BeeJiveIM for iPhone was updated this week to support Facebook chat. Not long afterward, reports started coming in that something was wrong for some people. When they tried connecting to any IM service, they got a mysterious “PC LOAD LETTER” message which, when clicked, opened a clip from Office Space on YouTube (NSFW).
MobileCrunch reports that the “problem” was BeeJive’s offbeat way of fighting software piracy. The official word from BeeJive:
We have recently implemented new anti-piracy measures in BeejiveIM for iPhone. We have tried to keep our approach fun with an error message and a video. But we hope our message is clear: please respect the work of developers.
There was initially some confusion about who would get the message and why, but it all boils down to this. If you installed a cracked version of BeeJive, you got the message. If you purchase a legitimate license, you’ve first got to uninstall the cracked version, then install the legitimate version in order to eliminate the message.
Kudos to BeeJive for tackling piracy with a sense of humor.
I love this — a company that treats piracy seriously by fighting with humor. That Office Space clip is classic, too. I’m almost tempted to download the cracked version just so I can get blocked, too.
Nah, I don’t wanna jailbreak my iphone.
thats gay
This is actually a very bad move for Beejive. Now I understand that Piracy is bad and lost revenue is also very bad, but
1) they made their client (which is hands down the best client out there right now in the App store) way too expensive for the average user. (who pays 17$ for a chat program that will just be updated when the latest iPhone is released?)
2) They barred any pirates or people who cannot afford at the moment the program from ever trying it out in lieu of buying it. This was like free advertisement! I have a gut feeling after this move, their revenue dropped slightly after the hump of people who couldn’t go on without their precious BeeJive.
3) Meebo is actively working on their software for the iPhone and I have a gut feeling theirs is going to be faster and less bloaty. Beejive, You’re missing out on grabbing/holding on to a huge slice of your demographic.
For these reasons, I will not be purchasing their crappy product & truly hope they burn up in this recession. Granted, it was a funny anti-piracy method, but a bad move for the company. Ha-ha, just doesn’t cut it, these days.
i have this app cracked I wanted a test drive, the push did not work as promised, to prove me wrong my brother spent 15 or whatever and bought it low and behold his version (legal) did not work either. I do admit to having cracked apps and if they work i buy them. Case and point i use to have 4 free GPS apps on my phone being sick of it, got about 7 cracked ones, compared my errors to the one on iTunes, sad thing is most GPS apps are crap, then bought the one i liked. all users want is a good working demo.