Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
The pirates are doing what is natural. Data can be copied, and they copy it freely. What is unnatural is expecting to be able to limit the spread of information in an environment which is fundamentally set up to allow the spread of information.
This is really what is at the heart of the problem. As I said before any in-place security measures intended to prevent the cracking of a software are always be either insufficient or patchy, no matter what some noobs in this thread may advertise.

The open architecture of today's computers is not lenient on any attempts to protect any kind of business related rights. This however never stopped anyone from making money. On the contrary, some companies emerged and become colossus in the industry pushed by crackers and payed by legit consumers.

Most of the money that is made doesn't even come from direct sales. As a company grows it becomes less and less affected by crackers. And when it is small, the more crackers interested in their products the more exposure they must/will have. Many shareware developers I talked too throughout the years have very interesting things to say about the cracking of their products when you ask them privately.

I'm not advertising crackers are an healthy addition to the industry. However, in the presence of a problem that is simply not going to go away, one better try to make the most of it. Or at least understand the phenomena for what it is.