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Raise your hand if you remember the Spore SecuROM fiasco.  The community backlash, and the resulting huge amount of pirated copies of the game that became available.  You’d think that somebody would try to create a form of copy protection that both copyright holders and consumers can be okay with.  Apparently the people at CD Digital Card didn’t get that message.

CD Digital Card is trying to bring 2 Geeks In A Lab’s Global Garde copy protection to mass market.  Apparently the code is small (only about 250 to 500 KB), takes only five minutes to install, and is supposed to be invisible to consumers.  According to the press release it’s currently hailed as “the holy grail of anti-piracy and copy protection.”  In other words: the bane of those who simply want to access the content that they paid for, or those who want to pirate it.

Global Garde works by randomly checking back to see if the content is OK.  This is done multiple times during installation, as well as when the content (apparently everything from a single PDF file to music CDs and computer programs) is in use.  If something goes wrong, then the application or file stops working, and quits.  Then you have to re-open it and try again.  The horrible flash product demo claims that the code contains a lot of dead-ends for hackers and that the authentication continually changes so there’s less of a problem with pirates.

I understand that copy protection is important.  If I were a programmer or musician, I would hate to see people taking my work without supporting me.  But there must be a better way of controlling this without draconian software.  Consumers want to be treated as consumers, not criminals.  There’s no reason to put copy protection on everything.  Pirates will eventually get into it; it happens eventually.  If people really want access, they will find access to software.  I understand that no DRM is also a bad thing, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere, someone just need to find it.

Read [Business Wire]
Read [2 Geeks In A Lab]
Read [http://www.2geeksinalab.com/demo/sellfolio.html]