Copy protection

infuzion · 1 Jun 2007

The idea was kicked around in the Registered Users forum, but unless the devs do it (unlikely), it won't happen. Either way, even keyed encryption is hackable, because once someone releases something electronically, it can be undone. Do you know anything that hackers wanted to hack but couldn't?

aicto · 1 Jun 2007

Thanks infuzion. Yeah, I do remember reading about it. And I agree, anything is hackable if someone really wants to. Just trying to satisfy my experimental curiosity.

Dazzy · 2 Jun 2007

Hi there, there has been a similar discussion on the reFX forum, regarding new products from them. According to reFX, Ilok is not very good, as it only works like a skin over the code, like a vst wrapper, the only product (for now) that has not been hacked is the Synchrosoft Dongle. I know you are gonna say it has, but those hacks were over 2 years ago, since then syncrosoft have updated the code etc and now hasn't been touched by anyone.

Daz.

aicto · 5 Jun 2007

I know, there is no perfect solution. I'm testing Synchrosoft and WIBU with some other projects but haven't found a way to interface them with my SM dll projects. Experiments continue.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm always looking for new avenues to explore. SM is such a powerful tool and just too much fun.

ubanub9000 · 10 Jun 2007

The only way that it will never be hacked/cracked is with an ilok or syncrosoft dongle... any other protection will be beaten ultimately.. all you can do is stave off the wannabe crackers with a serial method, the pro's will find a way round that np, you could also try and implement some type of Online activation but that too would probably end up with a patch/crack in the end. It's very frustrating!! All the big players have had theirs done, NI, reFX etc, its just Steinberg thats left really(on the pc side).. god knows how much money they have had to pour in to make this happen though.

matti · 10 Jun 2007

I protect my products with serial numbered vst files. Every plugin is a unique copy of the original with a serial number imprinted on it. No need for entering a serial number or activating the plugin. Everything is in place when the customer receives the plugin pack. If someone "leaks" it to the internet it's very easy to find out who it was. I believe this prevents illegal copies with minimum impact on the honest users. Only way to crack it is to remove the serial number from the code of the .dll. Not sure how easy that is, but shouldn't be too easy...

Tom7777 · 11 Jun 2007

Im guessing the best copy protection there is is actually possible in SM already but my idea might be stupid i dunno, what my idea is (it's probably already done or i read about it somewhere and forgot), that you set up a simple serial system and if your not a major developer (this would only work if your not getting tons of sales to send out), what you do is make it so they fill out some details mainly name and valid email which they will recieve the software at, you then set it up so the string is the users name as the actual serial and you export a unique copy of the vst each time you get an order this way if the software does get released on a torrent site etc then you have a name and a email of the user and you could download the torrent version (for checking purposes plus you made it of course) and you can simply not let that user have updates and if they registered with a fake email they would have to set up another account if they did it time after time plus you get a sale from them each update. Possibly a stupid idea i dunno it just came into my head, i don't bother using copy protection though as i just see it as a time waster as people will always do it and they will often find a workaround for whatever you set up however complex and clever an idea it is, people will always share stuff online as long as theres the net (im guessing) whether it be free or pay for stuff.

rayzer · 5 Jul 2007

maybe introduce a thing where u print a unique customer id code on the interface, bit like a barcode. if ur vst gets spread about check the code and ull know where it originated from. then decide if u want to take further action or w/e

Elhardt · 7 Jul 2007

I'm new to this list. I've always thought that doing what Matti suggested would make sense and be of some deterant. However, if somebody has two different copies of a piece of software, a DOS compare command might tell them exactly what and where the differences are.

But I wanted to chime in, because there is a difference between copy protection and hacker protection. I once put a logo that popped up on the screen when a chunk of code I wrote first ran. If the code that drew that logo was tampered with, my code would bomb out. The company tried to remove the code, and sure enough, it stopped working. They couldn't figure out how to stop the bombing out and they had my source code! It seems so easy to ensure certain critical sections of your application aren't messed with either by using checksums, or looking directly at the instructions and making sure they're what they should be, or using self modifying or self building sections of code. I just can't understand how copy protection is being hacked so easily. Learn assembly language and you can do all kinds of things to make life miserable for hackers such that they wouldn't want to waste their time.

