#Copy protection?
53 messages in this thread
Welcome to an open discussion about copy protection. Please feel free add your
opinions to this thread.
We picked a relatively neutral forum for this discussion, apart from any
particular 3D vendor's area on Compuserve. This is a chance for you to
influence the type of protection we *might* add to our software. We'll soon
release InterChange for Windows. We're considering adding some form of copy
protection scheme.
Here are some arguments, pro and con. It's easy to see which are which. 🙂
We're looking at the Rainbow Technologies "Sentinel Super Pro" dongle. This is
their newest security key, one model newer than the one that ships with 3D
Studio. It costs Syndesis about $30, a sort of "protection money" that is
simply passed on to the consumer, inflating the price of the product.
A lot of piracy exists in the 3D market: note the frequent "invalid normal
array" messages in the 3D Studio forum and Internet mail groups. This spurious
"error message" is a clear indicator of a 3DS.EXE that's been patched by a
purported dongle-cracker.
Conversion software falls into a realm of software that many people only use
"once in a while," which describes the justification used by most casual
pirates – so chances are, InterChange for Windows would be pirated heavily
among 3D users who pirate.
InterChange for Windows is priced to reflect the serious translation needs of
professional 3D users, so a dongle doesn't matter much to these customers who
need translation software. Our typical customer owns more than one 3D program,
perhaps on several platforms.
(We're considering a $495 price that would include all available converters.
An alternative would be a lower-priced bundle, containing only a few basic
converters, and other high-end or rare formats would be sold separately.)
InterChange for Windows is priced too high for casual 3D users. (For some
people, any price would be "too high".) This is true especially if it supports
"free" 3D file formats like POV, raw triangles, etc. as well as lower-cost 3D
programs like Imagine, LightWave, etc.
There's too many dongles out there already: Topas, Cadkey, Microstation, 3D
Studio, Liquid Speed, etc. They're clogging the parallel port, malfunction, or
only work in a certain order, and are expensive or impossible to replace if
lost or damaged.
A dongle only serves to motivate dongle-crackers, and they'll crack it
eventually. At least one dongle-cracking company has larger ads than Syndesis
can afford in Computer Graphics World; they sell their software for several
hundred dollars per application.
Rainbow (and other dongle companies) are playing a constant cat-and-mouse game
with dongle-crackers. By using their newest technology, we'll be one step
ahead of the crackers. This newest model contains 56 write-able memory
locations plus other unique read-only serial numbers, making it possible to
dream up very complicated schemes for detecting the presence of the dongle.
Windows (Win32s / WinNT) executables are tough to patch. And we can change the
security scheme for every release and bug-fix.
We could use the software-only "Schreiber method" of copy protection that
requires entry of a password-like "key" number when you install the software.
Re-installation of the software requires calling for a new password. Other
similar schemes include hidden files, "look up a word in the manual," etc.
Any method of copy protection involves extra hours of effort for every copy
sold, and this cost gets passed on the customer.
Hi John,
<< Windows (Win32s / WinNT) executables are tough to patch. >>
I thought I heard the opposite was true. Do you know of any articles
that relate to this or insights you'd like to share on this?
<< We could use the software-only "Schreiber method" of copy protection that
requires entry of a password-like "key" number when you install the software.
Re-installation of the software requires calling for a new password. >>
Besides the impact to you of manning the phones 24 hr/day all year
round, is their software protection scheme any more secure than a
dongle?
Good luck with your upcoming release!
jonas[adesk]
You may be right about the patching of Windows executables. I thought they'd be
tough to patch until I saw an advert yesterday for a $99 disassembler /
hot-patcher for Windows executables. It didn't say it handled Win32s / WinNT
executables, so I guess I might have a three-month windows before they can
handle those, too.
No, I don't think the Schreiber scheme gives the same security as a dongle. I
think it's less secure. But since I don't keep an ear to the ground in pirate
circles, I have no idea if their scheme has ever been cracked.
I hear they have a BBS that grants keywords. Is that true?
I have been following the piracy thread in the 3DS forum, since I now have two
dongles and a printer cable dangling from my parallel port, the thought of a
third dongle is a bit daunting. The software solution of requiring a new
password to reinstall the software seems better, but will that still protect
your product. Since I do not own any of Schreiber's software I have no
experience there, but I would like to know if, in the event of a drive crash,
and files are restored from tape, would the software protection detect that as
a new installation?
Still, my vote is for software protection.
Andrew.
I think the Schreiber scheme is somehow linked to the sector that happens to be
allocated to a file that's stored in the root directory, masked with the
"hidden" file attribute. If that's the case, then yes, restoring from a backup
tape would require a new security key. I don't like that aspect, either.
