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{{Useful Notes}}
[[File:copyprotection-stratego 3297.png|link=Stratego|frame|[[Feelies|Code wheel]]? F***, I downloaded the game!]]
Even from the early days, the ease of making a perfect copy of software was a concern for gamemakers. Nintendo's experience with the Disk System add-on for the [[Nintendo Entertainment System|Family Computer]] went so badly due to unlicensed copying (called "[[Pirate|Piracy]]") that the company shied away from discs even long after all the other consoles had abandoned cartridges. They did flirt with optical media starting with the GameCube all the way to the Wii U, but reverted to solid-state cartridges not necessarily out of piracy concerns, but due to optical media being too clunky and fragile for a portable console such as the Switch.
So from a fairly early time,
One early method, called "key disc" protection, required that the game access its original disc during loading—metadata not normally preserved when a disk was duplicated was required to play the game. This was prone to failure, made games unplayable on newer machines (as this out-of-band data could not always be found by new hardware), and prevented the player from using a (perfectly legal) personal "backup" copy. Given that floppy disks had a typically short operational lifespan, this also had bad effects for long-term survival. Even a few CD-ROM based games used this method, intentionally introducing errors to the disk, then refusing to run if the error-correction mechanism did less work than expected.
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Modern games simply fail to run if not authenticated. Earlier games tended to let you play a small part of the game, or play at a massive disadvantage, even if copy protection failed. In ''[[SimCity]]'', failing the copy protection would cause a non-stop stream of disasters to strike your city, making the game all but unplayable. (This sort of thing may have been intended, though, as another protection against people breaking the copy protection, since there was a chance someone idly examining the game before distributing it illegally might not have realized it had copy protection at all.)
In theory, the only way to have fine-grained control over what end-users can or cannot do with software is to physically separate it from them via a client/server arrangement. In this setup, the client only serves as a front-end—sending player input to the server and outputting streaming audio and video from the server. With a competent IT staff, infringement all but ceases to exist, yet each player is at the mercy of the server's uptime and bandwidth requirements for streaming audio and video.
The only thing that cannot be defeated is charging a monthly fee, and that really only works for massively multiplayer online games and other stuff that runs off of a central server. And sometimes even that isn't immune, especially when a popular game has private player-run servers start popping up, often implemented through reverse engineering of packets transmitted and received by the game client. This has the side effect of preserving multiplayer-only games which were otherwise made unplayable whenever the central servers for them go defunct.
See also [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]], [[DRM]].
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** The third game of the trilogy, ''Thief Of Fate'', had dimension-hopping as a crucial plot point. In order to travel from the main world to one of the seven other dimensions, the player had to not only cast the correct spell (see above), but then input the correct number from a three-layer card stock disc included with the game, similar to the Disney example given in this trope's description.
* The ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'' games each shipped with a large tome: a copy of that year's ''World Almanac and Book of Facts'', a history book or Fodor's guide, from which information could be requested. Several problems occurred with this: although it was intended to get kids interested in using an almanac, it wouldn't help if the book was lost at school, or if some schools used a ''newer'' edition of Fodor's (which meant that none of the hints corresponded to the correct pages, meaning going up in rank was impossible).
* ''Hired Guns'' for the Amiga. The programmer responsible summed it up best himself: "One week I came up with a cunning plan. I figured anyone who cracked the game would take out the manual protection, play the game a bit and leave it at that. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140321071630/http://www.angusm.demon.co.uk/AGDB/DBA1/BloodWy.html But I included a routine that detects if the game has been altered, it then does nothing until you make a certain amount of saves at which point it messes up your save files, just when you're getting into the game.]"
* [[Infocom]] tended to be among the cleverest in their integration of copy protection: for the most part, the game was simply unwinnable without the clues which the [[Feelies]] provided:
** In ''[[Leather Goddesses of Phobos]]'', the copy protection feelie was the ''map through the obligatory maze''. Considering that the maze was pretty much instantly deadly if you didn't do the right things in the right places, this was rather irritating when the map invariably got lost.
** A curious bit of copy protection was in Infocom's only romance game: ''Plundered Hearts''. The feelies in the game consist of facsimiles of the heroine's starting equipment, one of which is a banknote. The note shows the game's villain posing dramatically... but would you believe he's showing the solution to a puzzle? Grab his hat, try to grab the book he's carrying and press on the same part of the globe where he is and presto! Secret door!
