New solution to combat piracy problems

V.i. Laboratories announced a new anti-piracy strategy that gives software makers multiple options to track, reduce and recover lost revenue due to piracy. CodeArmor Intelligence, built upon V.i. Labs’ software protection technology, enables independent software vendors (ISVs) to identify which companies are illegally using their products and gather hard, indisputable evidence necessary to recover that revenue.

ISVs are struggling to quantify the actual scope of their piracy problem. While they may know which of their products have been cracked and made available in piracy distribution channels, they rarely know how widely (or where) their applications are actually being used by businesses.

CodeArmor Intelligence is the first turn-key piracy detection and reporting system that integrates with existing applications and Salesforce.com, offering a dynamic method to collect, filter and report on the use of pirated applications and create leads for sales, compliance or legal teams. Currently, ISVs rely on licensing, activation or home-grown approaches to gather data, which are easily detected, bypassed or disabled by piracy groups. These home grown systems also lack filters and reporting schemes for the data collected and are unable to organize and report the information in a way that can be used to develop a piracy lead.

CodeArmor Intelligence adds piracy threat detection and reporting to ISVs’ applications through a simple configuration program. If piracy or tampering is detected, CodeArmor Intelligence communicates the infringement through stealth reporting technology to multiple Web gateway servers within the ISV facility. Legal use of the software does not trigger this functionality and does not impact the licensed customer base. Infringement data is then integrated into the ISV’s instance of Salesforce.com, enabling legal, product management, or other users to view a piracy lead dashboard, report on non-compliant organizations and export infringement data. The Web gateway component also allows vendors to integrate infringement data into their internal CRM system. Organizations can either act on the data directly to recover revenue, or enlist channel partners or legal services from the SIIA or Business Software Alliance (BSA) to act on the leads.