My .02$ here...

I personnaly *hate* software that rely on hardware copy protection scheme. What if I want to run 2 applications that needs access to the CD-ROM at the same time? What if I want to listen to music while I work? The parallel device as a tendency to make other device attached to the parallel port unworkable (ZIP or SyQuest drives, scanner, printer, etc.)

>The only things I've worked with that are really effective are hardware and/or CD-ROM based (the hardware is an attached device on either the parallel or serial port, whcih the application communicates with in a non-standard fashion; the other copy protection mechanism involved reading data directly off a CD-ROM, and requiring that CD-ROM to be on a drive that identifies itself as a CD-ROM drive attached to the local machine. Both can be gotten around by anyone who really really wants to get around a copy protection scheme; the idea is to make the cost of breaking the copy-protection scheme exceed the cost of buying the program legally.)