Copy protection

Some publishers have avoided copy-protecting their products on the theory that the resulting inconvenience to their users outweighs any benefit of frustrating "casual copying".

To safeguard copy protection and license management technologies themselves against tampering and hacking, software anti‑tamper methods are used.

[citation needed] Since these basic technical facts exist, it follows that a determined individual will definitely succeed in copying any media, given enough time and resources.

[citation needed] Copyright protection in content platforms also cause increased market concentration and a loss in aggregate welfare.

[6] Copy protection for computer software, especially for games, has been a long cat-and-mouse struggle between publishers and crackers.

Unauthorized software copying began to be a problem when floppy disks became the common storage media.

[14] Other software relied on complexity; Antic in 1988 observed that WordPerfect for the Atari ST "is almost unusable without its manual of over 600 pages!".

[16][17]) Copy protection sometimes causes software not to run on clones, such as the Apple II‑compatible Laser 128,[18] or even the genuine Commodore 64 with certain peripherals.

With the rise of virtualization, however, the practice of locking has to add to these simple hardware parameters to still prevent copying.

[20] During the 1980s and 1990s, video games sold on audio cassette and floppy disks were sometimes protected with an external user-interactive method that demanded the user to have the original package or a part of it, usually the manual.

These include:[23] All of these methods proved to be troublesome and tiring for the players, and as such greatly declined in usage by the mid-1990s, at which point the emergence of CDs as the primary video game medium made copy protection largely redundant, since CD copying technology was not widely available at the time.

Starting in 1985 with the video release of The Cotton Club (Beta and VHS versions only), Macrovision licensed to publishers a technology that exploits the automatic gain control feature of VCRs by adding pulses to the vertical blanking sync signal.

[28] These pulses may negatively affect picture quality, but succeed in confusing the recording-level circuitry of many consumer VCRs.

This technology, which is aided by U.S. legislation mandating the presence of automatic gain-control circuitry in VCRs, is said to "plug the analog hole" and make VCR-to-VCR copies impossible, although an inexpensive circuit is widely available that will defeat the protection by removing the pulses.

Macrovision had patented methods of defeating copy prevention,[29] giving it a more straightforward basis to shut down manufacture of any device that descrambles it than often exists in the DRM world.

These games would initially show that the copy was successful, but eventually render themselves unplayable via subtle methods.

Anti-piracy measures are efforts to fight against copyright infringement, counterfeiting, and other violations of intellectual property laws.

It includes, but is by no means limited to, the combined efforts of corporate associations (such as the RIAA and MPA), law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI and Interpol), and various international governments[clarification needed] to combat copyright infringement relating to various types of creative works, such as software, music and films.

Richard Stallman and the GNU Project have criticized the use of the word "piracy" in these situations, saying that publishers use the word to refer to "copying they don't approve of" and that "they [publishers] imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them".

In the case MPAA v. Hotfile, Judge Kathleen M. Williams granted a motion to deny the prosecution the usage of words she views as "pejorative".

This list included the word "piracy", the use of which, the motion by the defense stated, would serve no purpose but to misguide and inflame the jury.

The plaintiff argued the common use of the terms when referring to copyright infringement should invalidate the motion, but the Judge did not concur.