Because of some countries lackadaisical approach to piracy robust encryption is the only real cure but that doesn’t mean you can’t complain to the site hosting it.
Not just because you have merely pay to watch, but because the ever increasing cost of cable TV, there has been a surge in alternative methods of watching TV channels. The networks are and have been pricing themselves above what many people find as valuable. The same can be said for FS add-ons too.
Yes, just ignore the piracy. It’s practically impossible to stop piracy - even massive companies are resigned to everything being pirated, the DRM is really only to delay the piracy so that they can guarantee a certain amount of piracy-free time after release. And even that usually doesn’t work.
It’s better to focus on making the best product you can, making it easily available across markets so people can buy it easily, and providing great customer support. If you do all that, you’ll capture the people who are willing to pay. 99% of pirates aren’t going to buy your product anyway, so why worry about them?
A huge advantage is how fast this sim is moving. A pirate product will be out of date very quickly, and it becomes a pain to keep on waiting for updates to be pirated as well. So any pirates that are willing to pay will eventually pay for it if they see enough value.
In summary, keep on doing what you’re doing, and forget about the pirates. The only thing you should do (when you’re slightly bigger) is keep an eye on any trademarks you want to protect. If a site is ripping off your trademarks/trade dress, you may want to take action or else you can lose your trademarks. This only really applies to bigger companies though, so don’t worry about it for now. When you’re big enough to worry about it, you can hire a lawyer to worry about it for you.
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It doesn’t. It basically prevents regular folks from sharing the stuff they buy. Like I said earlier, it keeps honest folks honest. With organized pirate organizations, anything that’s perceived as “in demand” is typically available through their channels within a day or two of its official launch, DRM or not.
If I see it in the Marketplace.
I will buy it…
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As stated above, please do not justify piracy.
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Please don’t use DCS in any anti-piracy policy suggestion - they are major hypocrites where piracy is concerned as they’ve been hosting pirated music for public download for years - despite the offending files being pointed out to them multiple times (and they check the files first, anyway, which means they approved of the practise).
Seems to be one rule for punters and another for dev’s in their case.
I feel for you but try not to take it too much to heart. Many highly respected investigations (some done by governments) into piracy have shown the vast majority of those who pirate never intended & never would purchase said thing any way. It’s how things have always been. I’d be highly surprised if a large amount of people here including yourself haven’t pirated some form of media over the years.
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Very bad to hear.
Many FS2020 simmers are waiting for a real good biz jet. And im sure if it is fantastic we all would spent a lot of money for it.
Maybe this will be your job… 
I would double check some of what you’re saying here because currently as it is now all content that is released only or solely on the MSFS Marketplace has yet to be pirated… Although you might find this premium and premium deluxe content and carenado products online elsewhere, what you fail to notice and mention is that these (products) are very early products, particularly the carenado ones! As it stands right now it appears the DRM offered for marketplace specific products is actually working as intended thus far.
So you may want to put a line through some of what you’re saying because not everybody that reads it is actually going to research it. Particularly the following:
Trying to get your product removed from such sites is proving to be a long and frustrating exercise.
The hiding behind Cloudshare , (Probably the one in question here) make it very difficult to identify their ISP, and true Server IP information.
https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-explains-how-it-helps-to-target-pirate-sites-211027/
Rest assure, numerous payware devs are working on this, as it is a major concern.
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I believe the website you are referring to is hosted by CloudFlare…which is pretty much known for not giving up their clients information or acting on any DMCA requests.
Unfortunately, (I am no expert) I see only DRM/encryption of 3rd party mods/add-ons…and/or except that people will pirate and share your content to some extent…the cost of doing business.
It sucks that websites and people are more than willing to post pirated content, but I don’t think it will go away any time soon.
The battle against piracy will never end unfortunately. It sucks for you and other devs that put a lot of effort into something but that’s the reality of it. Even the very largest AAA game developers can’t stop people cracking and pirating their games. In some cases even with the latest DRM they can come up with the games are on pirate sites days or even hours after release. Ironically the pirated games versions have sometimes performed better since they’ve had the DRM removed. It seems that piracy is always going to be a cost of doing business with software. But, at the end of the day, most of the people that pirate stuff were never going to buy it, if they couldn’t get it free they just wouldn’t get it. So, hopefully your scenery still sells well and you get some return on it, but I wouldn’t consider those 700 downloads as all being lost sales. It sucks but I don’t think this will ever be fully solved.
Maybe contact a lawyer, rather than a forum?
Unfortunately, software piracy is a larger problem than just MSFS.
There is a segment of the population who believes they are entitled to take whatever they want, and they don’t care about laws, copyrights, or anything else. They want it. They take it. They feel entitled.
With software, there’s a smaller segment of people who think software should all be free and no one should ever control the rights or make money from it. While the open source community isn’t all of that opinion, there are some members of that community who believe it and don’t honor IP.
This is appaling and, although it may be difficult, you must fight back.
My approach would be that I gather as much evidence as possible showing this is your payware and that it has been pirated.
I would then contact the CEO of the company hosting the website and pass on the info requesting they shut the site down.
Be extremely polite but also point out that should they not shut the site down, you will have to widely publish their practice of hosting pirated software.
also contact the site concerned and demand they remove it or you will take legal steps against them.
Do all this together in one go, so prepare well. Make sure you have the contact details of the CEO, dont bother with customer services or support etc. Go directly to the top. Inaddition try and find out where their offices are and send a written document.
Do this all together so you make a sudden impact.
Often this works.
Sure, these pirates may open another site, so then you go after them again.
Stay on their tail.
If nothing else it gives you the satisfaction of having done something.
I truly hope for your sake that their website is on a major hosting company. They do tend to take more notice.
You mention Euros. So if you are in the EU write to the commissioner in Brussels but ensure you supply ALL info so they dont have to start looking and searching.
Also inform the CEO of the hosting company you are involving people in the EU.
OK it may come to nothing but hitting them all from a few directions all at once , in my experience having had to deal with these things before often has a result.
If you think that you may have lost a lot of money and I see no reason to doubt your figures, an extra 200 euros to get a sollicitors letter send to the site and hosting company may be worth it. It DOESNT mean you need to follow up with legal action but often saying you might and contecting them in this way can have results.
You should also consider some kind of activation key system for your software that can only be obtained if purchased properly. There are systerms to do this. Protect yourself but have a GO.
Good luck getting the CEO on the line of a Russian company that is not registred anywhere and does not have any contact info besides an email adress that they only will use to talk to you if THEY want…
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there are ways comrad, there are ways.
None of them are preventing piracy. All these different solutions of DRM have failed. The only uncracked DRM in the MSFS world is the one that Asobo/MS uses on the marketplace.
Also, a big and well known developer/ publisher lately said in their forums:
„We dont care about pirates, we care about our customers.“
And honestly, i think this is the best you can do. Deliver quality, excellent customer service, be transparent and communicative with your customers and they will buy.
The pirates will ALWAYS be there, they are since decades in the FS scene. NO INE could stop them. And velieve me, there were big campaigns of big deve/publishers that really hunted them down for a long time, with no sucess.
Im not promoting piracy at all, but the truth is, we have to live with it, for now.
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you can also write to the Kremlin.
Again, dont scoff at things you may not have tried. I have and obtained results.
Its very strange how things go sometimes.
There are a few ground rules. Asking for HELP is the main one.
finding the right contacts isnt difficult.