Copy protection - Wikipedia. Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, is any effort designed to prevent the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyrightreasons.[1] Various methods have been devised to prevent reproduction so that companies will gain benefit from each person who obtains an authorized copy of their product. Unauthorized copying and distribution accounted for $2. United States alone in the 1. PIPA. Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticisms because it caused inconvenience for honest consumers, or it secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer. Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights is still an ongoing problem with media publication. Terminology[edit]Media corporations have always used the term copy protection, but critics argue that the term tends to sway the public into identifying with the publishers, who favor restriction technologies, rather than with the users.[3]Copy prevention and copy control may be more neutral terms. Copy protection" is a misnomer for some systems, because any number of copies can be made from an original and all of these copies will work, but only in one computer, or only with one dongle, or only with another device that cannot be easily copied. The term is also often related to, and confused with, the concept of digital rights management. Digital rights management is a more general term because it includes all sorts of management of works, including copy restrictions. Copy protection may include measures that are not digital. A more appropriate term may be "technological protection measures" (TPMs),[4] which is often defined as the use of technological tools in order to restrict the use or access to a work. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. Having CD/DVD emulation software works like having multiple CD/DVD ROM drives. The emulation software allows users to run a CD/DVD image directly from a hard disk. Media corporations have always used the term copy protection, but critics argue that the term tends to sway the public into identifying with the publishers, who favor. Lyberty.com's weekly/monthly splash page. (Yes, a splash page is old fashioned, but it's been a tradition here since 1999.). Business rationale[edit]Copy protection is most commonly found on videotapes, DVDs, computer software discs, video game discs and cartridges, audio CDs and some VCDs. Many media formats are easy to copy using a machine, allowing consumers to distribute copies to their friends, a practice known as "casual copying". Companies publish works under copyright protection because they believe that the cost of implementing the copy protection will be less than the revenue produced by consumers who buy the product instead of acquiring it through casually copied media. Opponents of copy protection argue that people who obtain free copies only use what they can get for free, and would not purchase their own copy if they were unable to obtain a free copy. Some even argue that free copies increase profit; people who receive a free copy of a music CD may then go and buy more of that band's music, which they would not have done otherwise. 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". From the perspective of the end user, copy protection is always a cost. DRM and license managers sometimes fail, are inconvenient to use, and may not afford the user all of the legal use of the product he has purchased. The term copy protection refers to the technology used to attempt to frustrate copying, and not to the legal remedies available to publishers or authors whose copyrights are violated. Software usage models range from node locking to floating licenses (where a fixed number licenses can be concurrently used across an enterprise), grid computing (where multiple computers function as one unit and so use a common license) and electronic licensing (where features can be purchased and activated online). The term license management refers to broad platforms which enable the specification, enforcement and tracking of software licenses. To safeguard copy protection and license management technologies themselves against tampering and hacking, software anti- tamper methods are used. Floating licenses are also being referred to as Indirect Licenses, and are licenses that at the time they are issued, there is no actually user who will use them. That has some technical influence over some of their characteristics. Direct Licenses are issued after a certain user requires it. As an example, an activated Microsoft product, contains a Direct License which is locked to the PC where the product is installed. From business standpoint, on the other hand, some services now try to monetize on additional services other than the media content so users can have better experience than simply obtaining the copied product.[5]Technical challenges[edit]From a technical standpoint, it would seem theoretically impossible to completely prevent users from making copies of the media they purchase, as long as a "writer" is available that can write to blank media. The basic technical fact is that all types of media require a "player" — a CD player, DVD player, videotape player, computer or video game console. The player has to be able to read the media in order to display it to a human. In turn, then, logically, a player could be built that first reads the media, and then writes out an exact copy of what was read, to the same type of media. At a minimum, digital copy protection of non- interactive works is subject to the analog hole: regardless of any digital restrictions, if music can be heard by the human ear, it can also be recorded (at the very least, with a microphone and tape recorder); if a film can be viewed by the human eye, it can also be recorded (at the very least, with a video camera and recorder). In practice, almost- perfect copies can typically be made by tapping into the analog output of a player (e. Copying text- based content in this way is more tedious, but the same principle applies: if it can be printed or displayed, it can also be scanned and OCRed. With basic software and some patience, these techniques can be applied by a typical computer- literate user. Since these basic technical facts exist, it follows that a determined individual will definitely succeed in copying any media, given enough time and resources. Media publishers understand this; copy protection is not intended to stop professional operations involved in the unauthorized mass duplication of media, but rather to stop "casual copying". Copying of information goods which are downloaded (rather than being mass- duplicated as with physical media) can be inexpensively customized for each download, and thus restricted more effectively, in a process known as "traitor tracing". They can be encrypted in a fashion which is unique for each user's computer, and the decryption system can be made tamper- resistant. Methods[edit]For information on individual protection schemes and technologies, see List of copy protection schemes or relevant category page. Computer software[edit]Copy protection for computer software, especially for games, has been a long cat- and- mouse struggle between publishers and crackers. These were (and are) programmers who would defeat copy protection on software as a hobby, add their alias to the title screen, and then distribute the "cracked" product to the network of warez. BBSes or Internet sites that specialized in distributing unauthorized copies of software. Early ages [edit]When computer software was still distributed in audio cassettes, audio copying was unreliable, while digital copying was time consuming. Software prices were comparable with audio cassette prices.[2][6] To make digital copying more difficult, many programs used non- standard loading methods (loaders incompatible with standard BASIC loaders, or loaders that used different transfer speed. Unauthorized software copying began to be a problem when floppy disks became the common storage media.[6] The ease of copying depended on the system; Jerry Pournelle wrote in BYTE in 1. CP/M doesn't lend itself to copy protection" so its users "haven't been too worried" about it, while "Apple users, though, have always had the problem. So have those who used TRS- DOS, and I understand that MS- DOS has copy protection features".[7] Apple and Commodore 6. The first copy protection was for cassette tapes and consisted of a loader at the beginning of the tape, which read a specially formatted section which followed. The first protection of floppy disks consisted of changing the address marks, bit slip marks, data marks, or end of data marks for each sector. For example, Apple’s standard sector markings were: D5 AA 9.
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