An Interview with Oleg

[Codex]

Originally Posted by Icewolf

This would be impossible considering the numbers and locations but as an example I use a business software that generates a code number everytime it is installed and to activate it, I must phone this code number into their office ,they then give me an activation code that I must manually type into an activation box.

Originally Posted by Qpassa

photoshop uses some similar protection and have been hacked...

Same goes for Windows, you have a certain number of installs before you have to ring up and activate after a fresh install. It's interesting to think that software piracy has most likely contributed to Microsoft OS's being used on 98+% of PC's since the late 90's

I wish developers would get 100% earnings for developing games and apps etc but we don't live in a perfect world and we do need anti piracy measures, but +1 to Blackdog_kt for those comments, they're right on the money. I personally think anti piracy measures need to be re thought and become more imaginative.

[dduff442]

What really gets people going is that measures masquerade as anti-piracy requirements that are really methods of extending producers control over media, introducing anti-competitive elements like planned obsolescence into products. Many of the newest and most fashionable media, e.g. iPhone apps, exhibit rigid producer control. Some products have auto-update features that may limit functionality at any time chosen by the producer.

Not so long ago, purchasers of an ebook edition of 1984 discovered it had disappeared from their machines without their consent. Even ignoring the massive irony, the very idea that you can buy something only for the seller to unilaterally rescind the sale without notice is appalling.

DRM schemes requiring occasional net connection are annoying but bearable -- so long as consumers can be reassured they're not being muscled into a place where they're at the mercy of the content producer.

The music industry complains loudest about piracy, but is piracy really their problem or is it that they haven't had anything novel to bring to the market in more than a decade? No new Elvis, no new Beatles etc. New forms of music have reverted to their condition prior to the 1950s -- niche products of little interest to the mass market.

dduff442