What to do when teacher asks you to pirate matlab

Hi everyone, we have a CS module on which the teacher chose to use Matlab and gave us pirated versions (setup+crack) but the activation process didn't work for me, maybe it has to do with recent windows 10 versions. I applied for free trial and was able to get most assignments done but now I have an exam next week and we'll use Matlab and my trial expired.Is there a way to get a one day free license or something similar? I'm broke so no way I can afford the license now :( NB: The teacher doesn't care so if i complain about license activation not working I'll just get a zero and fail the course.

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

You want us to tell you how to steal the software that we all essentially paid for? Sorry, but we can't help you. Once the free trial is up, it is up. You MAY be able to convince them at Mathworks to extend the license. Whether they will is their choice, not yours. I would talk nicely to your contact at The MathWorks. Perhaps, mentioning about the cracked version you were given to use is a bad idea, as they may have less sympathy for you then.

If not, I'd suggest you figure out how to download and use Octave, a fairly close MATLAB clone, that is free. If not, oh well. Life is not always fair.

[mary birouche]

How is talking about pirated version my mistake? I'm just trying to get the assignment done I can't wait to uninstall Matlab it was a real pain to even get the trial version to work (it's 2022 who the hell attaches licenses to PC username lol), also most of the assignments can be done in any programming language even JS in a browser but guess what? The teacher decides. In any industry there's people who can't afford the product and smart businesses use those people to make their product more popular (cracked software, pirated movies etc.) Guess Matlab is not one of them, they go after broke students (or schools in 3rd world) instead of making it easy for people that can't pay to crack it or at least make a free version with less features. Matlab should've become an open-source project and continue on its mission to spread knowledge but well, greed kills the man.

[Star Strider]

Report the teacher to the administration for unethical conduct.

[John D'Errico]

I'm saying that IF you tell MathWorks about your pirated version, they may well be less inclined to be charitable to you.

You say that in any industry there are people who cannot afford something, so they steal it? Do you honestly feel that is a valid solution? Say that I cannot afford a luxury Mercedes. Yet I decide it would look impressive for me to be driving one, so you think it is acceptable for me to steal what I feel I need? Perhaps you need to rethink your morals if so.

If I cannot afford something, I find ethical ways to do without it, without stealing what I want.

To every extent possible, if there are companies who are freely using pirated software, I would bet the companies selling that software will be doing their very best to put those responsible in jail, or at least suing the pants off that company. Done on a corporate scale, this becomes grand theft.

You then say that MATLAB should be a free, open source project. Sure, it would be nice if everyone gave away free software. But one wonders how they would pay their employees then.

As I said, feel free to download Octave. If is reasonably close to MATLAB, and perhaps your best chance.

[Michelle Hirsch]

Michelle here - I'm the head of product management for MATLAB. I'm sorry about the situation you are in. It's obviously completely inappropriate for your professor to be encouraging you to use a pirated copy of MATLAB. We try to make it really easy for schools to provide MATLAB for students, teachers, and researchers so that people aren't in this situation. Last I checked over 7 million people have access to MATLAB just via our Campus Wide License program. For the remaining schools that haven't adopted this program we still have other low-cost options like classroom licenses.

In situations like yours where the school isn't providing licenses, the recommended option is to just buy a student version of MATLAB ($49 in US) or the MATLAB & Simulink Student Suite (12 products, $99 US). These are intentionally priced in the same ballpark as textbooks, though unlike most textbooks they can be useful throughout your time as a student.

[Dominique]

Hi,

Of course, there is no valid excuse for piracy and crime. What let's see what leads to this situation.

"Campus Wide License program" : is it free?

"... we still have other low-cost options like classroom licenses" : not free?

"... the recommended option is to just buy a student version of MATLAB ..."

OK, let me give you an insight. There is a very important 4-letter keyword to know here : FREE

I type it again to make sure you read it : ==­­­>

FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE

You should make Matlab free to students and schools, since it is also your interest to do it. More people learn and use Matlab, more they will ask their boss to buy Matlab once in working places.

You think 99$ is low cost for students? In some countries, it represents more than a 1-month salary! ==> https://www.journaldunet.com/business/salaire/classement/pays/revenus?page=4

Even in developped countries, 20 USD might be for some students the budget for a one-week grocery.

I am happy to live in Québec where we have a public social security net, free healthcare and universities 5, 10 or 20 times cheaper than in the US. Howerver, in some countries, university is (almost) free (Germany).

Regards.

Dominique Beaulieu

[Walter Roberson]

Campus-wide licensing program costs the university something. Policies vary as to how that is charged back to students. I would think that around here (Winnipeg), the cost of campus snow removal significantly exceeds the cost of Campus-wide licensing.

"You should make Matlab free to students and schools, since it is also your interest to do it."

But is it? What is the cost to support the average student? Is it in Mathworks interest to take an actual loss in hopes that students will recommend the software later?