* Introversion Software's ''[[Uplink]]'' featured a code table printed in glossy black ink on black card, which could generally only be read where the light reflected off the ink. However, this was also turned on its head when the developers later admitted it was designed to be a nostalgic nod to old-school games, and it was admittedly useless as copy protection (seeing as the game was massively profitable anyway). They later posted a PDF containing the entire table [https://web.archive.org/web/20131103024840/http://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/faq-general.html on their site], saying it was not intended as a means of copy protection.
* Several Level 9 games used a method called "Lenslok". Using a graphical pattern, a passphrase was rendered unreadable. A color filter provided with the game, similar to those in the Milton Bradley ''[[Jeopardy!]]'' games, could be placed against the screen to render the text legible, but this failed with exceptionally small or large monitors.
* The ''[[Metal Gear]]'' solid has always featured copy protection measures:
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** The original Starflight had the code wheel. Starflight 2 had a fold out star map and a viewer to isolate 3 inch sections of the map. The game would then ask you the number of certain colored stars in the 3 in section once you placed the viewer at certain coordinates.
* Infogrames' original ''[[Alone in the Dark]]'' series had this, and notably ratcheted it up in the second game. The first required two objects from the game to be entered, which was already saying something given the large number of one-use clutter. The second, however, was a bit more complex. When you entered the first screen, it had a message something along the lines of "Protection Ace of Hearts over Three of Clubs First Hole". This could be disregarded, and if one tried to enter the hedge maze without inputting a code with the F keys, the game would say "YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION" and smite you. It turned out the manual told what the question is, and the game came with a number of hole-punched playing cards. Only by correctly laying the cards over each other and examining a hole could you figure out the required code to get on with it.
* In ''Vette!'', you are a given a question whose answer is in the manual. If you incorrectly answer three times, the game allows you to play, but with severely crippled gameplay (
* ''F/A-18 Hornet'' had you answer a question from its rather large flight manual before starting a mission.
* The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game of the series, requires you to answer questions about spells in the known Spellbook part of the manual before leaving the first dungeon. Recently, Bethesda allowed the game to be downloaded for free—and did not remove the Copy Protection.
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* Particularly before the advent of CDs and DVDs, console systems traditionally used media that could not be easily obtained or created - if at all - by the public:
* Eight-bit to 32-bit consoles including the Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, (Super) Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 used proprietary cartridges that were relatively expensive. But by the time of the Game Boy Advance, third parties introduced compatible cartridges for playing homemade GBA games (which could also be used for pirated games, wink wink nudge nudge).
** That's not all. The North American NES made use of a "
** Depending on which sources you believe, the primary intent of the lock-out chip wasn't copy protection. Instead, the system was designed to allow Nintendo to keep tight control over who could release games for the platform and extract heavy licensing fees from third party developers. This was also the mechanism Nintendo used to enforce their infamous [[Censorship Bureau|censorship and quality control regime]], keeping out the [[Custer's Revenge|porn games]] and low quality software that [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983|caused recurring PR nightmares for Atari.]] The copy protection was just a nice side effect...
** Some unlicensed games work around the lockout system either by using special cartridges that piggyback on another game
** While the top-loading NES omitted the chips, a similar, albeit more sophisticated system was used on the Super NES and Nintendo 64. Bootleg games still thrived on the Super NES, though not as much as it was in the NES days (it also helps that the use of complex enhancement chips such as the Super FX meant that bootlegging the likes of ''[[Star Fox]]'' would be nigh impossible), and there were reportedly only a few bootleg cartridges for the N64 until recently when the CIC for it was reverse-engineered. There were however backup devices such as the Doctor V64 which used a legitimate N64 cartridge for authentication and loaded games off commodity CDs. While it was ostensibly marketed as an inexpensive development tool to test games on actual hardware, with a number of developers, notably [[Iguana Entertainment]], using Doctor V64s for developing their N64 games due to a shortage of official development kits from Nintendo, the V64 could easily be modified to run backups, and many resellers sold their V64s pre-modded. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo took umbrage and filed legal action to halt the sale of the V64.
** The Game Boy is an interesting example, as it was designed more as a passive ''trademark protection'' scheme that relied more on their merry band of lawyers than actively shutting out any bootlegs, the theory being that bootleggers and developers of unlicensed games wouldn't dare display the '''Nintendo®''' logo lest be sued for trademark infringement, which was more easily enforceable in certain jurisdictions (This is also why some bootleg multicarts for the Game Boy simply have "GAME" embossed on the cart to dodge trademarks). If a copy of the logo was found on the cartridge ROM, the game loads, but using it as it is would make them an easy target for litigation. There is however a workaround taking advantage of a peculiarity on how the logo is checked and displayed: the Game Boy reads the boot logo twice--once to display it, and another to check if it matches the one on the boot ROM. Through this, unlicensed developers were able to subvert Nintendo's trademark protection by displaying their own logo on startup as a form of [[Plausible Deniability]], then load the Nintendo logo to pass the internal boot check.<ref>[http://fuji.drillspirits.net/?post=87 Neo Fuji: "go go logo"]</ref> Ironically enough, [[Argonaut Games]] demonstrated this to Nintendo, and rather than sue Argonaut for breaking their protection scheme, they invited them to develop 3D games. And the rest, as they say, [[Star Fox|is history]].
