On Saturday, October 11, 2003, at 12:09 PM, Sunder wrote:

Yawn... This is no different than any of the copy protection schemes employed in the 1980's on then popular home computers such as the commodore 64.

Hindsight is 20/20 and recalls, all of these were broken within weeks if not months. "Nibbler" copiers and other programs were quickly built that allowed the breaking of all of these systems. All sorts of "error" sectors, duplicate tracks, half tracks, extra tracks, extra sectors, non-standard sized sectors, tracks written at different speeds, erroneous checksums, hidden data, and other sorts of weird bits were employed. All were broken. None survived the ages.

In the end, the companies that employed copy protection only managed to piss off customers who lost their only copy of the software, and created a market for the copiers and crackers. The crackers won, the software companies lost.

In fact, the companies that made copying software got a lot of business (and hence stayed in business, funded more copying work, etc.) from _fully legal customers_ who wanted to ensure that they had backups of critical software. Everybody I knew had "Copyiipc" from Central Point Software in Portland, OR. They were not copying games, they were copying critical disks with their CAD, spreadsheed, accounting, and other business apps on them. Yeah, sometimes these people gave copies to friends. Who often bought the program if their businesses would benefit (manuals, support, updates, etc.). But the main reason was for ensurance (not a word, but it fits with ensure vs. insure).

Few of the companies of that era are still in business today. CEO's, Vulture Capitalists, and others who have an interest in such schemes would do well to invest some time in learning about that time, and the results, for their investments, and dollars will go the same way... the way of the brontosaurus, the trilobite, and the dodo.

As the saying goes, the lessons of the past are learned anew by each generation... --Tim May