Smarte Solutions comes up with a new copy protection solution. Their protection will be easy to copy, but the software will recognize the copy and when you think you have a succesfull copy and are playing the game, it might after some playing time show a message that you can't play anymore and need to buy the legal game.
We have seen a protection like this before, called Fade, this should have been used in Settlers 4 and had the same concept, easy to copy, but after a while the game showed strange behaviour, because it was pirated. Smarte Solutions has about the same idea:
The software can be installed from the bootleg disc and will appear to run normally, until the program reaches a point determined by the software publisher. Then the application will halt and present users with an invitation to purchase a legal, fully functional version of the software. |
Publishers of a shooting game, for example, could limit the copied disc to one level, or an image-editing package could shut down after processing a half-dozen photos. The idea is that by then, the consumer will already be hooked on the program and will buy a legal version to keep using it. Vishwanath said he expects most publishers will choose to have SmarteCD run silently in the background.
"That's the beauty behind it--if you make a copy of a CD protected with our technology, there's no sign that you haven't been successful," Vishwanath said. "The pirate user all along thinks they made a copy, until they reach the point you decide to stop them. That's the optimal moment to capture that pirate user and turn them into a paying customer."
The developer of the protection says the protection is polymorphic and executes in a different way each place it's installed, preventing useful distribution of any successful hacking attempts.
According to Smarte Solutions are the chances for somebody to break it are extremely slim. Even if a hacker figures out how to break it, that hack only works for that one copy. We'll see about that in the future...
Source: News.com