As for dongles, I know that I had a combination with the Topas dongle that
prevented it from running with the 3DS dongle. And now I've got a Microstation
dongle, and I think there's at least one other dongle in the office…
>> and I think there's at least one other dongle in the office…
Sounds like a beach movie, Dongle Mania….
You're a GENIUS. Coming soon to a Video Tape near you…..It's Dongle
Mania the motion Picture. I'll get right to work on the Trailers for the
movie after I finish a few anims I'm working on!!!
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
Bob,
I agree with you. I don't mind looking into a manual once in a while for
codes. I also feel that people will crack software no matter what you do.
Dongles are a waste, and are just a pain to deal with when you have more
than one package that uses them. God forbid you have to use the port for
something else!
Speaking of 3DS, I was talking with a buddy in Software Etc about the
latest version of 3DS that we were waiting for a few months ago (we got it
from AutoDesk developer support program). Someone overheard us, and told
us they already had a cracked copy, and we could call the BBS and download
it if we had something in return! I told them that I worked for a software
company, and perhaps they would let SPA call the bbs… They said they
were kidding and left the store! This just goes to show you that a dongle
didn't help AutoDesk. However, us, the "good guys", were stuck using one
during development!
Manual lookups are ok, as long as they don't force you to search and
actually read the maual 🙂 A few weeks ago I bought Ultima 8:Pagan (very
short game BTW), and found it a pain becuase I was forced to read the
manual <g>. Hell, I wanted to jump right in and play. At least it only
asked you questions at the start of the game, not at multiple points like
the older Ultima's.
re 81758 I think I agree with everything you said. I am more worried about
casual copying affecting overall sales. Sales of InterChange on the Amiga
have been rather steady, all things considered. Sure, there's a burst of sales
when we do a major release, but it's not like a game title.
The support hassles for the dongle do scare me. We've never had copy protection
before. Paying out $30 to the dongle company for every unit is a real pain, on
top of the usual cost of goods, especially for those freebie copies to
journalists. 🙂
What I'm most worried about is the headaches that will come from having the
dongle: dongles that actually get lost, dongles that supposedly get lost,
dongles "lost" in shipping, dongles that "weren't in the box", dongles that
don't work on Customer's computer and they need this software to run by
tomorrow morning, etc.
Lots of potential ill-will, at $30 a pop. I've yet to think of a situation
where someone will say, gee, I'm glad they added a dongle to InterChange.
Maybe some animator who competes against another animator who's known to pirate
everything… that's all I can imagine.
I don't know if you caught the gist of this in my first message, but they have
a dongle on 3D Studio, and it looks like they devoted a lot of effort to code
within the program to make dongle-cracker's life a real hell. I've heard
there's a number of tricks they play, in terms of purposely creating bad 3D
data or renderings if the dongle isn't present. The error message "invalid
normal array" is a red flag to their tech support that the program can't find
the dongle. And there's other tricks, like not introducing these sorts of
errors in a cracked copy until the 200th mouse click, thereby introducing a
time element to determining whether someone's attempt at cracking has really
worked.
If I did that with InterChange, then people would blame the corrupted data on
InterChange, potentially generating bad press or negative word-of-mouth
comments.
I know it's tough to win at this game…
BTW John you Do know there are Company's that sell "Dongles" for all sorts
of Prg's including 3D Studio. they usually cost about $400 but $400 for 3D
Studio is ALOT less than $3000………………I've seen there Ad's in
Clone mags, there ad is something like ;lost yer Dongle etc…..
According to both the dongle-making companies and the Autodesk tech support,
they actually haven't "cracked" 3DS yet. The cracking introduces bugs into the
program, on purpose.
Interesting. Thanx for the info John. Good Luck in the PC realm, Will you
be ready with ICP+ for Windows by SIGGRAPH???
Hi John,
I've got a couple of suggestions of my own for copy protection on your
Windoze version of Interchange.
1: Make it cheaper. I've never really understood why companies feel that
just because they're porting their software to PC's they have to charge 2
to 5 times as much. It seems to me that with a price of $500 your only
customers are going to be companies that do MASSIVE ammounts of object
conversions. The 3D hobby user will just wait till he can get a pirated
copy or do without a conversion program. It seems to me that if the price
were in the $150 to $200 range you would get a lot more volume to make up
for the lower price. If the person just wants Interchange to be able to
use objects from BBS's and FTP sites, even your 3D-ROM is a better value
if it has the object format he's interested in.
I realize that it's more difficult to be taken seriously in the PC world
if your software is inexpensive, but sending review copies to PC magazines
should get the message out that a program doesn't have to cost a lot to do
a lot. Perhaps you could even work out a deal with AutoDesk, Impulse,
Caligari corp, ect. to include one of your Interchange flyers in every 3D
package.