-Elhardt

ryskdsp · 12 Jan 2010

New here as well. As I see - the topic isn't. 🙂

Take a deep breath, this could take a while...

I would definitely approve of iLok "compatibility".

The thing is: everybody looks at it as if iLoks and other means of copy protection were merely made for money-making and hacker/cracker-off-pissing. I ensure you that they aren't.

Everyone knows, the better/more popular the product and the "harder" the copy protection - the more interesting it'll be to hackers and crackers, and the harder they'll try to make their crack work. Right? Just look for Cubase 5 and Superior Drummer 2 and all that stuff, you can find it anywhere, the links to illegally download them are sort-of thrown in your face - if you try and google their names, google will auto-suggest the search together with "rapidshare" and "torrent"... and we all know what that means.

So basically what I'm trying to say is: don't care about the whole Warez scene too much, as your stuff -given it's any good- will be cracked anyway, sooner or later.

What one should rather think about is pricing. I personally would rather sell 1000 copies of my work for 25 bucks each, than 100 copies for 150 bucks each.

Nah, don't say "that calculation won't work!" right away, just look at yourself - how many times have you said or thought "ah, shame, I'd really like that (whateveritis) but I can't afford it right now. I'd go for it, if it were only 15 bucks cheaper." ... hm? Bet you more than once. And just like you, so do others. All the time. I myself wouldn't be using Waves plugins today, had I not been able to get them as cheap as I did. (Thank you percentage-off offer, thank you eBay, thank you "make an offer" button) But the bundle was cheap, "the grab was possible" ... so I grabbed them. And just like me, so would (and probably will have) others. All the time.

Some of the people who "can't afford" something can wait or have scruples to satisfy their need illegally, others not. The ones who can't/don't will certainly go for Warez, and the ones who can/do will do just about the same - produce no income for you at all. Lower the prices so more people can afford the stuff, and there's your income back up.

Please don't compare this to CD/DVD sales or so, CDs and DVDs are kind-of luxury assets, you buy them and you keep them, and sometime you may want to get rid of them. Plugins are different, you don't buy them to brag about having bought them (hey, there's black sheep in every flock! ^^) but you buy them because they help you achieve something, they are a tool you use to create something, express yourself. There's a completely different motivation behind buying plugins against buying CDs/DVDs, please bear that in mind.

Of course I know that this "make it cheap" theory comes hand-in-hand with the "if it's cheap, it must be rubbish" theory, I have thought so several times myself. But if your plugin is NOT rubbish, you can count on the word going round the forums (=the world) that it isn't rubbish, and you can count on some serious increase in demos and buys.

And of course, there's the "reputation" thing... "if everybody has it 'cause it's cheap, it's nothing special anymore, I am/my company is not special, anymore... down to being usual and common". Well... with the LAWO plugins and now the Lexicon Reverb... both close to a 1000$... does that make Waves' SSL suite or IR-something "not special" or otherwise unattractive? It's the same deal - if your plugins are any good, people will use them even if everybody else uses them. And the ones that don't or won't ... probably shouldn't anyway.

Now, what I'm trying to get at - try to distract yourself from thinking of copy protection as hacker/cracker obstruction, try thinking of it as customer reward.

I mean, the guy buying your stuff is shelling out some cash to be rewarded in some way. Of course - the function of your plugin should be sufficient, but don't you appreciate that it seems just so much more "rewarding" (and don't mention professional) to not just send him a download link to a non-protected .ZIP or .DLL file in an email, or even worse - let him wait for whole hours or days for a "personalized" .DLL file, but putting a license to his (earlier created) customer account -which he can access as he desires to unlock demo/activate full versions- instantly?

After all, some of you might not only be selling ONE plugin, but several. Now think of the "trouble" he'd be confronted with when setting up his new system he might have got or may get... going through all the darn emails you or your download system might have sent him over the last months or years, the annoying sifting of what is mail with download links for updates, what is a newsletter he thought he'd unsubscribed from but still receives, what is mail with an actual license in it... for EVERY plugin he ever bought from you (and still wishes to use)...

