Jim,

Yes, you make some good points. However, one of the things that I use my "copy protection" scheme for is to enable/disable demo status. A demo of my software is downloadable from my website, so if a customer tries it and likes it, I can remove the demo status from it with a phone call and the correct code as soon as they pay me the money.

I agree that it basically keeps honest people honest ... this isn't so hard to crack that a determined person couldn't crack it. If they want it that bad, I say let 'em have it. Vertical market software isn't in such high demand that I have hackers clambering to try and crack my copy protection anyway. <g>

-Bonnie

>As I said, I don't use copy protection schemes. They only serve to keep honest people honest, hackers who want to make a copy will figure out how and do it. So, in my opinion, the only poeple that copy protection affects are the ones who wouldn't make the copy in the first place, my good clients. And coipy protection is an inconvience to them that I don't wan them to have to dela with.
>
>If someone copies illegally one of my applications I will fight them in court if I have some appreciable loss due to it. If I have no appreciable loss I won't waste my energy worrying about it.
>
>My message said that "If I ever was to use a copy protection scheme, I would use the dongle", why, because IMO it is the least obtrusive of all of the copy protection methods.