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INEFFECTIVE AND UNFRIENDLY SOLUTIONS
Many Solutions Are Ineffective:
Even strong protection solutions typically do not survive the onslaught of the crackers for more than two weeks. The leading solutions are extensively hacked.
In addition to removing the copy protection from the application, crackers develop and publish other ways to circumvent the copy protection. The algorithms for product keys are routinely hacked and fully working keys published on the Internet. Similarly, tools to emulate any hardware-based protections, such so called NoCD patches, are also available in great numbers on the Internet.
Unfriendly Solutions:
We have all heard the horror stories. You install an application only to discover that the copy protection used is trying to estimate the angle between the first and last sector on the CD and, in the process, burns your CD reader. Another example: a user cannot copy any 16 bit .exe file to a different location because that functionality has been disabled on the entire system to make sure that the latest installed (16-bit) application cannot be copied to a different system. All, of course, without the user’s knowledge.
Many copy protection systems are unfriendly to the publisher’s development schedule:
Add steps to the development process, extending the total development time Add complications to every update of the product Add to the testing process
Most of existing copy protection systems also affects users negatively:
Disables copy functionality without querying or informing the user Locks the application to the computer and prevents moving it to another system Requires the user to contact customer support if the hardware the application is locked to changes only so slightly Lacks the ability to permit using one license for multiple systems Does not allow the user to move a license from work to home
End Users’ and Vendors’ Reactions:
A multitude of blogs, forums and news articles evidence end user and vendor dissatisfaction. Common reactions include:
End users feel treated as criminals when a license cannot be moved from one system to another or doing so requires contacting the publisher Customer support departments suffer large volumes of calls related to copy protection preventing users from previously acceptable actions Vendors’ reputations are damaged when the copy protection employed affects the end users negatively
What if you could control copying and keep all your honest customers happy?
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