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How would you sell a script?


'LinKin

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Hello,

Have you ever sold a script? - How was the experience?

There are a lot of people that are hmm.. (only offensive words come to my mind) and they call themselves scripters but in reality they are not. They're just selling edited scripts. (Some times just changing the meta's author because they don't have any scripting skill at all).

I might sell a script, but, I want to know how can I make sure that it will not be edited or resold by the person I will sell it to.

I was thinking about doing something with the server's IP & Name. Also to compile it and encrypt it using luac.multitheftauto.com

Any more security?

I don't want my resource to be 'leaked' (not sure if that's the correct word). Or even worse, that the person I sell it to, start to sell it around like if he/she were the owner. Do you know what I mean?

Thanks,

LinKin.

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Hi LinKin , my name is teQuilla.

I've made over $200 with scripting for MTA , and the experience is pretty fine . Had some difficulties sometimes , but we fixed it in the end.

I see you're concerned about the security of your scripts . Everybody is , as for the luac encryption , it doesn't helps at all , because there are alot of decompilers out there. Though you might want to use luac for small scripts ( Vehicle Spawner for example . ) , but for big gamemodes ( Like Race including all the fancy stuff , or vH scripts ) you might want to do your own security system . I know this sounds like a stupid idea for alot of you , but creating a security system that requires a License key , that once used it registers the IP of the server in a website , and everytime a script or something from the gamemode is run , it requires a check that the License is valid , and compares the website's IP to the server's IP . To prevent them for editing this edit system , you should use .luac encryption , and you need a pattern that only you know for the license key , then preferably use sha256 to encrypt it even further.

I know this might sound stupid and a lot of work to do for you , but for me it's working like charm :) .

Sorry for my english , it's 3 AM here and I'm pretty tired . If you didn't understand what I told you , just leave a comment and I'll explain tomorrow :) .

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If one can decompile script easily, then one can also easily remove the key check easily.

However, in theory, one could encrypt part of the code, which can only be decrypted (on the fly) with key sent from some server.. every time that resource starts. (though acquiring that key wouldn't be too hard then as well).

If client (who wants resource from you) allows to open-source it later, then that is the best protection if you don't want anyone else to sell it. But if you want to sell the same content to multiple clients, then it's not a viable option.

You should research if the person you sell your stuff to, really is trustable or not (google him, ask others, etc).

Study some licenses and attach one with your script. If your client violates it and resells your content then you could use some legal measures.

If you have client side scripts, which can be easily copied by anyone - try to use more server side functions (e.g send some parts to server from client and do some work server-side).

Create a portfolio, so people can at least "see" what you've done, in order to avoid buying same thing from others.

Or. Just don't care.

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It wouldn't be to hard. Before you give the guy any money,. tell him you want to see the script in action in the server. If it's not how you want it, tell him to make it the way that you want it, and simply, if it's a basic change and he doesn't know how to do it then I wouldn't trust the script from him... and you can tell him to take his stolen/downloaded script elsewhere. You should really only buy scripts from people who you can trust such as members like Castillo, 50p (Not sure if he sells scripts), myself, and there are loads of other scripters that can be trusted, however, keep in mind, there are way more that can't be trusted than can be trusted. If you have a potential scripter, feel free to run him by me and I can tell you if I know and if he's a good scripter, as for, I know a lot of the "big" scripters of MTA. Also, you could check their forum profile to see if they ever help people with scripting.

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Well you could make a licensing system by using the php api, then set up a webpage with a mysql database to allow people to actually try your scripts for free within a limited time and then ask for payment. Compiling for v1.3.4 and above is currently impossible to decompile as far as I know and decompiling in general is hard.

However the best solution would probably be to release everything for free as open source, if your scripts are well made then you get known as a good scripter and people may donate some money to you, most people are actually very generous and those who use your scripts for free will still know that you are the author and recommend you, that makes it much harder for anyone else to steal it or take the credits for it.

Since I'm also running a server by now I know that around 95% of those who are trying to sell scripts (compiled) are scammers or just steal or download scripts from the community, change the credits and compile it and then try to sell it. Anyway go ahead with open source and use donations with for example paypal, real payments would also require support and guarantees and other legally binding actions that you might not be able to handle all the time while donations won't require anything of that.

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