Read on and follow us on Twitter and add our RSS a to get the latest news.Proxies Providing Path to Piracy; Meet the Masters and Mingle – Week in Review 5/6/2013

Growing Traffic to The Pirate Bay Via Proxy Services

TorrentFreak reports that “at least 8% of all Pirate Bay traffic [is] now provided by proxy services:”

“As anti-piracy activity and subsequent court rulings attempt to cut off users from The Pirate Bay, those affected by the blockades are taking the setback in their stride. There are hundreds of proxy-type services facilitating access to the supposedly blocked site and have become so popular that according to the operators of The Pirate Bay they’re currently providing at least 8% of the site’s traffic.”

Am I beginning to sound like a broken record? Are you waiting for me to mention whac-a-mole again?

Even TorrentFreak agrees: “There used to be a popular phrase which went something like ‘kill one file-sharing site and 10 more will appear in its place.’ These days that’s probably untrue, but in the case of The Pirate Bay it’s fair to say that blocking one site has led to the creation of 200 new sites specifically designed to unblock it. That’s undoubtedly a powerful message.”

So what can you do about it? As more and more people are anonymising their traffic for piracy, the time, money and resources spent on campaigns to block these sites and attack the distribution channels is being wasted. Software publishers using a software intelligence approach are focusing on the adopters of the pirated software and are recovering revenue from the unpaid use of their software.

Still skeptical? Keep reading.

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Live License Compliance Panel and Networking Reception

I get it. You want to hear from someone else besides me. Join us at the Westin Waltham next Tuesday, May 14 and you can do that and more.

If you want to learn more about strategies to recover revenue from the adoption of unpaid software, come and hear speakers from Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, Business Software Alliance (BSA), and Software Compliance Group tell their stories.

If you have questions about how your peers and colleagues are approaching software piracy and license compliance take advantage of the networking opportunities at our reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres after the panel discussion.

Questions, comments? Is there a story or topic you’d like to see covered in depth? Please leave a comment below or visit us at our Software Piracy Initiatives Forum and discuss the topics with experts in the field.

The post Proxies Providing Path to Piracy; Meet the Masters and Mingle – Week in Review 5/6/2013 appeared first on V.i. Labs.

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Are Game Pirates Really This Clueless?

TorrentFreak reported on Greenheart Games trying to make a point to gaming pirates by releasing a modified version of its new sim, Game Dev Tycoon, on Pirate Bay.

Game Dev Tycoon is a simulation game where players work to build a successful software gaming company. The developers, Patrick and Daniel Klug, anticipated that the game would be pirated, so “in addition to putting out a legit copy the brothers also released a cracked game which they voluntarily shared on The Pirate Bay. This modified version of the game comes with a slight change in gameplay.” TorrentFreak notes that:

A few hours into the game players of the “cracked” copy see a rather depressing in-game note, telling them that their virtual game is being heavily pirated.

Soon after that the player’s funds start to decrease. The other games they release are hit by piracy as well, resulting in the bankruptcy of the virtual gaming company they had just built up.

Absolutely brilliant. The game pirates see the error of their ways and begin to contemplate the impact of piracy on their favorite developers, right? Not so much. Instead, the pirate gamers went online to complain about the virtual pirates in the game that were ruining their companies.

Sadly, Greenheart Games’ site seems to be down right now, [UPDATE: Greenheart Games' site is back online] but Patrick Klug blogged about their piracy experiment and discussed why they refuse to add DRM to their products: “Customers get the trouble with always-on requirements and intrusive DRM, while pirates can just download and enjoy. A twisted world.”

While different software vendors have a wide range of approaches to piracy, I applaud Greenheart Games for taking this creative approach to holding up a mirror to the pirates and showing them the impact of piracy. Although many of them clearly missed the point, the addition of some targeted in-application messaging might have driven the point home. With CodeArmor’s ability to target messages to different scenarios of unlicensed use to specific adopters, vendors are able to respond with prevention, education or revenue recovery responses. Stay tuned for more details on new functionality in controlling the use of your software after you have released it!