2: My other suggestion is to ship the program ONLY on CD-ROM. You could
include a couple of dozen objects to make it seem like a better value, but
the real reason for using a CD-ROM is as a key disc. You could put a few
hundred protection files full of random numbers on the disc. When the
program runs you could have it check a specific sector of the disc for a
particular byte sequence. Even if you were to copy all of the files to a
hard drive Interchange still wouldn't work since the data wouldn't be in
the correct sector and you don't read it by filename. If you wanted to get
really sneaky you could even have the files contain data required for the
conversion process. Stuff like how to set up a conversion array or scaling
factor. Have a couple of dozen real data files mixed in with a few of
hundred dummy files and it should be pretty hard for the casual pirate to
get around. Minor bug fixes could be shipped on floppy and require the
CD-ROM as a key disc while major upgrades would require a new CD.
Although not everyone has a CD-ROM drive yet the price is coming down and
3D animation requires pretty high end hardware anyways so the cost of the
drive should be no big deal. Once the master disc is done you might even
save money on disk duplication costs. :^)
Jeff H…
Jeff,
The second suggestion is not that good. Anyone that's good with a
debugger (and there are a lot of good debuggers on the PC) can crack the
code no matter what you do.
There are some very interesting threads in the IBMPRO libs that go over a
lot of ways that you can try to fool a debugger with self modified code,
but even that can be cracked.
It's unfortunate, but until someone comes up with a better way, there's
not much you can do to stop piracy.
I think most pirates are just collectors. Anyone who really wants to use
something like 3DS, they will buy it.
Your first suggestion is better. IMHO 3DS is not worth $3k, and there is
a lot of other expensive CRAP out there! Ever look at Multimedia Toolbook?
$800 for this hunk of sh*t! When my boss first wasted the bucks on MMTB, I
installed it, ran the demo, and guess what… Crash! It didn't like the
fact I had Windows in 800 * 600 mode. I feel the shrink wrap laws need to
change! If I buy something, and it don't run on my system, requires me to
re-configure my machine, or can't do the job I bought it for, I want my
money back <period> But thats another story.
John, I do think Interchange and Interfont were cool. So please don't
think I busting on your software 🙂 I don't think it's worth $500 though.
Thanks for your comments, Jeff. As for your first point, you assume that
lowering the price will increase volume. (This ignores the issue of copy
protection, but I'll address it anyway.) Even in the Amiga market, which
everyone assumes to be very price-conscious, this did not prove to be true.
Since 1987, InterChange's retail price went from $50 to $99 to $200. Street
price went from $30 to $75 to $130. If anything, sales increased with the
higher price.
It might be argued that the Amiga market is simply value-conscious. Our
customers still felt InterChange was worth it at the higher price. If
anything, this reflects poor judgement on Syndesis' part – our perception of
our customer's perception of our product was incorrect.
On the PC, InterChange's most profitable, most reliable market is the pro or
semi-pro animator, not the hobby 3D user. Which PC 3D programs do you regard
as "hobbyist"? Even Imagine PC retails at about $600, right? 3D Studio has a
street price of $2,800, and dealers tell me that typically half of them buy at
least $500 worth of add-ons like IPAS routines. These people are running on
$3K-$10K souped-up PCs. Not to mention the people who have $100K SGI systems.
Maybe we should have an "InterChange Light" that addresses the hobby market.
Which formats would you imagine in such a bundle? Then I'd segregate the
high-end formats (perhaps as defined by the retail price of the program) into a
separate package. These two classes of potential customers have very different
expectations about the product, in terms of price / value, documentation, tech
support, updates, etc.
As for CD distribution, I don't think it's feasible. I'd hate to require the
CD as a "key", that's more obnoxious than a dongle. Many 3D Studio users keep
the 3D Studio disc in their drive at all times. Making a new disc would involve
$1,000 a pop, while floppies can be reformatted and recopied endlessly. 🙂
The issue of software value is funny because it never really reflects the time
and materials of the developer. 3D software users can find the value of the
product reflected in their work because we usually charge by the rendered
second, and so products that provide useful tools that work quickly will help
the process of creating images. With ICP, there is more to consider than just
"I'm only converting an object". Some modellers work better than others, if
your program helps tie my work together, then I'll be more efficient.
Take a look at network software products, a 250 user lotus cc:mail license is
about $8000, a single server version of a netware analyzer is $1000, that's a
much harder field to quantify software cost vs. productive value.
Andrew.
On the Novell LanAlyzer, I can tell you it's saved me more than the $950 I paid
for it, in that I didn't have to call any outside people to track down
problems.
Thats sounds like an EXCELLENT idea to me Jeff. The CD release I mean.
Hell I've seen CDROM's for the IBM's as low as $79 now including the
interface.
Peter,
Check out the Creative Computers ad in the June issue of Amiga World.
