>In a message dated 3/4/98 11:56 AM, jonathan wrote:
>
>>On a down note. Protection schemes I do not like.
>>They <nasty word> the honest user, but not the dishonest.
>>i had a floppy drive knock out a few floppies recently.
>>What would happen if these had be 'special' master
>>disks, and I needed to reinstall it?
>>
>>By all means, serialize, personnalise, check the integrity of
>>personalisation info at random moments... but don't go for
>>'hard' protection.

David wrote:
>I agree totally.  Unless your product is selling for $50,000 a copy, a
>name and serial number should be just fine for you in my opinion.

Copy protection should make sense as Dave and Jonathan mention.

I bought Kai's Power Goo for fun, and it was $50. They make me have the CD
in the drive no matter what. Somebody told me I could mount a CD image
using Shrinkwrap and then that would stop. But the bottom line is I haven't
used the program since the first night because games, MacAddict CD ROMS and
others routinely exist in my CD drive, or I have it disconnected because it
is a SCSI offender at times.

For a $50 program to have this kind of pain in the heiny protection is
bogus. So  to add to the above, make it crippleware, or have a good
serialization scheme in place so you can track serial number thefts.

Also, if possible, keep track of the content of Hacker's Helper, Informant,
Registry and other serial number compilations for the inclusion of your
program. Then program those numbers out. A lot of authors are doing that
now with their program updates.

Robert Covington