Hair Farm Forums

INTRODUCTION

Ever since I announced the release of Hair Farm, I have been concerned about mass distribution of its crack version and probable consequences of this to me personally and to the future of Hair Farm. I realize that most people who are enabling the distribution of crack software are unaware of the impact their actions have on the software developer(s), and harbor the illusion that they are doing a service to the community. If you know anything about crack software, I'm sure you came across the arguments that not all people can afford to pay for software and that software companies benefit from crack users. Some of you may discard these ideas as nonsense, but there are many people all over the world who honestly believe these to be true. Therefore, I decided to write this open letter to tell my side of the story and to show these people the big picture and the unfortunate role they play in it.

STORY OF HAIR FARM

I have begun working on Hair Farm more than 6 years ago. Since I had no funding to support this project, I had to work on it on the side, while simultaneously working on many other things, one of which is getting a PhD at Texas A&M University. This meant 16 to 20 hour workdays including weekends for a large part of these 6 years. No, this wasn't fun at all, but I knew that I was onto something that was worth all these efforts. As you know, 6 years ago the technology in computer graphics was simply not there yet for writing a piece of software like Hair Farm. Therefore, I couldn't just sit and write the code, but I had to invent many missing parts of the puzzle, which took a long time. Along the way, I had to turn down some quite generous job offers from the graphics industry, so that I could finish Hair Farm.

WHY ISN'T HAIR FARM CHEAP?

I know that Hair Farm is not cheap software. It wasn't cheap to develop it either, and it will certainly not be cheap to improve it in the future as I’m planning to do. It is true that not everybody can afford Hair Farm. This is the unfortunate reality of the world and there isn't much I can do about it. However, it doesn't make any sense to argue that everybody has the "right" to use the software I worked 6 years to develop. The funny thing is that most people who have this strange illusion, understand the concept of ownership and copyright when it comes to their own digital creations.

CRACK SOFTWARE AND SMALL COMPANIES

Another thing that is largely misunderstood is the impact of the mass distribution of crack software on the developer. While large software companies can easily endure the negative effect of crack software distribution and may even benefit from the large user base they inherit in the future, this is not true for small companies. Sadly, many small software companies (and other small digital content providers) are strongly affected by the mass distribution of their content. Sales drop immediately after a crack is released and often times small companies cannot survive this hit. The argument "who would buy it will buy it anyway" is unfortunately not true. Crack software is used not only by people who can't afford a legal copy, but also by people who simply don't like to pay for something that they can find for free.

CRACKERS

What makes me really furious is to see crack software being SOLD in one form or another! Yes, many crackers actually make money off of the software they crack, either directly or indirectly. It is bizarre to see how these crackers are praised as heroes sometimes, while the actual developer of the software is assumed to be the bad guy for trying to earn his living using HIS OWN EFFORTS!

DONORS

Donors are the people who have access to a legitimately obtained copy of a software and "donate" it to crackers. These people actually may have good intentions, but they end up cutting the branch that they sit on by hurting the software developer and the future development efforts of the software.

Most modern software comes with tags, which may be used for identifying the "source," if a copy of the software is "leaked" to crackers. Many crackers falsely assume that they can remove these tags if they get multiple donations, but in fact they may end up revealing ALL their donors instead.

Unfortunately, in order to protect Hair Farm I have to employ zero-tolerance policy on donors. Whether or not a copy of Hair Farm is "stolen" from a user does not change the consequences, and it is a user's responsibility to keep his/her copy of the software safe.

WHERE IS HAIR FARM CRACK?

Right now, it's nowhere! I notice that some websites over the internet claim to have Hair Farm crack, and they pledge to give it to their registered users only. They are simply lying and just trying to make money off of you. Some of these sites had claimed to have Hair Farm 1.0 even before I prepared it! You can also find "fake" Hair Farm installers. Some people say that nothing happens when they try to use these installers, but actually what happens is that they are unknowingly installing a Trojan or a virus on their computer.