They've got an ad for a single speed CD-ROM with the cable, (it's an
external drive) the ASIM CD-ROM driver, the Fred Fish CD, and the texture
City CD for $149. Single speed is pretty slow, but at that price I think I
might get one.
Jeff H…
Thanx for the info but I've still got my CDTV so when I next buy a CDROM
drive it'll have to be at least 4* speed and MUST be PhotoCD compliant.
I don't think you CAN win, if you prtect with a dongle.
-larry
It's certainly got a lot of negatives. Can we come up with a software-only
scheme that wouldn't be too inconvenient?
John,
I am kinda partial to the 'manual lookup' scheme, especially if it doesn't
ask you every time, but I don't have any good idea how effective it would be. I
do figure that you cannot expect to deter any but the casual copier, for any
length of time at all.
-larry
John,
basically you face the classical economic tradeoff. Do you, as the
producer of the good in question, raise the real price, the market price
plus the opportunity cost of owning the good, beyond what may be
reasonable. Furthermore, are you willing to raise your per unit
production cost beyond that of a non-copy-protected release.
I do realise that software is not quite comprable to other goods since
an exact copy of the good can be made a little or no cost to the pirate.
However, what you need to keep in mind is the real number of lost sales
and how that relates to the overall costs of following this regime.
First, you need to know approximately how many sales you will lose due
to piracy. Not those lost to pirates that simply collect everything in
sight, or to the casual collector, but seldom user, but real lost sales.
This is one side of the equation.
Next, calculate the per-unit-cost of adding the dongle. Don't forget
your overhead costs in putting them in each box and ensuring that each
actually works.
Add to that the support cost of using the dongle. You put it very well
when you said, "[w]hat I'm most worried about is the headaches that will
come from having the dongle: dongles that actually get lost, dongles that
supposedly get lost, dongles "lost" in shipping, dongles that "weren't in
the box", dongles that don't work on Customer's computer and they need
this software to run by tomorrow morning, etc." Add on to that the lost
productivity of the users when their dongles are lost, misplaced, don't
work, and so on. Multiply the lost time by their average wage (which, I
bet, will be very high). Now add that to your costs in adding the dongle
and in-house checks.
Compare the two sides. True, pretty much all of this must be
estimated, but if the second side (costs to the user) heavily outweighs
the first, your product is toast in the marketplace. People will put a
premium on a product, but if the premium is sufficiently high, your sales
will suffer sufficiently to actually drive revenue below costs, which as
we both know is a killer in business.
I also see a couple of other problems with the dongle situation,
especially at the list price I've seen ($500?). First, and foremost,
you'll need some type of site-licensing, since businesses don't, as I
understand it, pay full price beyond a certain point. The other point is
much more significant, IMHO. PC'ers take their work home. Amazing as it
may seem, some people do work at home afterhours, and they expect to use
the same software as work. So, unless you provide some type of
double-dongle, one for work and one for home, or a much cheaper copy for
the home user if he uses a copy at work, you're going to generate a lot of
resentment there. Then again, they could take the dongle home, but then
your loss ratios increase, along with the forgetfullness factor. How
would you like your company shut down due to everyone leaving their
dongles at home after the Memorial Day weekend?
After all, quite a bit of the sales of IBM's and Mac's has been driven
by the fact that people want to buy the same machine as they use at work.
While some may argue that familiarity is the sole reason for such
purchases, I really don't think so. I believe that it is the ability to
continue projects at home that has driven this market. (And this is one
of the reasons that C= failed in the marketplace).
Lastly, is it piracy if someone is continuing a project, from work, at
home. Same program, same project, just different computer. Perhaps it is
time to think about some sort of registry. One dongle with my id, perhaps
a card? It would be far simpler if each program were registered to me and
when I log on, each registered program were immediately accessible. When
I quit my job, certain programs would be de-registered. Shades of 1984?
Or commonsense. I don't know.
The industry needs a serious rethink on the concept of dongles.
Fifteen or more dongles is idiotic, at best, and suicidal, at worst.
"You do trust me, don't you? Of course you do."
— "To Play the King" (BBC)
I agree, I think the SPA and other anti-piracy groups resort to flimsy
statistics when they claim that piracy amounts to $1 billion, etc. Unless a
perfect method of protection existed, they can't know what the total sales
would be. I'd agree that at least some of those people who pirate would
purchase if that protection existed… whether that's 5 percent, 50 percent or
99 percent is a different story.
Perhaps it's time to return to individualized serial numbers on disks. For 18
months or so when Syndesis got started, we did that with hopes of tracking
piracy. At a minimum, I think it would be wise to enforce a "no serial number,
no tech support or upgrade" policy.
I should note that we've never had any form of copy protection on InterChange.