* The Sega Dreamcast could use a proprietary disc format called GD-ROM, which was essentially a dual-layer (1.3 GB) version of the CD-ROM format (multiple-layer discs would not become common until DVD); the system could load games off CDs, too, though, and many games could be fit on a standard CD or the game itself compressed to fit.▼
** In a similar vein to Nintendo, Sega used a similar trademark enforcement system on the [[Sega Genesis|Genesis]], aptly named "TradeMark Security System." The TMSS checks for the "SEGA" wordmark in various memory locations for a cartridge to boot, and if an unlicensed game has the necessary strings in the ROM, Sega can sue them for trademark infringement. This was however challenged in 1992 by Accolade when they were involved in a lawsuit concerning the use of Sega's trademarks on some of their games. The courts ruled in Accolade's favour, as the judges concluded that the required TMSS code took up 35 bytes while the rest of the game was wholly original content, and that Accolade's reverse-engineering to achieve compatibility with Sega hardware was a reasonable invocation of fair use.
** It wasn't ''meant'' to be able to load games off of CDs, they just screwed up royally while implementing the code for "multimedia enhanced CDs" in their music CD player firmware. The result: a no-mod-required method of playing copied discs.▼
** The [[Famicom Disk System]] also relied more on trademark enforcement than actual hardware or software-level protection. The disks, which were little more than a semi-custom variant of Mitsumi's Quick Disk, had '''NINTENDO''' molded at the bottom part of the disk, with the '''I''' and second '''N''' activating a switch which authenticated the game. [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]s ensued as with most pirated games, with the trademark being minced to "NINFENDO", "NINTEN", "NINJENDO", "INTEND" or even just "I N". Eventually, bootleggers simply just left indentations on the disk without the need to mold the Nintendo name or intentionally misspell it at all, making this scheme useless.
▲* The [[Sega Dreamcast]]
▲** It wasn't ''meant'' to be able to load games off of CDs, they just screwed up royally while implementing the code for "multimedia enhanced CDs" in their music CD player firmware. The result: a no-mod-required method of playing copied discs. Both the commercial emulator [[Bleem!|Bleemcast]] and the Utopia boot disk took advantage of this exploit.
*** Technically, Dreamcast piracy wasn't quite as simple as copying the GD-ROM, which regular PC drives could not read. Dreamcast piracy involved first ripping the GD-ROM using special hardware (often the Dreamcast itself via hardware plugged into the modem slot), then some tricky work involving a boot track and multiple burn sessions for the CD-R. Once created, though, that CD-R could be easily copied and used on any Dreamcast.
* The Sony PlayStation read a tracking pattern pressed onto the lead-in of official CDs, which cannot be reproduced normally. The PlayStation 2 uses a similar system. They will both refuse to read any disc that doesn't have a valid pattern.
** The
*** The final evolution of this "swap trick" was the production of kits containing stickers to hold down the "lid open" sensors (so the console would not try to perform the security test again when the lid was opened to swap the discs), and boot discs that would pass the copy protection check, then stop the disc from spinning and wait patiently until the start button was pressed (so the user could swap in another disc at their leisure).
*** Before the PS3s dropped backward compatibility altogether, this bit Sony on the ass - they had a hell of a time trying to read PS2 discs, to the point where most of the last-gen library was bugged out or failed entirely while playing on a [[
▲*** More "Security Through Obscurity" (or maybe just Everything is Cooler in Black) than anything else. The black coating wasn't technically ''necessary''; a number of games were released on bog-standard silver CDs. However, the black undersides did make a lot of people (apparently including the previous commenter) think that the discs were more special than they actually were.
*** And then Sony removed the OtherOS function from the PS3 back in April 2010 citing fears of ''security'', though piracy concerns were cited as the reason for its removal. Generally, people weren't pleased and even brought on lawsuits. And to rub salt into the wound, the removal of OtherOS further motivated hackers to bust the PS3 wide open.<ref>[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-security-in-tatters Hackers leave PS3 security in tatters]</ref>
▲*** Before the PS3s dropped backward compatibility altogether, this bit Sony on the ass - they had a hell of a time trying to read PS2 discs, to the point where most of the last-gen library was bugged out or failed entirely while playing on a [[Play Station 3]].
