Theft is theft, and the fault lies in the thief and, in the case of China, with the mindset of the Chinese government, which considers all non-Chinese to be barbarians and barely worthy of recognition, so stealing from us is condoned and is considered to be not much different than taking a brightly colored colored stone from a dog who dug it up and is playing with it.

Stealing software is no different from taking a fish from someone who caught it instead of going out and fishing for your own supper, you f****ng asshole.

Grrrrr....

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

Dammit, John! Could you be more direct? I'm having trouble figuring out what you mean ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Use an activaction system based on encrypted keys. They can copy all the software you want, but locks if not registered. Also give a try before buying option. And in the End-user license, in small 2 point font, point out that if unregistered, the product will generate bad data. And do that. Bad data. Looks like program works, but user can't rely on results. They don't have courts there, so you don't have to worry about being sued.

Does the customer have to collect the stolen goods for themselves?

Ken

Just curious - how did you measure this?

Ken

Especially since piracy tends to promote. And the pirates wouldn't buy anything anyway.

The odds are overwhelming that modest amounts of piracy are a VERY GOOD thing.

And looking at some of the other comments about how to avoid/'stop' piracy, it also promotes innovation.

Ken

I think the best way is for every Chinese PCB shop to spam the newsgroups with ads disguised as thought provoking questions. Yes, that's it.