Any ideas?

[franknvegas]

Hi SSWTers! I was hoping someone could help me with this knotty problem. My friend has a digital downloadable product...an Excel based calculator for commercial real estate that he wants to revive after letting it sit for a few years. How can it be securitized so brokers won't copy it and distribute it to the entire office as has happened in the past without buying expensive encryption software? Or paying some copyright attorney big bucks. Any ideas?
Thanks bunches.:D

[retta719]

I was going to suggest an encryption program, but I see you already mentioned that. Other than that I'm not sure there's anything else you can do. Unfortunately, there are always going to be people that take advantage of things like that.

[Getagrip]

That's hard to say exactly how he can protect it - maybe he can put it on Clickbank and sell it, then have a copyright notice stating that it may not be sold or shared by others. I'm not sure how else he could protect it without paying lots of tech fees. He could always put something out there on Elance.com about it and see how much people are willing to do it for - I don't think that is binding just to put something out there, but it would probably be good for him to read the TOS of Elance before he does that...

[cindybidar]

What exactly is he trying to protect? The formulas used in the spreadsheet? Or is he trying to prevent the spreadsheet from being used on more than one computer?

If it's the formulas, that can be done from within Excel. The other is a licensing issue, and he might be able to handle that with just a popup dialog reminding the user that they have an unlicensed copy, and is probably a simple thing to install with VBA.

I don't think you can entirely do away with unlicensed use of software, though. No matter what steps you take, if you have a product that someone wants, they will find a way to use it. Putting an annoying license notification on start-up will have a similar effect to locking your front door: it keeps the honest people honest. The rest will get in no matter what you do.

[franknvegas]

Thank you Cindy and Get. I think you're right, sleazes will get in no matter what you do, Franknvegas.

[pmaior]

The cheapest solution would be to use VBA as suggested above to require a password and also to check the computer ID. That way you can have it close immediately if the ID does not match the computer originally licensed. Of course this assumes you can program in VBA or know some one that can or you are willing to pay a developer but then you would probably opt for the encryption program. Another thing you could do in code is have it check a website for licensing(you would have to serialize each copy with a license then have the program check every so often that the license is valid and also what IP address it is coming from. This all gets very technical very quickly depending on the level of security.

Still another idea is write an executable that launches excel and populates a spreadsheet with the propriatary data and formulas. Then you only have to worry about protecting the executable.

Sorry if I confused you even more, just thinking of how I would do it.

Try searching the web for VBA scripts. Chances are someone has written something like this already.

Something to note is that macros that detect excel passwords already exist but that takes determination to find the macro which not a lot of people will do.

If I had something like this I would probably figure out a way to put it on a website and use PHP to access it. A lot easier to protect and lots of code out there to use.

Good Luck

Pablo

[franknvegas]

Thanks, Pablo. I think the PHP access might be the best way. And thanks to everybody for all your suggestions.

[pmaior]

No problem Frank.
I was thinking about this and wondering if there is even a market for it, since there are probably a lot of free solutions out there already, unless it is very specialized for professionals or something.

But a cool twist would be to have it developed as an Iphone App. I think commercial RE folks would jump all over that. But I don't know how those things work as far as money goes. Are they mostly free ?
How much can you charge ? etc....

Good luck

Pablo

[franknvegas]

Dear Pablo, yes, this market is kinda specialized. Mostly CCIM's purchased it before (Certified Commercial Investment Member) but we really want to target commercial RE investors as the commercial defaults follow the residentials and, from all the indicators and research, the bloodbath has started but the worst is yet to come. Our nearest competitor is priced almost twice as high and doesn't have a couple of critical features. Getting an Iphone app would be a great idea but my partner would like it to stand alone as much as possible, at least at first. But guys like you make this forum a pure joy! Muchichimas gracias, Frank.