** Contrary to popular belief, discs for game consoles do not spin in reverse. But Gamecube and Wii discs do use a slight variant of the DVD sector-level encoding. Unfortunately for Nintendo, Wii pirates disregarded the physical aspects of the copy protection and instead decided to attack the console's firmware, which had quite a few holes. Not to mention that the Wii is backwards-compatible with the GameCube, and as such homebrew for the latter will work for the Wii to some extent, albeit not taking advantage of the Wii's enhanced features. In addition, third-party video game accessory manufacturer Datel somehow managed to press discs which boot on an unmodified GameCube or Wii by adding sectors that would at least nominally satisfy the challenge-response authentication the GameCube or Wii is looking for with authentic discs. Datel also used the title ID from ''NHL Hitz 20-02'' for their unlicensed software, which led to Nintendo banning it on subsequent hardware revisions, which consequently led to ''NHL Hitz 20-02'' being unplayable, though it's a small price to pay considering it's just a throwaway annual sports title.
▲* The Nintendo Gamecube uses a proprietary 8 cm DVD based on the miniDVD.
* Sony has been fighting a long standing war against the Homebrew scene in the name of copy protection on the PSP. The Homebrew scene finds an exploit to allow
** The 3.56 firmware update to the [[
▲* Sony has been fighting a long standing war against the Homebrew scene in the name of copy protection on the PSP. The Homebrew scene finds an exploit to allow un-official software, Sony releases yet another patch (that they usually make mandatory in order to play the newest games) to fix it, and the cycle continues. One particular patch that was designed solely to fix an exploit that would require a user to load a specific game in order to "unlock" their PSP, succeeded in introducing an exploit that allowed users to unlock their [[PSP]]s without any game whatsoever.
▲** The 3.56 firmware update to the [[Play Station 3]] marks the start of Sony's attempt to do the same thing (in addition to fixing the embarrassingly large security hole discovered not 2 months before the patch's release). How did it fare? Well, on the first release of the patch, it only succeeded in curbing (briefly) Call of Duty Modern Warfare hacks. It got cracked in under 24 hours, and that's NOT the worst news. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G40zYK-DbgY It would not work on Slim PS3s that had an upgraded hard drive], something that you are legally allowed to do. The second release of the patch only fixed the hard drive issue.
* ''[[EarthBound]]'' memorably has a vast array of copy protection mechanisms of surprising intricacy and thoroughness. For its first layer, it has a checksum that could detect whether the game was running from a copied cartridge or being booted from a cartridge-copying device;<ref>Emulating the game does not set it off unless you're using a ''really'' shitty emulator.</ref> if the mechanism did not check out, the game threw up an antipiracy warning screen at the beginning and did not play any further. If the protection was cracked, a checksum mechanism would detect the change, and the game spawned [[Zerg Rush|many more enemies than usual]] - some even in places they didn't belong! - in an attempt to discourage further playing. If the player persevered through this or cracked this second layer, however, an even nastier surprise awaited: the game would freeze and severely glitch after the first part of the [[Final Boss]] fight against Giygas... and when you reset, you would find ''all your saves deleted!''.
** These copy protection schemes sometimes trigger on legit cartridges, likely due to wear and tear over time. Although unrelated to copy protection, the same wear and tear can cause the game to run entirely in black and white as well.
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*** Your glass-topped drive won't help unless you can ''also'' read fine print spinning at a minimum of 200 RPM.
* ''[[Steel Beasts]] Pro PE'' has hardware-based DRM in the form of a USB key. This key must be plugged in while running the simulation! (And it's not the only example...)
== Software ==
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** Did we mention that, despite having a perfectly good copy protection system built in to Steam, most third party publishers keep their own, more intrusive systems in the version of their games that they sell on Steam anyway? At least the store warns you about this... ''most'' of the time.
*** However, there are now very easy ways to get a non-steam copy of all their games.
* Recently, copy protection has resulted in controversy because some gamers and journalists have complained that copy protection systems can make some games unplayable and can even make the computer unusable. For example, the copy protection software known as "StarForce" was boycotted by some gamers due to these issues. Some of StarForce's nastier side-effects included reduced system security due to the
** About routinely swapping out hardware - hardcore gamers do that as well. [[Rich Bitch|There are people who swap out video cards as soon as a newer card hit the market]].
