How to Fight Against Software Piracy
FAQ v1.0, 2005If you're reading this, then you're probably a small business owner or an independent software developer who is worried about software piracy or the software you sell is already being distributed as pirated software. This tutorial isn't going to explain how you can protect your software better, but it will explain some steps you can take to identify who is doing it, where it is coming from, and what you can do to shut it down. Software piracy is theft, plain and simple. It's the same as someone stealing your wallet or other personal property. The only difference is that the thief is using a computer. Trying to stop software piracy may be impossible, but trying to fight it can be relative easy to do, once given the knowledge to do so. This is what the following tutorial will teach you, how to fight against software piracy. Find ItThe first tool you can use to gather information is the WHOIS tool. Regardless of whether you have a domain name or an IP address, this is the tool to use. It will always give you valuable information about the source you're looking up. If you want to become an expert in tracking down software pirates, learn everything you can about the information provided here.Here is a few of several WHOIS tools available you can try: http://www.samspade.org/ http://www.geektools.com/tools.php http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml http://resellers.tucows.com/opensrs/ All domain names on the Internet are registered using Domain Name Registrars. They are the people who maintain the WHOIS information. So, if you have trouble finding information about a particular domain name from a particular country, what you can do is find a registrar associated with that country. They often have their very own WHOIS tool you can use. Typically, doing a search on Google for "whois insert-country-name-you're-looking-for-here" will usually point you in the right direction. Here is a list of top-level domain (TLD) names of countries for future reference: http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm Resolve ItMany times, the WHOIS information will not directly tell you who the service provider is for the domain name. What you need now is an ip address. To get the ip address, you need to resolve the domain name. Then, plug this ip address back into the WHOIS tool, and presto, you have the the provider information. To resolve the domain name, you can use tools such as reverse dns lookup, traceroute, ping, etc... You should be able to find many web-based lookup tools, as well as software-based lookup tools, available on the Internet.Email ItAfter you get the WHOIS information for the provider, look for an email address titled abuse@. Write up an abuse report containing all of the infringing URLs and send it to the abuse address. If you can't find an abuse email address, make one up by adding abuse@ to the domain name. If your email bounces back from the result of a delivery error, it might mean the catch-all mechanism for that particular domain name is not enabled, possibly to protect it from spam. So, you must use a working email address, or it won't go though.Before sending out emails, make sure you are sending it to the person who matters most, the service provider. Many times, you will encounter the scenario of a provider, a reseller, and a customer. There can be many scenarios where the customer is bad, the reseller is bad, both the reseller and customer are bad, or all three are downright dirty. Many times you will encounter abuse when the reseller is greedy and only trying to make money, so he doesn't care who he sells his webspace to. When you encounter a domain name in this form (where there isn't a www next to the domain name): http://subdomain.domain.com/ It means that a reseller is selling webspace to a customer, so you should contact both the provider and the reseller. By looking up everybody's ip address using the WHOIS tool, you should be able to identify all parties involved. Telephone ItBelieve me when I tell you, the most powerful tool you have at your disposal is the all-mighty telephone. If your emails are being ignored or if time is of the essence, get the telephone number of the provider and call them during business hours. If they have a toll-free phone number (800, 866, 877, 888, or any 8xx number), then that's even better. Ask to talk to someone about Abuse of Services, or ask to talk someone in their Abuse Department. You might be surprised how easy it is to shut down a website hosting pirated software in a matter of minutes.Report ItNow, that you have gathered all the information, it's time to report it. Why report it? Well, for one, these people have the power to coordinate large-scale takedowns across the globe in every country. Every little bit of information helps. Doing a search on Google for report piracy will bring up many sites where you can report software piracy. Here's a few:Business Software Alliance (BSA) http://www.bsa.org/ Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) http://www.siia.net/piracy/report.asp Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) http://www.fast.org.uk You can also report piracy to individual companies, like Microsoft, Apple, Autodesk, and