11 replies to this topic

[Mathijs Kok]

Just a quick warning...

You know AES is pretty good in protecting itself from piracy, almost certainly all the codes you 'found' on lovely sites where copyrights are not seen as important are blocked and when you enter them AES will kindly but seriously ask you to replace the shared code with valid codes. We have see that more then a few customers seen this when they just updated to the 2.00 version. Of course all of those people told us they did not enter those codes but when we ask them to send us some files so we can check these codes are in there. Then they say they got a son who also uses the system etc.

We don't care, okay? When you entered a code you did not buy you are on your own. AES will offer the way out, do what it ask and we'll never know and your problem will be solved. Contact us and we'll know who your are (when we indeed see 'illegal' code in the files) and we'll never trust you again. Yes we log these people and you can rest assured we got tags on those email addresses. Now if you used your official work address to show us you are indeed a using a share code you are not only a software pirate but also not too clever (there is one person who works at Microsoft that is now hoping I won't type his name very very badly).

We don't care. It's 19:00 on a Friday evening and three people involved with Aerosoft are online to do support to customers. If you are not willing to pay for that, we simply don't care. Just do what AES asks you.

[Waleed]

This is too funny (not really). It was barely released when you posted this and already they are out and about.

[Nelson Martina]

I Bought the AES for 14.95 Online Shop (17okt) and recieved it on (21okt) instal it the same day and it won't work. It Say's I Need 5 SN To activate again.
Yesterday I Bought Mega Airport London Heathrow (Will Not Install) & Mega Airport Frankfurt(No problems).

[OPabst]

I Bought the AES for 14.95 Online Shop (17okt) and recieved it on (21okt) instal it the same day and it won't work. It Say's I Need 5 SN To activate again.
Yesterday I Bought Mega Airport London Heathrow (Will Not Install) & Mega Airport Frankfurt(No problems).

Contact the support via email at support@aerosoft.com

[OPabst]

I Bought the AES for 14.95 Online Shop (17okt) and recieved it on (21okt) instal it the same day and it won't work. It Say's I Need 5 SN To activate again.
Yesterday I Bought Mega Airport London Heathrow (Will Not Install) & Mega Airport Frankfurt(No problems).

Nice torrent you used before. When you are so stupid to download AES from a non legal side, you have to accept the consequences. Only the site of aerosoft provides the valid and legal installer.
The rest via email from aerosoft.

[Aerobird]

In my head this is outright simple:
1) All hobbies cost, so also flightsimming. If you expect to get programs for free, you are indeed asking people to work for free! Would you work for zero money?
2) Let us create a market so that those really clever programmers who provide us with authentic models and SUPPORT can continue to do that and not worry about revenues.
3) Users of torrent-files often argue that they would buy an "overprized" program if it were cheaper. Now, then, how much cheaper should it be? I suspect at least a 50-60 percent reduction is what they have in mind and which developer can accept that? None!

AES costs the equivallent of 2-3 pints of bear and the effect is much more lasting and pleasant as well. Pirate copying is done by people who fullfill one or more of the following criterias.
1) Pennyless
2) Greedy
3) Immoral
4) Ignorant

All my software on my computers are legal copies, it is just too stupied not to pay for anything you use every day. And I have had people from i.e Symantec turning my pc inside out to sort out problems I have had, not a penny paid afterwards while I had lunch. Isn't that something to be thankful for. I am much more concerned about rising my own income than to cheat other people of what is rightfully theirs.

[tjstreak]

O.K., you probably don't want to hear this, but here goes: It strikes me that this is largely a problem of your own making. Certainly, you knew this would happen when you released the product. And your current approach is only going to irritate your loyal customers. After all, AES for the most part only works with pay sceneries -- it does not work with the default FSX airports. So anyone who is using has probably purchased the airport scenery itself from you, so why be nasty to your customers? I am a good customer, but I have not used AES yet. But the attitude you show here really makes me want to NOT purchase anything from you again.

A better solution would be to include AES with every airport scenery you sell. Yes, make it part of the original package. If you need to pay for it by raising the price of the scenery by a buck or two, no one will ever really notice. In doing this, you would be raising the bar for quality for airport sceneries and make your products more attractive than those of your competition.

Then you offer to make AES available to other scenery makers -- to be included in their scenery. If AES is truly a good product, other developers should jump at the opportunity to enhance their products. In fact, it may become necessary for other developers to include AES with their airports just to stay even with everyone else.

By doing this, you are not marketing directly to the consumer, but to other developers. You also end up increasing your sales because everyone who purchases an aircraft scenery also ends up purchasing the relevant AES package. This also ends your piracy problem, at least with respect to AES because there no longer is any incentive to pirate the package.

If another developer does not want to purchase AES from you to include in their scenery, you can choose either to sell it directly to the consumer, as you currently are doing, or simply not to sell AES for products made by the developer. If AES is not available for their sceneries, their sceneries lose a lot of their value, and their sales take a hit. In any case, you have made a serious dent in your piracy problem.

Most problems have a nice solution and a nasty solution. You have opted for the nasty solution which punishes the people you ultimately sell to. There are nice ways of handling the problem.

[Matt_Smith]

Surely the Nasty solution would be to not impliment AES. Which by the way is free with many of Aerosoft products in the forum of AES Light. A clue my friend you have not

[James A]

Could well elaborate a bit more on this one but your last sentence Matt summed it all up....

[kaspis29]

Does this mean I can not put AES on my other computer?

Yes you can, if you use the codes that you have purchased from Aerosoft.

[Orlando]

I don't think threating or calling "not clever" (=stupid) people who used shared codes will make them buy original codes.

I think it's better to say "look if you love it and don't buy it, we will have to stop working on it, so your favorite app will stop existing"

But that's just my opinion

[Emi]

I don't think threating or calling "not clever" (=stupid) people who used shared codes will make them buy original codes.

I think it's better to say "look if you love it and don't buy it, we will have to stop working on it, so your favorite app will stop existing"

But that's just my opinion

That won't help either. Beleave me, the people who use illegal copies won't pruchase it because of such a statement.
Those people aren't silly either. They know that they're not supporting the developers with what they do.

The onest thing which might really help is a 100% failsafe system, but this will be impossible to adcheve. Pretty surely pirates will always find a way to crack a programm.
I think the aerosoft launcher has made the "job" for pitrates much more difficould due to online activation. Maybe a simillar system with AES would help, but that would of cause affect the users who do not have internet on their computers in a very bad way again... You see finding a solution for piracy is very difficould, expecially if you want to have a system which is very easy to use for legal customers which should still be in a higher priority than piracy protection in my opinion seeing the face that there are more legal customers than pirates (I hope).
And yes this is very hard to say as I am paying my money to companys like Aerosoft or PMDG myself and I hate it when someone does use the same product without paying the same price. This is just not fair, but well this is how things are. The best we can do is to send mails to the developers when you find a illegal serial or programm to notify them so that they can take the legal step against the uploader.