Avast sees single software license used illegally 774,651 times | Hacker News Reader

Avast sees single software license used illegally 774,651 times

geek.com

56 pointsukdm37 comments

"Over the course of 18 months that single Avast! Pro license was shared and used on 744,651 different machines. At the current cost of $34.95 per pro license, that’s total lost revenue in the region of $27,074,052.45."

No no no no no! You cannot prove that every single one of the illegal users would have bought the software legally had they not found the key. This is the same confounding logic the RIAA/MPAA keeps trying to use and it's still wrong.

Anyway, it is an interesting little statistic though I have to wonder if they can actually litigate anymore given they let this go on for 18 months. It is really illegal anymore?

Later in the article:

"You can’t count all those users taking advantage of the license as lost revenue, like the music industry does with song downloads. The Avast! Pro license was there to be used, so people used it. If it hadn’t been on P2P sites then the vast majority of users would have gone elsewhere for protection."

Right, but with free alternatives available such as the fantastic Microsoft Security Essentials, so you can't say that the industry lost $X in sales because of the license.

That's literally the next sentence.

>You don’t need to spend any money to keep your machine protected, especially if you run Windows. Microsoft offers you a firewall as part of the Windows default install now, and Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus software is free.

It seems that that latter part is part of the Geek.com writer's commentary on the original article from PC Pro, though, so the original article likely didn't call out their own broken logic.

That was pointed out later in the article.

Even so, the actual number is still interesting, because if a few percent converts, it's real money.

With 750k users, you could use A/B testing like Wikipedia did to find what prompts result in the most conversions. Wikipedia managed a 1.84% donation rate with an average of $26. If you could get that same conversion rate on $35 sales, you'd get $483k.

I resold Avast through my small consultancy for a few years, and I don't think they're the type of company that would actually litigate against their users. Their free product is very good. The compelling reasons to go pro matter most to businesses, who are usually happy to pay for a license/support anyway.

I am somewhat disappointed that they withheld the single most interesting statistic to come out of the whole experiment. The debate over what percentage of pirates would actually buy the software they pirate is a long standing open argument in the industry. This would have been a rare datapoint. Something tells me that "the industry" doesn't want those stats out in the open.

Granted only a fraction would have paid. This is a tracked, measured accounting. I'm pretty sure that the RIAA/MPAA just make numbers up wholesale.

The key would be whether the tax office accepts the loss as genuine.

I got the distinct impression that the number was being given as a somewhat joking reference to the RIAA logic. I doubt the entire company has a gross revenue anywhere close to that number.

>>You cannot prove that every single one of the illegal users would have bought the software legally had they not found the key.

No, but you can prove that they used $x of your service and charge them for it. It's what they actually used not what they might have used had things been different.

What an opportunity! Those pirates obviously like your software but might not be willing to pay for it. Rather than simply killing the key (turning off the user base) they are trying to slowly convert these people to paying customers! I like it and thank goodness they had the sense to do it.

Yep, it's actually very interesting. In fact, it's possibly a great marketing technique, if a polite offer to upgrade to the paid version converts at all.

Amanita Design did this with their Machinarium Pirate Amnesty promotion:

http://machinarium.net/blog/2010/08/05/machinarium-pirate-am...

It doubled as a limited-time discount for first-time players as well.

I think it's brilliant. Thinking about it, I'd do it intentionally at least for AV. Once a typical AV customer has chosen one specific product and is willing to buy it, I think it's very unlikely they will first look for a pirate version of it. I dare say a large amount of their profits come from retail or pre-installed trial conversions or high priced renewals. The mass of 1st tier AV available for $0-$10 after competitive upgrade rebates etc. clearly shows they expect most of their money in the long run.

But imo someone looking to pirate AV is mostly going to choose a product out of the options available for downloading. They may have a preference but if it's simply not available they'll go for #2. Also, they may choose partially based a reputation for working consistently - eg people report product x has worked flawlessly for a year but product y is always being broken and needing new cracks. Legit free versions may be option C.