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Sri Lankan Garment Manufacturer Raided for Suspected Software Piracy

Sri Lanka’s national newspaper noted that “police raided a reputed garment manufacturer suspected of using pirated and unlicensed software” on April 11. The raid resulted in the seizure of more than 50 computers “with suspected pirated business software valued at over Sri Lanka Rupees Five Million (Rs 5,000,000/-) [roughly US$40,000] all of which were taken into Police Custody for further inspection and to be produced in Court.”

While this case appears to involve more horizontal business applications, we have seen significant adoption of software specifically developed for the garment and apparel industries. As we discussed in our recent webinar on Unfair Competition Law, software vendors have a new strategy to deal with the adoption of unlicensed software that occurs in jurisdictions with less protection for intellectual property rights. The recent cases by the California attorney general point to increased interest in leveling the playing field and ensuring a more competitive environment for both software publishers and apparel manufacturers.

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Questions, comments? Is there a story or topic you’d like to see covered in depth? Please leave a comment below or visit us at our Software Piracy Initiatives Forum and discuss the topics with experts in the field.

The post Irony Escapes Game Pirates; Garment Manufacturer Caught Using Pirated Software – Week in Review 4/29/2013 appeared first on V.i. Labs.

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Topsite Trial in Finland Yields Suspended Sentences and Reduced Damages

TorrentFreak reported on the conclusion of Angel Falls topsite case in Finland. A topsite is a “source from where all kinds of unauthorized digital media cascade down into the public Internet and file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent.” In this case – the largest in Finland’s history – “six men were on trial for their alleged activities on the topsite between January 2006 and November 2007.” The site was “a network of 15 servers containing large quantities of movies, music (170,000 tracks on one server alone), TV shows, video games and software, plus books and other content.”

Despite 6 million euros being claimed in damages by the rightsholders (represented by CIAPC), the court handed down suspended sentences for three of the six defendants and reduced the damages claim to 45,000 euros – clearly not the result desired by the rightsholders.

Once again we see that pursuing piracy cases in court (especially those focused on distribution channels) can be time consuming, resource intensive and yield only a Pyrrhic victory.

On the other hand, software vendors that leverage software intelligence are turning unpaid adopters into paying customers. Attend our upcoming webinar on to learn more about how your inside sales team can leverage software intelligence to uncover a stream of license revenue.

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AllData Pirate Distributor Pays Restitution, Avoids Jail

In other legal news, the Sacramento Business Journal noted that “a five-month investigation of software pirated from Elk Grove-based auto-repair information provider AllData LLC led to a Stanislaus County man pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge and agreeing to pay restitution.”

While this is a positive result, it does point to demand for AllData’s software and our research revealed that its software is still readily available through the piracy distribution channels. We have talked about the whac-a-mole nature of focusing on piracy distribution channels – knock one down and more pop up. By shifting the focus to companies with unpaid adopters of unpaid software you can add recurring license revenue and satisfied customers.

Are you still dubious about focusing on the adopters of unpaid software? Join us in Waltham on May 14 for a license compliance panel and reception featuring speakers from Dassault Systèmes Solidworks, the BSA, and Software Compliance Group and learn more about recovering revenue from unpaid licenses.

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Questions, comments? Is there a story or topic you’d like to see covered in depth? Please leave a comment below or visit us at our Software Piracy Initiatives Forum and discuss the topics with experts in the field.

The post Frustrated Finish in Finland; AllData Pirate Distributor Avoids Jail – Week in Review 4/22/2013 appeared first on V.i. Labs.

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Pirate Bay Thwarted in Move to Greenland’s .gl Domain

The Wall Street Journal’s Digits Blog reported that for the Pirate Bay “it’s becoming harder to secure a place to call home.”

