Someone purchased my product and distributes it for free
This happens to almost all software products: the code is illegally shared on piracy sites, so I'm not really worried about the piracy or re-distribution itself.
What I found out
In this case, I have the email of the customer who purchased the license in order to share it. My question: Is there any place where I can submit a specific email address for being linked to fraud so his further online purchases are limited? He used MasterCard to pay for the product (if he used PayPal I could at least report it to PayPal).
Is there anything else I should do? He is also the "admin" of the site that illegally distributes a huge amount of software.
Side effects
After it was added to that site, I did get a sudden bump of ~500 visitors (who probably wanted to check-out the product before downloading it). The noticeable amount of visitors makes me think that the piracy site it was posted on is really popular in some countries.
Thought process
My reasoning in this cases is (in this order):
- Oh no, someone is illegally sharing the product I worked on for 8+ years.
- Hmm, I get a lot of traffic from people checking out the landing page.
- Those people wouldn't have purchased anyway.
- Maybe at some point they will purchase, as you need a valid license to enable automatic updates.
- Should I submit a DMCA notice? The site has thousands of more popular scripts, highly unlikely it would change anything.
- Oh well, at least people are using my product and if they want to support me they will purchase at some point.
- Should I at least disable the license for the initial customer? Should I report them?
Would it be a possibility to display an alert in the app that it was pirated and offer people a discount code to "upgrade" to a real license with some discount while mentioning that you are an indie developer? Maybe that helps you turn this situation into a good one for you. Most of these are probably not the target audience and maybe don't even use the app after the initial test but some maybe could be converted into actual customers.
They actually do see a "New update available" pop-up, and to get the update you have to enter a valid license code. I can not know if the app is pirated or not, but if they want to use the auto-updater they need a valid license.
Firstly you should notice the customer who has violated the license. If you are serious, you should warn him you will further take steps like legal action, suspend his license, etc. Notice is important since you are giving the customer a official warning.
Secondly, you should review your product nature. If you can upsell these free users later, you can continue improving the paid version. Upsell via in app pop up or email, etc. Try to let them upgrade to unlock paid features.
I don't know how much a warning would affect him, as he is the owner/administrator of the piracy website that illegally distributes thousands of products. I did contact Gumroad so they would limit his further purchases.
Thanks for the suggestion of contacting him directly, I would consider that, but I have to first think of what my message and wording would be (friendly vs threatening with legal action).
The upsell is a good idea. They already get notified about needing a valid license whenever a new update is available. I think I should add a link to the purchase page if a valid license has not yet been entered (currently it just prompts you to enter your license code, which assumes that you already have one, otherwise you wouldn't have access to the script).
I'd report them. But make sure your security is in order first - these kinds of people can get vindictive and clearly have limited ethics. If the phone number you use for 2FA is available anywhere online, then your 2FA can be compromised by a disgruntled cracker who calls up your cell carrier and orders a new SIM to their address using basic info they can find out about you online.
Yeah, that's one thing I don't want to worry about. I personally prefer to focus on my business and ignore those kind of copyright infringements, as I do believe the people who illegally get software would have not purchased it anyway otherwise or they might have never heard of it. The damage done to my business would be far greater if I get hacked than for some people getting an older copy of my product for free.
In my country (Canada) we have a national department for electronic crimes. If yours does, you could report them there.
Thank you for the suggestion! I think the problem is trickier as it's a copyright infringement, so I would have to go after the site that hosts and distributes this data, which is probably really hard as it's a really big and popular piracy website from Russia.
So far I just decided to just let it be and try to add more features to my product that are better if you have a valid license.
yea, the longer they distribute it the more damage they do to you the higher the sum you can sue them for ;)