I haven't checked in for a bit, got busy with the long weekend, but this thread seems to have taken off but not in the direction I hoped.

Lots of finger pointing between dealers and customers it seems but IMO the real pointing should be done at the manufacturers. URC seems to have a nice cozy little arrangement where they can deny technical support to any user and at the same time fool their dealers into thinking that they're "doing everything they can" to make sure that their dealer line is empowered to be able to make a living selling their products. I've been reading a lot about URC and from the input from other dealers in this thread it just seems that the company has no real interest in protecting their line.

These guys can't do something as simple as put a password on their software? Who are we kidding? How long would that take? Is it something that requires 40 man hours of programming?

Their likely excuses of not being able to control their distribution lines and shady dealers being responsible for their products ending up online on eBay and other places just seem like a half truths to me.

Also cgav, you noted that you use RTI because they care more about this, but a quick search online found their software just as easily leaked and being distributed.

And all the excuses given in this thread about lawyers take time and they can't send hired muscle to fix the issue -- I agree with all that, but my point is that they would not have ended up in this mess if they actually gave a damn about the issue from the beginning. Now that their software is leaked online and easily downloaded, now they have to pretend that they're trying to do something so that their dealers don't get upset.

But is URC really upset about it? I can't really see how this hurts them at all. They sell more remotes since DIYers now can easily get access to the software. URC gets more revenue while at the same time gets to say they're not responsible for any tech support or any issues that pop up with the device and at the same time it looks like they're trying to protect their dealers.

Call me cynical but it just seems like a rather cozy little arrangement.

But I'm probably wrong and putting a password on CCP probably requires months of work and programming, right?