Software protection scheme may boost new game sales

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 04:22 PM 10/13/03 -0400, Sunder wrote:
>The luser will think it's worth buying their own copy after getting
>addicted to the game.
...
>So the rub, is that copies are allowed to be made, but unless cracked,
the
>copies are nothing more than time limited demos.

What's wrong with these things?   They're not fraud.

>The only way that this could work is if they put up some sort of splash

>screen at some point to let the luser know that the program isn't
buggy,
>but that the copy protection noticed it's a backup.

Which trivially eliminates your objections to the user thinking
something
is wrong.

>As usual, the real loser is the original purchaser, because if he
>scratches his CD, he's out $50-$70 or whatever games cost today, and he

>can't make backups.

Yes.  The company *should* swap scratched originals to preserve this
backup right,
but I don't think they're legally required to.  And the company won't be
around forever,
whereas backups can, so the swapping plan is inferior.

*However*, as incrementally clever as this scheme is, it is succeptible
to a CD dupe program that is bit for bit correct, no?

And since the protected software *checks* the CD for the errors, than a
CD bit-for-bit
copier *must* be able to be written, no?   Or is there a problem writing
intentional-errors
on consumer-grade CD burners?   (If so, this is a good marketing tool;
if not, this is going
to be cracked.)