John,
curious! Isn't the Amiga supposed to be the hotbed of piracy while the
clone world is pure and virtuous? <BEG>. Anyway, I do like serialization
since it quickly allows the software support people to determine the
validity of the person calling, especially if it were used in conjunction
with a call-back scheme, such as those used by some modems. You know, you
call in, the computer notes it, and it calls back to the number that is
registered to that user. Might be unworkable, but a novel concept in this
application.
In any case, it's probably easier to encode the serial number into the
software than it is to add dongle support. However, do keep in mind my
sugggestions on pro-rating it. If you do find an inordinately high level
of piracy early on, it's definitely time to rethink the strategy.
"You do trust me, don't you? Of course you do."
— "To Play the King" (BBC)
John: One thing that I've always felt important, is that most of the focus on
piracy has been directed at the Amiga and Atari user base. However, as you
point out there are many, many pirates in the DOS world as well. You certainly
do have a right to protect your product.
As a possible alternative to dongelization (if that's even a word!) I've
noticed some software is now coming with "Registration disks". If one
copy-protected such a disk, and made it required in the HD install procedure,
then required the user to return it to gain a codeword. Such a codeword would
enable certain parts of the software, say, or enable the program to boot after,
again for example, ten times. I'm no programmer, but is this feasible?
Certainly, from an end-user standpoint this would mean a little extra work, but
infinately preferrable to a dongle. Besides all my ports are full!
Regards,
Trent Johnson
ReAnimators
100% original Software!
The Rainbow dongle is a supposedly a pure pass-thru that should not affect any
other hardware devices on the PC's parallel port.
As for software-only solutions, I think they are easier to crack than
hardware-based dongles.
And there's plenty of leeway with this hardware dongle, for example… with 56
separate magic number RAM locations inside, it's possible to ship extra
programs on the disk with limited number of executions. For example, we could
deliver a Wavefront converter that would run just ten times, and after that
trial demo period, you'd need to call us for a key to activate the dongle for
unlimited use.
Well, as I said John, I certainly agree with any protection schemes you come up
with. Maybe the day's coming when we won't have to worry about pirates
anymore…
How about "Retina Scan" :->
Trent
Trent,
we will always have pirates, period. So long as the intellectual
challenge is there, the respondants will be as well. Furthermore, what
one man can invent, another can decipher and decode, so you can't win,
anyhow. This is the cryptography game squared and cubed, if not in higher
dimensions.
The return for labor is extreme, so long as software prices are in the
stratosphere, and that does not even count the intellectual challenge,
which even I find attractive, at times.
"You do trust me, don't you? Of course you do."
— "To Play the King" (BBC)
Good luck in the IBM Realm John, please let me know when Windows ICP + is
available and if owners of the Amiga Version will get any type of Discount
on it. Thanx. As to the Copy protection, it'll probably only stop the
Casual Pirate, most of them consider a Dongle as a Company's way of
"Throwing Down the Gauntlet" IE a Challenge, just look what happened to
Warm and Fuzzy Logic, their Lightrave Software used a Dongle and was
cracked within a couple of days of it's release.
That's because their dongle was a "homemade" affair… this Rainbow dongle on
the PC has custom ASICs and a multi-million-dollar company's research and
effort behind it. (That's right, PC dongle companies are much bigger than most
Amiga companies. 🙂
Very True. BTW I like Jeff Holinski's idea about releasing ICP+ on CD
I prefer no protection, or an option to, with the registration, send in a
signed non-disclosure statement and additional money ($25-$35) for a
non-copy protected version that will only install on top of a protected
version that contains a specific key, (say the protected version's serial
number). The NDA asdvises that should that keyed version or the copy
protected version ever show up in wide distribution, the original owner
will be prosecuted for software piracy.
I think the real solution is for machines to have some readable key (like
maker, model serial number) and the software to have privat key that gets
matched to the machine it is intsalled during installation. The disk is
modified during the install, and cannot be used with any other machine. I
think this public/private key scheme is a successful form of protection
that congress could mandate all machines sold in the U.S. must support.
I hate dongles as much as I hate pirates. I have been dongled to death.
Now in the case of the Toaster, PSFC, SuperGen and DCTV, etc the dongles
do something for the user as well as the writer. However, for Amilink,
Real-3D, Brilliance, they instead detract from the usabiulity of the
machine. This is doubley try in a multi-tasking environment. FOr example,
AmiLink's dongle is not transparent to a printer, or other par port
dongles. So you get cascaded swtichboxes to handle all the dongles. Then
you need to switch away from it to print something, AMiLInk takes down the
entire machine instead of hust killing itself.
Dongles are fussy. They don't work on multiport cards so I can't take
that route out. You can't switch them without truning off the machine. So
what I do is avoid buying dongled software if the manufacuter is honest
enought to tell me its there to start with. (RGB and Digital Creations are
not). If I get software that is dongled because it didn't say it was on
the box, I take it back.
