V.i. Labs Software Protection Blog

Microsoft WGA Issues and On-line Activation

The recent failure with its Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation system (see Gregg Keizer's Computer World story) illustrates the downsides of using on-line activation for licensing and software protection. Although activation holds promise for helping to deter software piracy, it introduces a dependency and point of failure that is not be acceptable for all applications. However, it’s a difficult problem to resolve without greater software protection, because as soon as you allow an offline licensing scenario to exist it will be exploited by the piracy crack groups.

Vic

Content Piracy or Software IP - where should we focus

Rob Preston’s blog “Where Do You Stand On Intellectual Property Rights?” discusses the recent  SIIA case where Knowledge Networks had settled an IP infringement claim based on evidence presented by a whistle blower that executives had distributed unlicensed content. Although the content is considered IP, the industry in general needs to focus these types of programs on the rampant software IP infringements that are occurring in the emerging markets.

- Vic