PocketMatrix

I know of several warez websites. I have browsed their FTPs and saw all of your (the devs at PM) software, free for the taking. Registration codes for Strategic Assault, cracked versions of Dex-plor, Snails version 1.7 and all the levels, Argentum, and many more. Most warez sites use FTPs, but I've seen a few HTML sites with direct download links! My question is, what's a developer to do? One PDA warez website I went to had over a 1000 registered members! That's alot of loss profit, even if only 20% percent of them would have bought the software. How do these sites stay afloat? What if any legal actions can be brought down on these sites? Do developers even know of these sites? One site I saw had a deal with a developer to only warez there software after 30 days since it was released! So please tell me, what do you as developers think of all of this?

It sucks... but it isn't going to go away. End of story, pretty much.

The "clever" sites stay afloat by simply not being illegal. If somebody points you to warez, it is not illegal. The person hosting the warez is doing illegal things, and if you download and use the warez, then that's illegal, too... but to link to warez isn't a crime.

The "illegal" sites with direct downloads are hosting warez, and thus illegal... but you'll find that they're usually located somewhere where nobody is actually going to persue them, or that they use http://go.to (etc) redirects to move their site around to several different places - as they get bumped off of one provider they shack up with another.

If you're annoyed by it all, try and find out who their provider/host is and mail them and telling them - they might remove the site... but they might not care, either. It might annoy them a little, but they'll be back up the next day somewhere else.

Sorry to sound so defeatist, but people are always going to warez things and crack things if they have to (and sometimes just for fun). You can't "stop" it, and it probably isn't even worth trying..

Cheers,

Refractor

I wasn't aware DEXplor had been cracked. Would you mind sending me a copy?

Dan East