[Edward]

Loss? do you really think that selling a virtual copy represents a loss? not at all, the only thing you can lose is technical support and bandwidth, something that does not represent any significant loss considering the benefit it brings.

You counterpose things necessary for operation, such as “snow removal”, which is something of nature, to a license with a price tag created by a company. Fear not, the multi-billion dollar company is not going out of business. Don't justify the huge costs to students. I would support this person committing a “crime”.

[Walter Roberson]

@Edward

It costs Mathworks actual money to support students. Technical support and bandwidth both have non-trivial costs associated with them. I suspect network costs alone are tens of millions of dollars.

[John D'Errico]

The student edition of MATLAB is quite inexpensive. I am sorry that some students cannot afford it. But giving it away for free would seem not to work. They have costs. I doubt the amount they do charge hardly covers their costs, so you are already getting a significant discount at that rate.

You need to accept that in the real world, things are not just given to you. If you walked into a restaurant, and asked or free food because you did not want (or could not afford) to pay for it, what do you think their response would be? My guess is, at best, they would point you to a local soup kitchen. Exactly. They would tell you where to find free food. It might not be the same food you want, but then beggars don't always get their choice.

If you walked into a car dealership, and said you are a student and you "needed" a free car to get to school, when they stopped laughing they would tell you to walk. Or find a cheap bicycle. Or take a bus. Or move closer to school. Or drop out, if all else fails. You don't NEED to pass this class, any more than you NEED to graduate. You WANT to do those things. And sometimes you may need to do something extra. So not being successful would be unfortunate, but since you do have alternatives, it need not happen.

As I said, there ARE free alternatives. You can use Python. It is totally FREE. And Octave is also free, and quite close to MATLAB. Much MATLAB code will work directly in Octave.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

So open software is great?!?! One word "log4j". Enough said?

Here's some more open software vulerabilities:

https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/resources/blog/top-security-open-source-vulnerabilities-2020/

Maybe that's enough to scare you.

As far as unlicensed commercial software, there's the legal ramifications. You're young so you didn't go through the massive software license checks that were done like 20 years ago when all big companies had to prove that they had a purchased license for every copy of software on the computer. They're still going on though there is greater complicance now so it's not in the news anymore. Many companies didn't pay for all the copies they had and had to pay huge penalties (basically just buying the software but maybe fines - I don't remember the penalties but it was NOT fun for anyone involved and very costly and time consuming for everyone). John probably remembers that time. The cost was so high and time involved so extensive that companies now tell you that you are not allowed to have unlicensed software on your computer. If the laywers find out, you're toast. It's cheaper to buy the software than try to save a few buck.

No one wants to get a letter from Microsoft:

The High Cost Of Microsoft Audit Penalties

If stress kills, then receiving a notice with the opening line “Your organization has been selected to complete a Microsoft License Verification process” is practically lethal. As unpleasant as software audits are, if you have licenses with heavy-hitting vendors like Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle, it’s likely that software audits and compliance verification are just an unfortunate reality of business. So what are the Microsoft Audit fines and penalties that you could face when you receive an audit request?

So what kind of money are we talking about? Here's snippet from the National Law Review:

The copyright owner may elect to waive actual damages and profits in favor of seeking an award of statutory damages that range from $750 to $30,000 per copyrighted work. If the court finds that the copyright infringement was willful, it can increase the statutory damages to up to $150,000. In sum, an infringer can be found liable for very significant damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs.

Accidental license violations can be expensive

Not only does use of unlicensed software place the infringing company at financial risk, but copyright holders can also seek to impose personal liability against officers and directors of infringing companies when those officers and directors knew of, or encouraged the use of, unlicensed software.

In light of the significant financial risks to a company and its officers and directors, it is critical to have a policy in place that prohibits the use of unlicensed software. The company should review this policy frequently to remind all necessary personnel of the company’s stance on software licensing.

While many companies may already have policies in place that prohibit the use of unlicensed software, those same companies may unknowingly be violating software licensing agreements that apply to socalled “trialware.” Trialware programs allow a user to install a program for a limited period of time, after which the user must either purchase a license for that product or uninstall that product from the computer. These products can result in accidental license violations if there is no follow-up to determine whether a license has been purchased for that product or whether it has been uninstalled. For example, commonly used compression software allows the user to download, install, and use the program for free for 45 days, after which time the user must purchase a license or uninstall it. If the company does not have a policy of tracking software installations and following-up on licensure, that “trialware” software could cause one to accidentally violate the Act.

Did you see the part about officers/leaders of the company personally having substantial financial risk? I'd be shocked if the professor's university was okay with him exposing the university to those kinds of legal judgements.