My order of preference is
1) no protection
2) code wheel/manual look-up
Another way to protect the program is to make it so rich and sophisticated
that it cannot be used without the manual, and make the manual voluminous
and very difficult to copy.
Another thought- don't protect it, but have screens pop up randomly with a
variety of things like,"would you like someone to be forging checks drawn
on your bank account? Software pirates are no less sleazy than such a
forger would be." Or pop a picture of a really pathetic homeless person
on the screen, "he thought he would make a good living from his
programming ability. Software pirates stole his wares and his livelihood.
Only selfish ignorant fools steal software." Then maybe a screen with
piracy statistics that show how you could seel the product for half the
cost if it were not for pirates. Then offer a reward, say life time free
upgrades or 2 free upgrades if they turn in anyone known to have pirated
your software adn be willing to testify in court to that effect.
Barring the requirement of some hardware feature that allows a softwar
package to be "stuck" to a certain machine, the only solution to the
piracy thing is to be creative in locating pirates and agressive in
prosecuting them to the maximum extent of the law.
I also think that a lot of software that is stolen is done so by people
who would not buy it at any price. What is important to me, is do I get
what I pay for in the program (and that includes tech support). I have no
problem being "validated" when I call in for support. And the support
aspect, as well as manual posession are prime factors that prevent
professional and serious amatures from stealing software. So in a certain
respect, the dollars lost to pirates in this country is a figure that is
suspect since there is no indication of what percentage of the people with
the stolen software would have acutally bought it had there been software
protection on it. (I'd wager less than 15%). Then you have to look at
how many sales you will loose because of the protection.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Thank you for your comments. It's very tough to prosecute a pirate. First,
you need to be able to prove it. Second, you need to hire a lawyer in another
state. Third, you need to find a court willing to hear a case like this. Even
just discussing this with an out-of-state lawyer would exceed the minimum
damage incurred by the theft of the software. It's more difficult to prove
more damage than that.
John,
true enough. I do like Wayne's idea of a public-key cryptography
scheme. It would be very nice if I could insert my PGP keydisk into a
machine and it would unlock all of my software for me. Even better, if we
had PCMCIA on all machines and I could slip a card into my machine which
unlocked my registered software.
They system would work by having my public key encoding the software at
the manufacturer, and my private key decoding it at run time. The only
way around it would be for the first pirate to buy a copy of the software,
with his registered public key, and then passing it around. Since any
respectable software manufacturer would keep a checksum of the registered
copy around, you could quickly determine the source of the pirated copy.
Of course, this will bloat the disk image of the software some, but
it's a thought.
Hmm…, one more thought, it would add to the production costs of the
manufacturer, but I think that it could be lowered by quite a bit if it
were common practice, and there were a common registry of public keys.
"You do trust me, don't you? Of course you do."
— "To Play the King" (BBC)
>> Welcome to an open discussion about copy protection. Please feel free add
your opinions
>> to this thread.
Against my better judgement, I decided to wander over here and check out this
thread….
I do not pirate. No ifs, ands or buts. (I'm probably the only person I know
who bought more than one copy of the MS Dos upgrade because I had more than one
computer.) But then I've also been fortunate to have been a Alpha and Beta
tester for Amiga and Mac software. Which has resulted in being the first on my
block to get to play with some neat new stuff, and in a couple of instances,
having seen items on my wish list getting incorporated into the final product.
I refuse to buy dongleware, or software (one disk games excepted), that will
not install on my hard drives. I also strongly dislike key disk copy
protection.
I realize that copy protection has become necessary, but prefer it to be as non
intrusive as possible. My favorites, are protection that requires the manual,
at installation time, and then remains dormant as long as the software location
hasn't moved on the disk. (If the disk is defragmented, and the software
moves, then a trip back to the manual, isn't beyond my patience.) Next is
lookup questions at the start of each session.
Top priority is for the software to leave me alone, and let me do my work. I
travel a lot, and the thought of dragging dongles and manuals around, just so I
can use my computer is not soemthing that brings a warm fuzzy feeling to my
heart.
>> We're looking at the Rainbow Technologies "Sentinel Super Pro" dongle. This
is their
>> newest security key, one model newer than the one that ships with 3D Studio.
It costs
>> Syndesis about $30, a sort of "protection money" that is simply passed on to
the
>> consumer, inflating the price of the product.
Now here is a statement that really leaves me cold. If a dongle is going to be
used to ensure that people have to buy a legal copy, shouldn't it pay its own
way? The idea of copy protection is to generate more sales. Which seems
reasonable to me, except now you tell me you are going to have to charge me
more money to generate those sales. It would seem that the extra sales should
pay for the dongle, or the dongle is not cost effective. How about if I pay
you the extra 30 dollars and you keep the dongle?