Adobe, if you see any of their software being pirated. If you want to be effective as possible, make sure you are reporting about their respective software only. Domain NamesIf you were successful in shutting down a website hosting pirated software, great! But, don't stop there. If the software pirate registered their own domain name, you can also get their domain name registrar to suspend their account and put it on hold indefinitely. Remember, all service providers and domain name registrars have some kind of Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP). A lot of registraries do not tolerate abuse in any form, spam or piracy, so they will listen to your complaint. If you do this and get their domain name taken down, then the software pirates are screwed for the moment. They won't be able to change nameservers. You can find out who their domain name registrar is by looking at the WHOIS information.And if the pirates are persistent and try to register the same name under .org, .net, or anything else, shut down those names too. Do not let them continue their abuse. Remember, you have the power to shut down software pirates cold in their tracks, at least for a little while. Usernet NewsgroupsIf your software is being pirated on the Usernet newsgroups, there are things you can do to fight it and even shutdown the account of the software pirate.First, gather all of the Message-IDs of the infringing post. Posts with multiple parts will have multiple Message-IDs. Message-IDs are designed to uniquely identify a message, so this piece of information is very important. If you don't have a paid newserver account, you can try finding read-only newservers that are freely available. Another way to find Message-IDs, is to use a web-based newsgroup search engine devoted to the binaries newsgroups. Doing a search on Google for search binaries newsgroups should provide some links. Here are a few: http://www.bincrawler.com/ http://alt.binaries.nl/ Here is an example of a Message-ID: Message-ID's Part 1/1 [email protected]> Sometimes, you can identify the source by just looking at the Message-ID. The above message appears to have come from alt.net, which belongs to the Altopia newservers. However, be aware that it is possible that Message-IDs can be faked, so you should always at least try to get the full header of the post to identify the real source. Now that you have gathered information about the infringing post, email all of the Message-IDs to the abuse email address of the newserver company where the post originated. Do not send it to anyone else, as only the newserver where the post originated can be held responsible. By visiting their main website, such as giganews.com, supernews.com, altopia.com, etc.., you can find contact information that should lead you to an abuse email address. DMCANote that if a website mentions the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), or has an email address in the form dmca@, you should format your email so it follows the guidelines of the DMCA. The DMCA is a very specific format that you should adhere to when sending DMCA notices.Do a search on Google for links on how to write a DMCA takedown notice. Writing one is very easy to do. Here's a link to get started: http://www.seologic.com/faq/dmca-notifications.php GeocitiesFor companies that provide free webpages such as, Geocities, shutting down websites hosting pirated software couldn't be any easier. Collect all of the infringing URLs and submit them to abuse:http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/geo/abuse/index.html http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/geo/cgi_abuse Search EnginesAnother option you should consider when fighting software piracy, is requesting that all infringing links be removed from the most popular search engines, like Google. Some people might consider this a form of censorship, which is why Google publicly posts all DMCA complaints it receives. However, having a complaint publicly posted, may or may not be the best thing you can do. The complaint will still list all the links you are trying to shut down in the first place, so it seems rather pointless, IMHO. For more information, see:http://www.google.com/dmca.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ Anti-Piracy ServicesDo you have a lot money, but don't have the time to go after software pirates yourself? Then get somebody else to do it for you. There are companies out there who have developed their own around-the-clock Internet searching technology to track down infringers everywhere, and I mean everywhere, from file-sharing networks to chat rooms. If it's on the Internet, then these people can find it, trust me. Though, it will cost you a couple hundred or even thousands of dollars a month. So, if you're still complaining about how much cable internet access costs, then this option is not for you.IMHO, it is a shame that there are no services like this available at the low-end for small business owners. But, here's a couple links for starters:
LinksHere are some other websites with tutorials on how to fight against software piracy:Fighting Back at Crack Sites http://www.trialware.org/killingsites.html
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