Increasing product adoption the 2.0 way.
Trade organizations and other companies who make their bread and butter selling IP or content start shaking and turn pale whenever you mention the word torrent. Throw in P2P, Warez, piracy or anything else relating to the web, and they all yearn for the days of highlighters and 4 inch thick books.
Anyone responsible for a product's success spent their lives trying to figure out how to get a user group of 20 million. Your audience wants to pay for its content, software and just about anything else you can license... all you need to do is get it to them.
It's a rather simple formula: take advantage of the web, adopt change, reap the rewards.
Top 10 Software Licensing Strategies for Managing Piracy
Licensing strategies for today's net connected consumer
The evolution of the Internet has created greater methods of distribution and increased the options available to software developers, allowing them to design custom licensing models. As new licensing technologies come to market, creative licensing strategies allow small and mid-size software vendors to compete effectively against the market leaders.The following software licensing strategies illustrate the benefits of leveraging next-generation license management, resulting in new revenue opportunities while tackling software piracy by embracing it.
Empower users to self serve
One call to technical support can eat the profit margin on one or many sales. Empower users to self serve. Turn pirates into resellers
Turn software pirates into software resellers, allowing everyone to make money. Instead of hosting a cracked version of software, allow the warez boards to host affiliate versions. Each download can become revenue to the warez site instead of being a stolen license. It made millions for Microsoft
Do not succumb to the hype that all piracy is bad. Bill Gates discussed how India's piracy ultimately created a huge market for Windows in a recent Time magazine article. Instead, implement ideas on how to use warez and bit torrents to expedite viral marketing. Don't just guess, know
Do not believe all the industry reports on piracy or guess how bad your organization's piracy problem is. If spending any effort on researching piracy, start by figuring out just how bad the situation really is. New tools that allow 100% accurate piracy audits define the current situation, providing a visual on the viral marketing opportunity while giving insight on how much to tighten licensing. Try something new- accept change
Do not use rigid licensing models that stop people from using your product. If licensing is harsh or evaluations result in pain, the prospect of return business is greatly reduced. One of the advantages of new techniques such as 'Throttling' is that software vendors can ease-up licensing strength in regions where piracy is not an issue and tighten down where piracy is rampant. Software copy control strategies that build-in Throttling are capable of striking a balance between viral marketing and piracy. Don't worry, be happy!
Base every licensing decision on the principle of fair use. A polite software copy control policy is the profitable choice. Sharing = caring
Reward consumers for sharing software with others. Create an affiliate program that gives users an incentive to distribute a legitimate version of software. Bits are cheaper than stamps
Reward peer-to-peer networks with affiliate programs the same way one tackles the issue with warez sites.
When my hardware breaks I don't expect my software to break too!
Resist punishing users for using software on more than one or two computers. Most people install software titles on two or more computers within one year of buying the license and it is not motivated by theft.
More accurate then human DNA
Don't punish users for changing or upgrading hardware. There is groundbreaking new technology available to software vendors that use a concept called 'Tolerance' to recognize hardware upgrades and update a computer fingerprint. Leveraging new licensing capabilities such as this ensures happy users since users, like most aspects of life, are not static. Anticipate Change
Throttle back on licensing terms over the life cycle of a product. By increasing the number of computers per serial number over time you keep your users happy. Throttling allows users to re-install on their new laptop during month 15, as well as allowing the old version of product to be installed numerous times. If not selling the software, turn it into marketing fodder for the next release. Narrow margins and no wiggle room
One call to technical support can eat the profit margin on one or many sales. Empower users to self serve.
Want more information? Check these out:
- Casey's Blog
- This is my personal blog and contains all sorts of links, content and all around interesting information.
- Uniloc USA, the home of software activation
- Uniloc invented software activation in the mid 90's and holds many patents in the area, including the seminal patent for device recognition. This is "THE SOURCE" for learning how to properly use licensing to increase revenue.
by Casey-Potenzone
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