As promised

[Sheldonrs]

One of my "Do you how big I am" Hollywood stories.

I took a call from a software customer. At the time, we had 2 software programs specifically for movie and TV production. Movie Magic Budgeting and Movie Magic Scheduling. They were used by 80-90% of all movie and tv pruductions.

The customer need a replacement disk (floppy disks at the time). I told him "no problem". Then I asked him if he wanted to mail in his payment ($16.00 US) or did he want to come into the office and pick it up asap?
He starts screaming at me that if Steve (my boss and the co-owner of the company) were there, he would just have one of us bring the disk to him at no charge. "DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG I AM IN THIS BUSINESS?!!!"
I calmly explained to him that we are a company in a small niche market and if we gave away our product, we would soon be out of business and he would be out of luck.
He yells "FINE! I'll send one of my asst. to get it" and he hangs up.
A few hours later, his asst. shows up and tells the receptionist he is there to get so-andso's disk. She wasn't too bright and just gave him the disk for free because she didn't want to bother getting the store register openned.
It pissed me off but I got even about a year later. I had put a note in his customer record that under no circumstances was he to get any software or tech support until he paid the $16.00. I got the OK from my manager at the time who was really cool.
Mr. BIG need help with his software while in the middle of filming and nobody would help him until he paid up. He sent another asst. over ASAP so he could get his multi million dollar sure-fire Oscar-winner going again.
And what movie was he directing, you ask? Why the movie re-make of "Flipper" of course! lol!!!

[BookstoreEscapee]

Flipper!!! You tried to hold up the produduction of a modern cinematic masterpiece over 16 bucks? Evil!

[Bandit]

Why the movie re-make of "Flipper" of course! lol!!!

Too bad that didn't kill the whole project and spared a bunch of trees, dolphins, and film!

B

[ReadyToRetire]

Apparently the director hadn't done anything since Flipper in 96, except a new movie currently being worked on.

You destroyed his career, Sheldonrs.

[justZu]

Ok, I IMDB'ed Flipper and couldn't help but notice how Mr. So-important-Director-pants is really not very important at all. Funny how its always the minor ones who like to pretend they are Spielberg or Scorsese.

[marasbaras]

Guys like Spielburg would never be on the phone with you in the first place. They just don't have the time.

I've done high-end-style tech support before. Guys like him have experts on call to help them. Those experts call the software company in times of trouble, not the really, really super-rich, ultra-busy types.

[Sheldonrs]

Most of the time, if the famous one called or came by, they were very nice to deal with. It was their assistants that you make your life hell. Absolute power corrupts; people NEAR absolute power are absolutely corrupted. lol!!

[Dips]

I calmly explained to him that we are a company in a small niche market and if we gave away our product, we would soon be out of business and he would be out of luck.

Quoted for truth.

I also work at software company with a small niche market within the niche market of assistive technology.

We get people looking for replacement media for free all the time.

Or, even better, looking for replacement media for a version last shipped ten years ago.

Bonus points if they've lost the serial number, never registered their serial number, and still expect us to somehow know which serial number was theirs.

Welcome to CS!

[Sheldonrs]

Bonus points if they've lost the serial number, never registered their serial number, and still expect us to somehow know which serial number was theirs.

Welcome to CS!

The un-registered ones were my favorite. Especially for the bugeting and scheduling programs which were priced new at $700.00 and $800.00 at the time.
The floppys came with 3 loads for the program, meant for a spare and/or 2nd computer for the REGISTERED person's use only. Oddly enough (yeah, right), many times the users or production companies thought it was ok to just give the 3 loads to 3 people. Since the registration card had to be completed and received by us before any tech support or upgrades or replcements could be given, that meant 3 pissed off people and then 2 pissed off people when the one with the card filled it out.

Thanks for the welcome all btw. :-)

[Dips]

We didn't actually institute copy protection until 2004.

So you can imagine what happened. We had some licenses we referred to as the [Country Name] National License because we'd get contacts from dozens of different folks in that country using the same serial number. We'd decline to help them unless they were the registered licensee, but the genie was out.

When our customers update, they keep using their original serial number. So when the registered owner of one of our [Country] National Licenses updated after we started using copy protection, he found himself in a race with the other pirates for a limited number of available activations.

It was also hilarious how many government agencies and colleges went on a hiring spree prompting them to trade in their single-user licenses for multi-user licenses in 2004.

Your customers really should know better than to distribute someone else's copyrighted material without permission, considering the business they are in. Did you ever point that out to them?

[Sheldonrs]

"Your customers really should know better than to distribute someone else's copyrighted material without permission, considering the business they are in. Did you ever point that out to them? "

That was the first thing I did. It was printed on the box, the registration card and the license agreement. Most of the time, they would just yell that they should be able to do whatever they wanted since it cost them so much.

That would happen with the ones that lost or damaged the disks as well. They would demand free replacements since it costs so much to buy.
I would just tell them that if they bought a brand new Porsche and it was stolen or they crashed it, would they tell the dealership to give them a new one for free just because it was so expensive? Most of the time they either understood and paid or hung up.