A customer account with a listing of all his licenses and access to all appropriate downloads would enable him to get his new/re-installed DAW up-and-running in just a few moments: login, download, copy&paste licenses - or maybe just download and execute a .REG file. Job done.

And now (as George Carlin would shout: "JUST... JUST FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT!") imagine downloading and installing the demo executables or .DLLs ... and everything working right away. No logins, no .REG files, no copy&paste of license codes... Voila, that's what an iLok (or any dongle) is all about: install, plug-in dongle, work. Anywhere. No internet necessary, if you're smart enough to carry the installers around on a USB stick.

I myself thank Waves, Nomad Factory and all the others greatly for offering this kind of licensing, as I can install their plugins anywhere I want and use my licenses for as long as I work there, and then -should I forget to uninstall- just pull out the iLok and leave the system behind with non-working (or back-to-demo) plugins. Imagine some guy running off without removing his own personalized .DLL file, most likely unintentionally... think he'd be up for some prosecution if the guy who uses the machine next starts spreading the fully working personalized .DLL round the internet? ...maybe also without being aware of what he's doing, "because... it was there and it was working... so it must be freeware, right?"

For guys like me, who already enjoy the benefits of using a dongle, a plugin that has to be authorized via complicated and/or time consuming authorization mechanisms wherever I go ... is rather unappealing. I think I speak for many others when I say that I'd rather NOT buy a plugin that has to be "authorized" anew via the internet (and maybe take "one off" the "authorizations left" counter again!) just because I work on a different machine today than yesterday, but I'd rather buy a plugin that "puts its license on my iLok" and leaves me with nothing else to worry about.

So in the end there's less hassle installing, there's more exact authorization control, there's more individual security, there's more "attractiveness" of the plugin/s to those who already own a dongle... I don't get what the big problem is with dongles or serial/key file copy protection.

Dongle lost, dongle broken licenses gone forever, blah blah blah. Just writing this reminds me of how many times I heard this lame "argument" and makes me sick.

Duh, letting a dongle lie around in a public and/or crowded place without having eyes on it, putting it on your keychain and taking it with you everywhere you go (probably just to brag about it), keeping it in your back pocket when you know you're going to sit down, throwing it in the bottom of a rucksack which you know'll be treated like a bag of sand... It's just like a blog in which you publish your home address, alarm system code, mobile phone pin, bank details, email logins, etc. on a daily basis... nothing has to happen, BUT YOU'RE DEFINITELY ASKING FOR IT!

How is it, that when you're stupid or goofy enough to lose or break the keys to your flat/house/car/locker/etc. -which are necessary for you to access it whenever you feel like it- it's "bad luck" and you're absolutely willing to fork out loads of cash for new locks or new keys and don't care if there's "someone out there" running around with access to what's yours ... but when you're stupid or goofy enough to lose or break the "key" to your plugins' licenses - it's all iLok's fault, dongles are crap, who-would've-thought... "and anyway".

LOOK OUT FOR YOUR EXPENSIVE AND/OR ESSENTIAL STUFF!

If dongles are crap, the keys to your flat/house/car/locker/etc. are also crap. If you're aware of that and you still have no problem using keys ... what's your problem with dongles?

Also, what's this guy (in some thread about copy protection/iLok in SM) about who posted the comment that "when SM started supporting iLoks/dongles" he'd "ask for a refund" and never touch SM again... WTH?! Just the fact of it "being available" for those who wish to use it wouldn't mean you'd be forced to do so... Honestly, some mothers do have 'em.

As you see, I could go on for hours spitting out both arguments and rants about this subject, but for now I think it's enough. 🙂

The ideal approach would be the approach that Nomad Factory have taken - offer both options, dongle or serial/keyfile/unlock protection.

Please, "dear SM team", consider the positive sides of dongles and other "sophisticated" authentication methods, and please consider integrating -at least some of- them into SM, as they're not only superfluous and futile obstructions for crackers, but also offer much in favor of the end user.

$0.02 🙂