The thought of paying more money for software that is more inconvenient, ranks
right up there with another root canal.
Actually the point is moot. I absolutely do not buy dongleware. I feel that
the only vote I have, as a consumer, is with my wallet. It is a vote I cast
with no small amount of thought. I decided some time back that I would make
do, with whatever software I could buy that did not use a dongle. Even if it
is not the software I might choose otherwise. If enough consumers feel the
same way, dongles will dissappear, or the companies that insist on using them
will.
The software is yours, there are laws and court decisions attesting to that
fact.
However, the computer is mine, and dongleware will never cross my hard drive.
For major apps, I'd prefer seeing a cheaper CD Rom version, that would require
itself to run from the CD Rom.
However, since this discussion is about a Windows product, I think three or
more dongles would be no problem. Look what they put up with, to run a
graphical "multitasking" interface. <g>
Thanks for jumping in. As for my comment about "protection money", keep in
mind that the dongle-sellers do not and cannot guarantee the efficacy of their
product. By deciding to use a dongle, I could easily waste $30,000 of cash,
which is both my customer's money and potential profit, depending on how you
look at it.
>> As for my comment about "protection money", keep in mind that the
dongle-sellers do
>> not and cannot guarantee the efficacy of their product.
Sounds like some software. ( I once purchased some software, where hte
warranty said the the software was not guaranteed to do anything other than
take up room on the disk.)
Funny that thoe pushing intrusive protection schemes will not guarantee their
efficiency.
I don't know what percentage of users register their software, but if the
serial number were encrypted into the copy of the software, and a note added to
the liscnse that if copies of your software are find on pirate BBS's, all
further support, and upgrades will be denied, perhaps that would be enough to
give some folks pause to think.
On the surface, that "no upgrades" scheme sounds good – except I'd believe that
most software is pirated without the purchaser's permission. In other words,
someone rips it off from the office computer. They didn't pay for it, but they
want it at home.
>> On the surface, that "no upgrades" scheme sounds good – except I'd believe
that
>> most software is pirated without the purchaser's permission. In other
words,
>> someone rips it off from the office computer. They didn't pay for it, but
they
>> want it at home.
Then perhaps businesses, would get serious about enforcing no piracy policies.
The company I worked for got burned by an employee introduced virus. Now, to
insert a disk from home, is a termination offense. If you have some software
you need to run, they will buy a copy, before they will let you bring anything
from home. (If you have a piece of software that you have written, they will
put you through a lot of agony before they let you run it. Their preferred
method is to have you bring source code, and recompile on their machines.)
Similarly, they will terminate you, if you take anything, programs or files,
off the computer without express permission. Since we have healthy security,
(all items are inspected or xrayed coming onto site, and inspected when
leaving, they instantly question any disks coming or going.
While this isn't practical for small officed, password protection for computer
access is.
I've seen more than one company look the other way about employees taking
software home. The rationale at one company was that the employees would then
learn the program better, and thus make themselves more valuable to the
company.
-Alex…. Not a Dongle kinda guy….
>>Now, to insert a disk form home, is a termination offense. <<
Gee, seems a little extreme. Couldn't you just fire the guy? ;^)
Seriously most companies don't have anywhere near enough security to
pervent stuff from EVER getting into or out of their machines. (Short of
removing the floppy drive.)
As an interesting side note, I was once in the service center of one of
the local computer stores. While I was waiting to talk to one of the
technitions I had a look at one of the machines that was running on the
test bench. They were doing a backup of a program that had just been
released and was still pretty hard to find. About a week later I overheard
one of the service people telling a customer that he'd had the program for
a few days and that it was pretty cool. It would be hard to prove that he
got his copy of the program off of one of the machines in for servicing,
but it sure makes you think.
By the way, the store's out of business so maybe there really is something
to this "bad karma" theory. ;^)
Jeff H…
John,
So far, the most appealing scenario is the following: no hardware protection —
copy protection in the form of an initial password check (a word from the
manual, or that package's license number, with check digits of course), then
nothing. But if the software detects a change in its location on disk, it goes
through the initial routine again. I personally would not mind going through
the motions each time I defragmented my hard disk. (How many people do that
more than a few times a year?) Seems like a nice balance between protecting
against casual pirates, keeping manufacturing/retail costs down, not
aggravating legitimate users, and avoiding potential multi-dongle fiascos.
My 2 cents' worth. (2.70 cents US)
Blaq!
I agree, such a method would afford some protection against casual copying, and
cause few complications with most users.
John,
Have you asked Khalid how he 'protects' his file-requestor? I find it
relatively innocuous.
