CompuServe Messages

John, Personally, I hate theft-protection schemes almost as much as I hate software theft. I would be very nervous about hardware dongles (particularly for a small company), as the support hassles can be very costly. The multiple-dongle interaction would scare the h*ll out of me, but any type of hardware-related support makes me unconfortable (and the Klone market is full of hardware-related support issues as is, without the added dongle factor). I think you first have to decide what your realistic goals are for the theft-protection measures. If you are looking for a way to maximize your sales, then I'd seriously think about not copy-protecting (or using a less intrusive and less costly method). It's a tough call, but folks who are stealing 3DS (for example) are probably not going to pop for the price of 3DS anyway. Consequently, not many actual sales are being lost. Folks that have a _real_ need for a program will find a way to pay for it. However, if you really do want to discourage any casual copying, then it is not unreasonable to take whatever measures you have available. I guess the issue boils down to a "practical" vs. a "theoretical" justification. Our goals for theft-protection are a little different from yours, as we deal in entertainment software (games). We basically work under the assumption that any mechanism will eventually be cracked, and the software stolen. Consequently, we do not choose to invest a lot into protection schemes, although we do not totally unprotect our product. We want to at least make it so that "Joe Average User" can't casually copy the product without some minimal barrier. The games market is such that longer a product remains "uncracked", the better the sales are, as games tend to be a short shelf-life product, and the sales curve is very skewed time-wise to the initial release. The approach we chose with our most recent product (Empire Deluxe – both DOS and Windows versions) was to ask for a word-from-the-manual password on initial installation and whenever we detected a significant change in the installed environment. This way, the user doesn't have to resort to digging out the manual every time they want to play the game, but will if, for example, the installed data is copied to a different system. Not that difficult to get around, but enough of a barrier that it stops _some_ of the casual copying, without inconveniencing the honest customers. That, coupled with the fact that we released updates using RTPatch which will fail on "hacked" copies of the files, seems to have been reasonably successful. Of course, we don't have any hard numbers, other than the number of copies actually sold. Yes, there are cracked copies available (although I haven't personally seen them). Yes, it p*sses me off that people are stealing from me. I sure wish that they'd just break into my house and be done with it — at least then, I can collect insurance on the theft. I don't know if any of this helps you, as your situation is very different. As a (potential) customer, I wouldn't object to the dongle, as I realize that it is a necessary evil — AS LONG AS IT WORKED without problem. I would definitely be "in your face" if I had to fight compatibility problems because of it, however. Of course, this is theoretical, as we are not currently doing anything with 3D stuff, and can't justify the costs involved in the immediate future (although we are sending our Art Director to a 3DStudio hands-on presentation next month). – BobR