If you accept my presumptions - AV makes most of their money in ongoing or addons - and pirates are cost conscious but rather brand agnostic - any one firm likely loses very little in sales by having their product copied.

On the other hand the firm gets the chance to have the user grow comfortable with the software and all of the highest tier features if they don't cut it off. Obviously there is a non-zero conversion rate here and importantly they may no longer view free options as feature rich enough.

So by this logic it's actually in the best interests of the company to make sure their product is widely available in pirate circles instead of fighting it. Why let your competitor get a chance at a piracy conversion instead of you? Not only that but you'd want to make sure it was a good experience - trojan free - no bad cracks - up to date signatures - so the user had the best impression of it.

It's the ultimate in price discrimination - giving it away free to those who wouldn't pay anyway in hopes of future conversions - something they do anyway with free after rebate deals - while ensuring the illicit nature of the distribution keeps it from cannibalizing most legitimate sales.

Didn't see details in the article about how they are making their pitch, but including photos of the developers and explaining the work they've done to create the software would likely help them win some sales.

A picture of a face -- of any kind -- might improve results.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/scarecrows-...

I wonder if I get a tshirt with a big pair of eyes on it I can get better service, cheaper rates, more honest dealings ...

Smiley faces on bills (immediately payable invoice notices, eg in a restaurant) earn greater tips for the server too.

Buying a shotgun would work better, but I think it has more legal repercussions.

They did advocate piracy ... http://www.avast.com/lp-talk-like-a-pirate

More seriously, I wonder what the numbers are for the second most popular pirated key?

And more generally, what is the frequency distribution of users per key like? Is one pirated key dominant, are their competing rivals? What proportion of users share their key among only a few extra computers?

Also interesting is the approach they are taking to handling this. It will be very interesting to see what the conversation rate is, if they share that information as well.

Doesn't Avast have a free version? (in fact I'm using it)

Why bother with Pro, seems unnecessary.

I guess the logic is those people wouldn't bother to pay anyway but I am surprised they would allow their IP to ping the server in the first place.

> I guess the logic is those people wouldn't bother to pay anyway but I am surprised they would allow their IP to ping the server in the first place.

Stopping an anti-virus from phoning home means you're out of date and every day it has less value. That said, I suspect the vast number of computer users would have no idea to prevent said ping (or even know it was happening). Especially those in the market for AV software.

It's actually kind of a good sales tactic since they can now contact each user and tell them to pay up or switch to the free version. Like a viral trial ...

Rather than killing the license code, the team at Avast decided to watch what happened and how many users would break the law by using it.

Which law are the users breaking?

In short, copyright infringement. Wikipedia has more information on specific laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement_of_softw... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

They're probably in breach of contract too, I expect there is a click-through.

In the UK they could probably be got for "hacking" (ie cracking) as they are using the computer from which they download updates without authorisation and breaching a security feature in order to do so this puts them in contravention of the Computer Misuse Act (or at least on a naive reading, mine, it does so).

I'm sure many of these people are violating copyright to get a copy of the installer, but surely that can't be the main law being broken. Avoiding the specifics of Avast that I don't know, if they can get the installer from the producer, maybe because there's a trial, there can't be a copyright violation when no unauthorized copies are made, can it? So what is the exact law being broken?

Probably some variation of copyright law, depending on the country.

Why is it not fair use?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fair_use:

"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

       1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

       2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

       3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

       4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors"

Personal use does not, unfortunately, apply.

"Why is it not fair use?"

I don't mean this in a sarcastic way, and am genuinely curious about your answer. Why do you think it would be considered fair use?

Switch to AVG Free.

err, no thanks http://www.neowin.net/news/avg-update-sends-computers-into-l...

Switch to Microsoft security essentials.

faster. smaller. no spy/spam/ad/junkware

better

And corrupts SVN checkouts, and who knows what else:

svn: Checksum mismatch for 'servers/dev/jboss/jvspoc_dw_loader/lib/jboss-serialization.jar'; expected: 'f26ddb52dc01622d93625264f104b142', actual: '838620288f1f8089176d015930a152dc'

No thanks.

Switch to Linux.

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