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Not add significantly to the cost. The reason most pirates copy software or other digital information is really rather simple: they don’t want to pay for the products they steal. If any copy protection solution is to be viable, then, it should not significantly increase the cost of the media which it is designed to protect. An increase in a product’s shelf price will increase the incentive to illegally copy the product and decrease the incentive to buy it. Thus a solution that will bloats costs is not being effective. Protect Fair Use. When a consumer buys software they do not pay for the medium the software is on, but rather the software which is on the medium. A software consumer does not pay for the actual CD but rather for the software on it. But discs can be damaged—they can break or scratch—and this damage can render the software unusable. To protect from this kind of loss, the user has every right to make back-up copies of the software he or she owns, or receive some other assurance that physical damage will not result in an unusable product. Any copy protection solution must take this into account. |