The Pirate Bay “changed its domain from the “.se” that is custom in Sweden to Greenland’s “.gl” in a move that was considered to be an attempt to avoid being shut down by its home country. But Greenland’s Tele-Post, which administers .gl domains, quickly blocked domains operated by the Pirate Bay.” Despite that setback, a Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak “that they have plenty of domain names in reserve. With that in mind, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if the torrent site makes another domain switch in the near future.”

If you ever needed more proof that attacking the software piracy distribution channels is like Whac-a-Mole, Pirate Bay is a great example. We keep talking about all the efforts to get rid of Pirate Bay, but it continues to persist. Focus on recovering revenue for unpaid software and turn your lemons into lemonade.

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BSA Survey: 30 percent of British SMBs Knowingly Using Unlicensed Software

CRN UK reported on a survey commissioned by the BSA in the UK that revealed that “some 30 per cent of the 250 SMBs questioned in the study conceded they had installed software on more PCs than their licence agreement allowed, or had used the wrong kind of licence for their organisation.”

It is interesting to note that “growing businesses are particularly likely to be infringing the law through software mismanagement” – this makes some sense as it can be difficult to keep up on license management when adding new employees faster than procurement processes can keep up. While we recognize that most businesses want to avoid the liability that attaches to license infringement, experience has also shown that growing businesses often look to cut corners by buying one license and installing the application on many machines.

Whether the infringement is intentional or inadvertent, software vendors need to take a proactive stance on unpaid use and identify infringing users and organizations so they can recover revenue.

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Questions, comments? Is there a story or topic you’d like to see covered in depth? Please leave a comment below or visit us at our Software Piracy Initiatives Forum and discuss the topics with experts in the field.

The post Pirate Bay Turned Away in Greenland, One-Third of UK SMBs Knowingly Use Unlicensed Software – Week in Review 4/15/2013 appeared first on V.i. Labs.

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Microsoft Leveraged Washington State’s Unfair Competition Law to Resolve Licensing Dispute with Embraer

The Washington State Office of the Attorney General announced that “Microsoft recently used a new Washington unfair competition law to resolve a dispute over software licensing with the world’s fourth largest aircraft manufacturer, Embraer.” According to the announcement, “The Attorney General’s Office helped pass the new law aimed at protecting both IP and fair competition in Washington and exchanged several letters with the Brazilian company in an effort to resolve this matter before taking more formal steps.”

As we noted in our recent webinar with PricewaterhouseCoopers, software vendors are beginning to leverage Unfair Competition Laws as another tool to drive license compliance. It is also interesting that two industries important to the Washington state economy – software (Microsoft) and aerospace (Boeing) – benefited from the application of the law. As Attorney Bob Ferguson stated, “When competitors use stolen software, it hurts the ability of law-abiding businesses that pay fair value for their software to compete,” Ferguson said. “This theft also robs the technology sector—one of the key drivers of economic growth in our country—of its work.”

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New Developments in Australian Super Radio Network Case

Back in March, we told you about Microsoft and Adobe suing Australia’s Super Radio Network for software piracy. ZDNet reports that the case may widen “as ex-employees emerge to point fingers at more alleged copyright infringements.” According to plaintiff’s counsel, “There is a strong circumstantial case.”

Taking a case to court is resource intensive and expensive. While it does seem like the evidence in this case is strong, it is interesting to note that plaintiff’s counsel characterizes the case as “a strong circumstantial case.” One of the main benefits of a software intelligence approach to piracy is that the software vendor has forensic evidence of license infringement that circumvents the need for most cases to end up in court. Once an infringer is presented with this evidence, license revenue is more easily recovered.

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Questions, comments? Is there a story or topic you’d like to see covered in depth? Please leave a comment below or visit us at our Software Piracy Initiatives Forum and discuss the topics with experts in the field.

The post Washington State’s Unfair Competition Law, Ex-employees Come Forward in Australian Radio Network Piracy Case – Week in Review 4/8/2013 appeared first on V.i. Labs.