For more info:

https://www.google.com/search?q=+software+license+prove+corporation+penalties

[mary birouche]

Are you serious comparing log4j to Matlab lol. Log4J is used by millions for production and mostly open to the internet. Matlab Customers are mostly schools that are not aware of other alternatives or don't mind including the Matlab license in tuition fees, Matlab doesn't provide enough value to be essential for a business contrary to log4j. You're fooling yourself if you think closed-source is more secure than open-source, If Matlab was used in anything meaningful in real world you'll see hundreds of RCEs everyday lol. Again, all i was pointing out is that Matlab must be desperate to milk students of their cents and not provide a free education version, if Matlab were persuaded they provided value and the price is justified they'd be in GitHub Student pack with JetBrains and the real boys 💪

[Bruno Luong]

mary birouche I don't believe your story. I think no professor force students doing such thing. This is the story you invent thus trying to get help to crack MATLAB. I believe you commit the theft and no one else.

[mary birouche]

Bruno Luong seriously lol? If I wanted to use Matlab for free I'll keep requesting trials with different emails, If i had the choice I would never open Matlab website lol, the software is terrible, horrible UX even the install process is pain, once it's installed it's hard to uninstall it I'm glad I installed it in a virtual machine i can discard once I'm done with the semester. If we were in 2006s then I'm 100% with you it would've been a good ide to learn programming and maths, unfortunately the nerd behind it finished his Doctorate degree and and met the real world where the degree doesn't matter, only the value you make does and decided to milk students

[Walter Roberson]

Again, all i was pointing out is that Matlab must be desperate to milk students of their cents and not provide a free education version

Cost of a MATLAB license to a student: $US50

Cost of a MATLAB license to me: $US2200

Student pays:

fprintf('%.3f%%\n', 50/2200 * 100)

2.273%

Cost of a Student Suite license to a student: $US100

Cost of those licenses to me:

• MATLAB = $US2200
• Simulink = $US3300
• Control System Toolbox = $US1250
• Curve Fitting Toolbox = $US1100
• DSP System Toolbox = $US1400
• Image Processing Toolbox = $US1100
• Instrument Control Toolbox = $US1250
• Optimization Toolbox = $US1250
• Parallel Computing Toolbox = $US1100
• Signal Processing Toolbox = $US1100
• Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox = $US1100
• Symbolic Math Toolbox = $US1100

Student pays:

fprintf('%.3f%%\n', 100/(2200 + 3300 + 1250 + 1100 + 1400 + 1100 + 1250 + 1250 + 1100 + 1100 + 1100 + 1100) * 100)

0.580%

Less than 6 parts in 1000 of what I would have to pay.

I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who claims that asking students to pay less than 6/10 of 1% of retail price is "milking students of their cents".

[mary birouche]

Well, you know why is that so expensive? That's the cost of you not researching better alternatives, spend that on AWS credits and get something to setup the architecture and you'll be better off. There's no way in the world the product should cost that much to you, again you're also being milked because you either hooked somehow or just lazy to look for more optimal solutions.

[Walter Roberson]

Well, you know why is that so expensive?

Yes. It is because Mathworks tries to provide a living wage to its more than 5000 employees, instead of exploiting them.

[Bruno Luong]

Mary, so ask your professor why he chose MATLAB instead of those freewares for the course that you supposed to use to graduate.

Some students in medical school have a loan of few hundred grand for their study. Please ask your bank to loan you $100 to pay your MATLAB license insted of stealing it. It costs you 1-2 days of salary once you get a job with your degree. The rest of 40 working years of your life can be free of charge from MATLAB.

How much time did you spend tryng to crack MATLAB? A week? Independend of the ethical issue, the economical choice you choose is a wrong one.

[Image Analyst]

Yes I did compare MATLAB to log4j. I'm not saying commercial software never has vulerabilities but my company has spent thousands of dollars and many people's time to correct log4j's security problem. We didn't have to do any of that for MATLAB.

Many students who buy heavily discounted software for a course consider it just another required resource, like a textbook. Many textbooks are in the same price range. But I suppose you also (to be consistent) rail against publishers for not providing their textbooks for free.

Many programmers in the real world (Mathworks) included write software and get paid for it. They have to make a living somehow. I'm not sure how you'll make a living once you're out in the real world writing your software and donating it for free. Not everyone can afford to be so generous with their time as you. Maybe you can apply to Mathworks -- they'd probably love to have an employee who writes software for free.

If you went out to a computer contractor and asked to have some custom software written specially for you, do you think they'd charge/milk you for providing that (like Mathworks, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.)? Or should they also provide their software to you for free?

Like Bruno, I seriously doubt the instructor provided you with software plus a license crack. That would be grounds for him to be fired. He probably provided you with the University's academic license and you just misunderstood. You can verify that with him.

But in the end, if he really did provide you with illegal software, you did the right thing in questioning it and you should either ask the university how to get onto their licence or buy the student MATLAB, which is no more than a normal textbook in price.

[Dominique]

You are right. But here is how it could work :

• free for students and schools
• with charges for commpanies

And about firing the professor for the piracy, well, I guess it depends if you live or not in Santa Banana Republic.

Dominique