EA Copy protection
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Although I'm not representing the views of COMPUTE! Publications here, I'd
like to offer a simple suggestion for copy-non protection. The disk is locked
with a simple password. If you can type in the password, you can copy the
disk. This password is imbedded within the user manual, and could simply be
the serial number of the program. (This serial number can also be used to
track down how programs are pirated.) It would seem obvious that the
protection could simply be broken by writing down the password as you pass
the disk along to your friend. And of course the friend can memorize this.
But the real problem with piracy is not individuals breaking programs, but
with a single program pyramiding outward from the first successfull illegal
copy. Once a program's protection is broken, even only by an individual,
this program is given to a friend, who gives it to two friends, and so on.
Curiously though, it's much more difficult to copy a program's documentation.
Textbooks are still effectively copy-protected simply due to the daunting
task of "backing them up" on a copy machine. Only some teachers, usually
within their rights, bother to copy hundreds of pages. And copy stores,
capable of running off 200 copies in an hour, claim to strictly enforce
copyrights. You need to sign a legal waiver to get a copyrighted document
duplicated at these honest places. Anyway, given that the manual probably
won't be copied along the chain of piracy, and most pirated copies of
software will be completely without documentation, it's likely that most of
these people will be without the password. The software won't run without the
password. Even if individual users try to remember or write down the
password, the chain of piracy will quickly be broken. As with chain letters,
it only takes a few people to break the network. If someone loses the scrap
of paper containing a long meaningless alphanumeric password (to simply
discourage memorization), the piracy stops there. None of his friends and
their friends, and so on, will have the password either. The beauty of this
is that few people can even hold