No, I haven't. Can you tell me about it?
John,
We are going to ship a 3D digitizer called DIGIMAX in about 4 weeks, it
is very cool and I think we will ship many of them, However I have a few
problems and I think you have the solution,. I will save in Imagine format,
DXF and I think Lighwave. THe other stuff is too wierd and you have done all
the work anyhow. SO here is my deal, give me the LW file format, and I will
pack a flyer for your software with each digi and IMagine program. I think
this will help us both.
Mike
John,
When you register the f-r, you fill out a registration form produced by
the 'register' button. You EMail that to Khalid, and an 'authentication'
number comes back. After registering with the authentication # everything
works fine unless you make some system changes (or move the file or somesuch).
You then need to re authenticate the f-r. that's pretty much it from a user's
point of view. I have NO idea how it's implemented.
>> "I once purchased some software, where the warranty said the software
>> was not garanteed to do anything but take up disk space"
I'd challenge that one 🙂 If I buy software, and it don't work on my
machine, I get my money back, one that works, or even store credit will
do! I don't care about any garantees or shrink wrap laws. If it don't
work, I wont leave the store alone without a working program (working on
my machine), or my money!
I once had a store go through all copies of a program, none worked, not
even on their machine! The clerk then said "Give me your name and number,
I'll call you when we get more". I said, bulls*it, I'm getting my money
now, you can wait a few days and maybe I'll come back. That will be the
day when I lay out hard earned money for nothing.
Had the software not worked, I would have challenged it also. However, the
warranty was on the inside, and I didn't get a chance to read it when I got
home.
The shrinkwrap warranties and liscenses are something that has yet yo be
challenged seriously in court. Many warranties state that the software is not
warrantied to be suitable for any particular use, and not guaranteed to run on
any particular machine. So far they have gotten away with it. Time will tell
if it stands up or not.
Film developers tried the same thing, with the "If we loose it or ruin it, all
you get is a fresh roll of film", guarantee. That didn't stand up, when a
professional photographer lost all his film from a shoot. The court held that
most people didn't read the bag flaps, and that they developer couldn't really
excuse him/herself from basically all responsibility.
Fortunately as far as protection goes, things aren't as bad as they could have
been. Back in the 80's one of the major software houses decided that if you
pirated their software, that they had the right to destroy all of your data as
a method of copy protection. Unfortunately the one of the first persons to
experience that form of protection was an innocent individual who had actually
purchased the program. Evidnetly the individual was not real computer savvy,
and managed to trip the portection scheme. (Seems to me that he restored a
back-up file over the original copy, or some such thing.) In any event, the
software then trashed the data on his hard drive, and he almost lost his
business. He sued, and in the settlement the software house decided to not use
that method of copy protection anymore.
So things could be worse. We could have dongles and software threatening to
trash our drives for us. If consumers ever decide to flex their economic
muscle, there would be no dongles, or copy protection anywhere.
Actually, if we decided to flex our muscle to the extent VCR owners did, we
would own our copies of the software, as opposed to only being liscensed to use
it. Liscenses are a hold over from the mainframe days, where you essentially
rented the software.
The law provides for it, but if the consumers decided to only buy software that
became theirs, the software houses would fall in line. Some might decide to
hold out. However, if no one would buy the software at any price, then they
have a choice, fall in line or starve.
Some popular programs might dissapear, but that the same time, there are other
poeple out there waitng in the wings for their chance to make money.
I believe those who produce, and market software should get a fair return for
their efforts, at the same time, I will _NOT_ be penalized for something I
haven't done. Protection crackers, and pirates are still getting what they
want, and I'm supposed to sit here with a pile of dongles, key disks, and
mauals for look-ups.
I don't think so….
And I'm certainly not going to pay extra money for software, so I can keep
track of a dongle. (The attitude of some dongle using houses seems to be that
you bought your computer just to run their software, and nobody else is wanting
to stuff their dongle in your port.)
Which brings me to my last question/
Howe does SoftLogic survive? PageStream is not, and has not been copy
protected by any means. Yet they manage to survive, and turn a profit.
Perhaps other vendors should take a look at their operation, and learn.
-Alex 8 years on Amiga 10 years on Compu$erve
Alex,
I think developers should get paid for their work. I work for one, if
they lose money, so do I.
I also feel that when you buy something, it should work on the system
the box said it will work on. If it don't, you get your money back, or one
that does work. Most stores will take it back, or exchange it.
Most software on the Amiga don't have this problem. But on the PC, it's
a problem. For instance, when I bought Ultima 8:Pagan, it refused to run
and would just give me a GPF. I spoke with someone at Origin here on CI$,
and they had me up & running in about 1 day. This was great. Had they
failed to get it running, I would have returned it. Some developers just
don't care, and don't offer any help.
Troy