Comments on: Should you Copy-Protect your Software Products? http://www.pjmconsult.com/index.php/2006/11/should-you-copy-protect-your-software.html General Management and Marketing Advice for Software and Tech Companies Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:42:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: GL Computing http://www.pjmconsult.com/index.php/2006/11/should-you-copy-protect-your-software.html/comment-page-1#comment-72 GL Computing Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:49:21 +0000 http://www.pjmconsult.com/wordpress/?p=54#comment-72 Copy-protection is necessary... especially for high volume consumer products. Peer-to-peer file sharing has removed all doubt about that. It's not a problem as long as the protection system doesn't cause additional support issues - install or operational conflicts, making software unavailable if the network or internet connection is unavailable, complex requirements to move to another machine (especially if the drive dies and it can't be unregistered) But the vendor needs to balance this development against the costs... think how much Microsoft spend on WGA, but it gets cracked the same day they make a change to it. Maybe this, as much as fear of Google, is helping to drive them to the SaaS model? Copy-protection is necessary… especially for high volume consumer products. Peer-to-peer file sharing has removed all doubt about that.

It’s not a problem as long as the protection system doesn’t cause additional support issues – install or operational conflicts, making software unavailable if the network or internet connection is unavailable, complex requirements to move to another machine (especially if the drive dies and it can’t be unregistered)

But the vendor needs to balance this development against the costs… think how much Microsoft spend on WGA, but it gets cracked the same day they make a change to it. Maybe this, as much as fear of Google, is helping to drive them to the SaaS model?

]]> By: vdemarines http://www.pjmconsult.com/index.php/2006/11/should-you-copy-protect-your-software.html/comment-page-1#comment-25 vdemarines Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:12:00 +0000 http://www.pjmconsult.com/wordpress/?p=54#comment-25 I think you’re right on with this article. Hardware dongles were a first generation software protection technologies, but there has been a renewed interest in software protection in general because of growth of piracy rates and the relationship of piracy in emerging markets like China. However, it’s easy to confuse software licensing and software protection. From what I have seen within high value software market, many of these ISVs have been using licensing solutions from vendors like Macrovision (utilized by Adobe in their new license solution) or custom approaches. These solutions are solving the inadvertent piracy problem and providing easier methods for their customers to audit software use. However, software protection technology is needed for the overt piracy issues. I define software protection as technology that deters reverse engineering and binary cracks that enable overt piracy. Microsoft is example of a vendor that merged the 2 technologies into SPP for Vista. Sony provided another example of applying intrusive software protection technology to solve their content piracy issue. Software protection does not have to be intrusive to be an effective deterrent against overt piracy, but it is needed along with licensing and resgitration approaches. I think you’re right on with this article. Hardware dongles were a first generation software protection technologies, but there has been a renewed interest in software protection in general because of growth of piracy rates and the relationship of piracy in emerging markets like China. However, it’s easy to confuse software licensing and software protection. From what I have seen within high value software market, many of these ISVs have been using licensing solutions from vendors like Macrovision (utilized by Adobe in their new license solution) or custom approaches. These solutions are solving the inadvertent piracy problem and providing easier methods for their customers to audit software use. However, software protection technology is needed for the overt piracy issues. I define software protection as technology that deters reverse engineering and binary cracks that enable overt piracy. Microsoft is example of a vendor that merged the 2 technologies into SPP for Vista. Sony provided another example of applying intrusive software protection technology to solve their content piracy issue. Software protection does not have to be intrusive to be an effective deterrent against overt piracy, but it is needed along with licensing and resgitration approaches.

]]> By: vdemarines http://www.pjmconsult.com/index.php/2006/11/should-you-copy-protect-your-software.html/comment-page-1#comment-26 vdemarines Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:09:00 +0000 http://www.pjmconsult.com/wordpress/?p=54#comment-26 I think you’re right on with this article. Hardware dongles were a first generation software protection technologies, but there has been a renewed interest in software protection in general because of growth of piracy rates an relationship with emerging markets like China. However, it’s easy to confuse software licensing and software protection. From what I have seen within high value software market many of these ISVs have been using licensing solutions from vendors like Macrovision (utilized by Adobe in their new license solution) and custom approaches. These solutions are solving the inadvertent piracy problem and providing easier methods for their customers to audit software use. However, software protection technology is needed for the overt piracy issues. I define software protection as technology that deters reverse engineering and binary cracks that enable overt piracy. Microsoft is example of a vendor that merged the 2 technologies into SPP for Vista. Sony provided another example of applying intrusive software protection technology to solve their content piracy issue. Software protection does not have to be intrusive to be an effective deterrent against overt piracy, but it is needed along with licensing. I think you’re right on with this article. Hardware dongles were a first generation software protection technologies, but there has been a renewed interest in software protection in general because of growth of piracy rates an relationship with emerging markets like China. However, it’s easy to confuse software licensing and software protection. From what I have seen within high value software market many of these ISVs have been using licensing solutions from vendors like Macrovision (utilized by Adobe in their new license solution) and custom approaches. These solutions are solving the inadvertent piracy problem and providing easier methods for their customers to audit software use. However, software protection technology is needed for the overt piracy issues. I define software protection as technology that deters reverse engineering and binary cracks that enable overt piracy. Microsoft is example of a vendor that merged the 2 technologies into SPP for Vista. Sony provided another example of applying intrusive software protection technology to solve their content piracy issue. Software protection does not have to be intrusive to be an effective deterrent against overt piracy, but it is needed along with licensing.

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