"You can only play with our toys if you follow our rules"

[Matthew Astley]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 11:22:45AM +0100, Ben Laurie wrote:

> That's a good point - as I understand it, the marketplace showed it
> wasn't prepared to accept even defeatable copy protection for
> software, which is why almost no serious software is copy protected
> today.

Well the software companies keep trying it, and it keeps failing.
Partly because it's expensive to do well, and even when not done well
it will still annoy the users.

I think the really expensive closed source stuff still uses hardware
dongles, because of the price it's a tiny fraction.

> However, this doesn't seem to apply to games, which appear to be heavily 
> protected with little resistance (modulo "mod-chips" for Playstations, 
> etc). The jury is still out on protecting entertainment (e.g. music 
> CDs), though people don't seem to happy about it...
> 
> This tends to suggest that DRM applications of TCPA/Palladium are not 
> likely to be welcomed with open arms, and certainly controlling use of 
> critical software would appear to be a total non-starter.

I disagree. Once the market as a whole has bought into TCPA in a large
way, it will have the momentum to continue.

People will buy into it because that's what on the shelf when they go
to Dixons. When the copy protection, which was previously
unacceptable, starts to kick in it will be rather late. I doubt the
average user has the knowledge or will to put the brakes on to stop
it.


Actually, TCPA turns the dongle thing on its head quite nicely.
Currently they're inconvenient and expensive, they annoy the users and
they don't keep the pros out.

TCPA promises the exact opposite: cheap, convenient for the
programmer, soothing for the user and practically uncrackable.

(Yes I know there are all sort of tunnels to go through to get to
software piracy via TCPA, but $5E9 says it can probably be made to
work.)

> At least, I live in hope.

I exercise my cynicism muscles when I get the chance, and I feel they
are weak.


Matthew  #8-)