How to stop pirates? Someone already nulled and pi

Question

I dont know what to say. About 3 days ago I released a script to the public. Today I realised, after searching on google that someone had already nulled (removed my protection) and pirated the script.

How do I stop users from pirating the script? It is written in PHP.

Please help or suggest some solutions.

Thank you for your time.

UPDATE By releasing to the public means that I have started selling it to users.

UPDATE My program is priced at only $49. Very reasonable for the functionality it offers. I do not understand how I should stop pirates from pirating my code. The replies which most people have given are rather sarcastic. I was hoping for some good advice. I know there is no silver-bullet. But some techniques which you have used in your PHP programs.

Answer 1

You could always pirate it yourself to the internet and hope that any nuller will think "its already been grabbed" so don't bother. But pirate a real buggy version. When users come to you looking for help you'll know they have a pirate version if they question you about specific bugs you purposely added and you can approach them accordingly

Answer 2

Attach a copyright notice to it. Some companies will actually care that they're using software properly.

Answer 3

How do I stop users from pirating the script?

Do not release sensible source code to the public...

[EDIT] After a few downvotes, I decided to comment on my answer:

Any code that is released public has a chance of being hacked. This is the number one reason why Javascript is not secure. No matter how much you will obfuscate it, compress it or translate it to some random japanese dialect, it is still source code that the user has access to. Hence it should not contain any sensible information such as passwords or such. All sensible data should be stored in the server side where it is kept hidden from the user.

If you are releasing a php framework containing both the server and client code; then you have no way of fully protecting yourself. PHP is, like Javascript, an interpreted language. You may translate it, compress it, or obfuscate it as much as you want, (and it's probably the best thing you can do) you will never fully protect it when released to the public.

Again... If there was a magic way to prevent code from being broken, it would have been known for a long time. No-cd patches / cracks for new games/softwares now are almost released the same day as the softwares themselves. It is, as noted by Paul, a form of flattery for you, even though I understand how sorry you may feel.

There are a few instances where programmers ended up with bullet-proof protection, but it usually involved high-end engineering.

Answer 4

The only real way to prevent piracy is to not give the user the program at all! What I mean by this is have the logic you want to protect remain server side and offer a client interface.

There are a few companies that offer protection services, but these are expensive and can sometimes still be overcome.

If you're worried about this happening again, try obfuscating your code. Here is a free program to do just that on PHP code.

Answer 5

I agree with @Michael.

Try ionCube or Zend Guard. They are both commercial offerings, but you say that you are selling your software so it might be worth it. Although nothing is foolproof and can be reverse engineered with enough effort and technical skill, these solutions are probably good enough for the average PHP script vendor.

Answer 6

I'm not trying to be sarcastic here: forget about them. Here's my rationale:

• You can spend tons of time trying to prevent pirates from pirating your stuff, or you can spend the same amount of time giving your paying users more functionality.

• Extreme copy protection does not give your paying users anything but more hoops to jump through to use your application - which might lead them to get frustrated.

• Pirates will pirate your applications no matter how much time you spend trying to stop them.

• Budget a certain amount of time to put in basic copy protection - just enough to keep the honest people honest.

• Most importantly: Don't irritate your paying customers. They are the ones you need to make happy.