Script Garage
How can I protect my PHP scripts against piracy?
I sell PHP/MySQL scripts and I'd like to know how can I protect my scripts against piracy and/or illegal resale and redistributions.
Public Comments
- There's really no way to protect it. Yet there's a way to delay it from being pirated. You can always use encryption. Try searching the internet for Zend, it's one of the best use encryption software for php and its decryption is available on almost any commercial file host and web hosting servers.
- There isn't anything technical you can do to protect your scripts except obfuscation. Products like Zend will not prevent one person who bought your scripts from distributing the source to everyone else. The key to getting paid for your work is something that the music industry has only sort of started to figure out, and the movie industry hasn't even gotten close to yet - if you offer people what they want for a reasonable price and treat them well, most of them will be happy to pay that amount for your product. If you treat them like crooks, they will behave like crooks. For example, if you offer generous service agreements with your software, people will be less inclined to rip you off, and much happier with paying for your product. The key is to build a constructive relationship with your customers.
- The only thing you can do is put a copyright in the file with information saying that it's yours only and only those with permission (those you sell it to) may use it. And that any other use is not allowed. Of course, people can still take it if they want and remove that part, but it is illegal.
- Get a PHP script encoder such as Zend or Ioncube: http://www.zend.com/products/zend_guard http://www.ioncube.com/ It's not 100% effective, but it's far better than nothing. Most people can't decompile it. Remember to install a licensing system into your script before encoding or people can just copy the encoded version and use it on their site. That itself also isn't 100% effective, but once again, far better than nothing.
