Granting users two activations - any way to stop them "cheating"?

Having had quite a few grumbles from users in the early days about only being able to run our software on one PC, I ended up giving everyone 2 activations. The issue now (and perhaps not a big one) is that I know that quite a few users are gaming this and sharing licenses - either within a company or with a friend. I even get support requests where they state this quite clearly, and think this is what the 2 activation limit means (our EULA actually states quite clearly that this is not the case).

So my question is: is there a better way to handle letting users use my product on more than one PC? A common use case is that users (quite legitimately) like to use this software on a home PC and a laptop. What I would really like would be some way of tying the license to a user, rather than a machine (e.g. a Windows login?). Failing that, perhaps some super-simple way to deactivate/grab the activation? E.g. the user could fire up on his laptop and the activation would automatically switch to there, and be removed from the other PC, and then seamlessly go back when he returns to the office. My application would need to check periodically that this has happened, I guess. Any ideas out there? Perhaps it is something that could already be done within the current framework. Or perhaps it's not that big of a deal, and I'd actually lose more sales by not offering 2 activations that I would gain by clamping down? I don't know, but I do know that it niggles me.

Hi,

1) Don't bother too much about those people cheating. No matter what you do they will cheat. If you have some popular software make sure you are tracking illegal filesharers and send out DMCAs (see earlier post on cracks)2) We offer one activation for XX USD and another license (three activations) for XX+50%. About 50% of our users just need one license for a computer. The others pay more. We offer three licenses so we can charge more. Most people only activate like 2 - but it seems cheaper. Also: I guess only 20% or so of the people share a code with a friend...

CheersJan

>> "[...] and I'd actually lose more sales by not offering 2 activations that I would gain by clamping down?"

That's actually something you'll have to test. It will differ from business to business. My advice would be to set 1 activation per product key. Then for customer that need to use your app on multiple devices they can either:

1. Buy another key.

or

2. Deactivate from the original device and activate on the new device: https://wyday.com/limelm/help/activations/#deactivate

My hunch is that a handful of more vocal customers will complain, but by-and-large most customers won't care.

I can relate to that as we have the same problem. I am careful to state that:

1)Licenses are personal and if you share with someone you are asking to be scammed by the license owner2)Only the license owner is entitled to support3)The license owner is 100% responsible for any ToS violations, even if he is not personally committing them

We also offer a cheaper product which is very lightly crippled which only have 1 activation.

I think this model is quite ok. While a lot of people share, those who like it will often buy the license again to be able to use it on 2 computers. Some will just buy the more expensive one because of "lightly crippled" reason. Overall I don't mind it that much these days and I think it might actually be good for business (you sell more expensive license to people who don't care that much about price but you still get a lot of sales from people who wouldn't shell out the full amount).

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