The story won't be much different in the future when you might be able to find a crack version of Hair Farm. You can never know if a cracker modified the software in a way that would damage your computer, intentionally or unknowingly. Furthermore, cracking a software makes the software do things that it is not programmed to do. As a result, many forms of bugs and instability problems may arise.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

I'm afraid there is no good solution that would make everyone happy. I will start educational discounts soon, which will help all students. I'm not expecting this to bring any significant financial gain, but I'd like to support students and give them a chance to do the right thing.

I wanted to give away free copies of Hair Farm to people who cannot possibly afford it. Unfortunately, aside from every day trust issues with internet communication, people seem to be more likely to be donors when they get a software/service for free. Besides, you cannot use Hair Farm without 3ds Max; how can a person, who can't afford Hair Farm, get a legal copy of 3ds Max in the first place?

FINAL REMARKS

Using cracked software is one thing, distributing it online is a whole other matter. If you like Hair Farm and would like to have it in the future, support it, don't help to destroy it. As for me, I will do everything in my power to protect Hair Farm both legally and digitally.

I understand that most crack software enablers and distributers fail to realize the role they play and how they hurt the developers. I hope this letter will help them see the whole picture.

As for legitimate Hair Farm users, I highly appreciate your support. I will do whatever I can to protect your investment by keeping this forum alive and continuing to provide you quality support.

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Hair Farm users, please feel free to post your general comments here. If you have specific questions or concerns please feel free to post them to the User's Area or send me an email.

I used the title of this thread "Looking for Hair Farm Crack?" as the email subject when I sent out a newsletter informing people about this post. Obviously, that wasn't a wise choice at all, and I ended up offending many people with that line. I hereby apologize for that unintended offensive language. I'll try to be more careful in the future.

All Hair Farm users and beta testers have been very supportive and I'm very grateful for this support.

I would also like to thank you all for taking the time to read this rather long post. I know that most of it was redundant for many of you. However, there was a time when I lived among people who did not understand these concepts all that well, and who even thought that I was a complete idiot for spending all my savings to buy 3ds Max.

I'm not expecting that reading this will make anyone change his/her mind about crack software, but I hope some people might better understand the role they play and may at least avoid being a part of the mass distribution of a future crack version.

Hi Cem,

i can totally relate to your feelings in regards of cracks and people stealing the earnings for those years you worked so hard.

"However, there was a time when I lived among people who did not understand these concepts all that well, and who even thought that I was a complete idiot for spending all my savings to buy 3ds Max."

I know that very well and i experience the same thing.
Those people really believe that paying for something, just because its the right thing to do (be it a usefull software or taxes), is dumb.

The sad thing is, that they just can't see what kind of environment they're creating by acting like this and that they're hurting the whole society they live in with this kind of behaviour - but i fear thats how most people are, very shortsighted when it comes to such things!

I do want to be paid for my own work and i happily pay others for theirs.
Hairfarm is not cheap, but its totally worth its money (There is nothing out there that can compete with it at the moment after all).

I could never write one of those programs i use on a daily basis myself and i am so glad that there are people who make an effort to write those wonderfull tools and make them accessible to the public at all.

I hope that you get what you deserve and can afford to support Hairfarm a long time.

My two cents.

Cheers,
Philipp

Hi Cem,

You know my thoughts on this by I will also second what Philipp said.

Hair-Farm is an amazing product and well worth it's weight in Gold.

Cheers,

Lee

Cem,

This is an awesome tool, I hope you can make a living with it despite of piracy.

Best of luck!

Luiz

It certainly is not a service to the community stealing people's hard work. They would not go and steal the latest BMW off the showroom floor and give it away to a passing driver. Why do they feel they are doing the community a service? People like yourself and us honest investors in this industry are the community that keep it afloat... someone is paying somewhere down the line, nothing is free.

end rant.