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Ask HN: Copy protection for desktop software?

4 points by qeorge ↗ HN
I need to add copy protection to a .NET business app, and its not feasible to roll our own in this case. Has anyone used a 3rd party copy protection system for your software, and if so, what vendors should I be looking at?

Ideally, I'm hoping to find a vendor that can provide phone activation support as well as the DRM. We're not expecting to catch particularly motivated pirates, just to stop people from walking the CD around the office, so to speak.

8 comments

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shin_lao
If your software is popular, it will attract motivated pirates.

First question, can you be more precise about your target audience and what your software does? Is there any incentive to copy it? Do you want to protect from customers buying less licenses than they really need?

In other words: what's your "threat".

Another question is: how do you license your software? Do you give a serial file? Serial number? Is it available for download?

As for 3rd party protection system, .NET applications are extremely easy to hack because you can almost decompile them. You'll find obfuscators and the like, but don't rely too much on them.

Phone activation will make you lose sales. Don't annoy your customers. Just make it clear what they can do and what they can't do.

Online activation will need work on your part even with a 3rd party module as you will have to build the bridge between your application and the protection.

qeorge
Do you want to protect from customers buying less licenses than they really need?

That's exactly it. I know there are some people who are dead set against paying for software, and they'll break whatever we do. Those people weren't our customers anyway.

Another question is: how do you license your software? Do you give a serial file? Serial number? Is it available for download?

Serial number but not currently enforced. Fairly high-end (~$800/license), primarily enterprise users.

Can be downloaded online, but there is no 30 day trial (would very much like to change this).

Phone activation will make you lose sales. Don't annoy your customers. Just make it clear what they can do and what they can't do.

Definitely, we just need the vendor to provide phone activation as a fallback for customers who don't want to / can't activate online.

Thanks for giving this a look.

shin_lao
The way I see it, you just need some software that checks the licenses match the usage and that calls home from time to time to check everything is in order.

Nothing fancy.

qeorge
Absolutely, we just really want to purchase this service from a vendor, and for whatever reason I'm having a lot of trouble finding one that fits the bill.

If you know of any specific vendors, please let me know.

shin_lao
I would have suggested Asprotect, but it doesn't work with .NET.

I've heard about SerialShield, but I really don't know what it's worth.

somecanuck
Have you checked out .NET Reactor and/or IntelliLock?

http://www.eziriz.com/

I had been considering them for a product of my own. There's a lot of positive feedback about them around.

qeorge
I hadn't seen them yet, thanks for the link. Their list of customers is impressive.