Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found on videotapes, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, HD-DVDs, computer software discs, video game discs and cartridges, audio CDs and some VCDs.
Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticism because it caused inconvenience for paying consumers or secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer. Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights remains a problem with media publication.
Terminology
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. 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 restrictions management. Digital restrictions management is a more general term because it includes all sorts of management of works, including copy restrictions. Copy restriction may include measures that are not digital. A more appropriate term may be "technological protection measures" (TPMs), which is often defined as the use of technological tools in order to restrict the use or access to a work.
Business rationale
Unauthorized copying and distribution accounted for $2.4 billion per year in lost revenue in the United States alone in 1990, and is assumed to be causing impact on revenues in the music and the video game industry, leading to proposal of stricter copyright laws such as PIPA.
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 they have 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 actual 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.