Why don't the software companies use the internet to see if two people are on the internet and using the same software license on two separate machines (as defined by IP address, or serial number, or whatever)? This seems like such a basic anti-piracy strategy, and even if it's easily flauted by the technorati, that still means that 95% of users, and maybe 80% of pirates, will be foiled by it. But no one seems to do this. Why? (I've often wondered the same thing about speeding tickets; there have to be more cost-effective ways of catching speeders than paying highway patrolmen to sit there -- is lax enforcement synonymous with tacit endorsement, while still allowing the enforcers to profit by penalizing the occasional transgressor?)
posted by blueshammer on Sep 15, 2004 - 17 answers