** ''[http://www.galciv2.com/ Galactic Civilizations 2]'' by Star''dock'' Systems features "No CD copy protection"; once you install the game, you never have to verify it again. They felt that ease of use was worth the increased risk. The trick is that Stardock provides lots of free patches and content updates; If they find out your copy is being pirated, you don't get those anymore. Star''Force'', mentioned above, was so impressed by this system that they posted a link to a webpage where one could download pirated versions of ''Galactic Civilizations 2''. The backlash from gamers was so intense that they quickly removed the link.
** Speaking of Starforce, they've updated their copy protection nowdays—so if you buy a game with the old
** The launch of ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' was screwed up, plain and simple, when the single-player offline game shipped with SecuROM Copy Protection that allowed installation twice, ever, before the customer had to contact support. In its wake came crashing authentication servers, the customer support of the publisher and of its parent company each referring people to the other, said support demanding photos of the CD and the manual, people in smaller countries being asked to phone the same support - i.e., to make international calls in a foreign language, PR representatives assuaging the public by falsely stating that properly uninstalling the game would give the right to another installation, finding out that installing on another account or making what SecuROM deems to be a significant hardware change counts, the protection disrupting other programs if they look like the sort that might be used for cracking, the demo coming with SecuROM - without activation - when it
*** All of this extra security didn't stop a pirated version of the game appearing three weeks after the game was released.
**** And ever better yet, ''[[Spore]]'', which also used SecuROM, was cracked a good 4–5 days '''before''' release.
** The Starforce copy protection on ''[[Cold Fear]]'' was so bad that it locked up a large percentage of legitimate copies, and Ubisoft ''had to distribute a scene no-cd crack'' for paying customers to be able to play the game. They released their own no-cd patch later, but it was essentially the same as the scene patch.
** Likewise, the Starforce copy protection on legitimate copies of ''[[Rogue Trooper]]'' is absurdly prone to false positives, but the publishers/developers never bothered to fix the problem because not enough people bought the game for them to care anyway.
* In similar vein to StarForce, Denuvo became the bane for PC gamers due to numerous allegations of it adding significant overhead to games it came protected with, like high CPU usage and excessive wear and tear on storage media especially SSDs. Denuvo of course denied such claims, though some evidence suggests that the protection was detrimental to performance.<ref>[https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/282924-denuvo-really-does-cripple-pc-gaming-performance Denuvo Really Does Cripple PC Gaming Performance]</ref> Other outlets dispute this however, as test results with a cracked copy of ''[[Assassin's Creed Origins]]'' that had its protection (painstakenly) gutted out weren't as dramatic as expected. On top of this and activation woes, Voksi, a Bulgarian hacker who released cracks for several Denuvo-protected games, was arrested following complaints by the company, and 3DM, a Chinese warez group, reportedly threw in the towel due to how initially hard it was to circumvent it.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat]]: Armageddon'' had copy protection which caused the game to boot up and then go into ''Cabela's Big Game Hunter''.
* Some games like ''[[Mechwarrior]]'', ''[[Warcraft]]'' and ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' had special, network-client-only "spawn" installations that you could make many or an unlimited number of on other machines from just one copy and run without the disks (sometimes full versions and/or demos would automatically run in "spawn" mode when you don't pass the copy protection). These needed a full installation on another machine to act as a server, and would sometimes connect only to servers run by the full install from the same copy. Similarly, ''[[Diablo II]]'' allowed you to install a "multiplayer Version" with which you could play online, without the cd, but disabled the single-player segment of the game.
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* Recently, controversy surrounding the copy protection of the PC version of ''[[Mass Effect]]'' sprang up. Here's the short version: You're only allowed three activations on a single computer until you have to buy another copy. You don't get back an activation and changing your hardware settings takes one up.
** There was also going to be a validation process that checked up on you every 10 days or the game would not run, but the immense backlash caused that to be abandoned and the developers will only implement the three-install limit. How thoughtful!
*** [[Mass Effect 2]] does not use this DRM at all, for those who want to buy this game. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110102205421/http://meforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=710074&forum=144 It uses a disc check and doesn't require online authentication.]
* Starship sim sequel ''Frontier: Elite II'' had an interesting version of this. Periodically, the player would be challenged by the in-game Space Police, and asked to find (for example) the fifth letter in the third word in line 17 on page 158 of ''his spaceship's'' manual. Three wrong responses in a row and you're arrested by [[Author Avatar|Chief Inspector Braben]],<ref>David Braben was the game's lead programmer</ref> who would give you a lecture on how stolen starships are a major disincentive for starship manufacturers to make new starships; your ship is confiscated, you're sent to prison and [[Nonstandard Game Over|"with luck, you'll get a job cleaning the toilets when you get out"]].
* In the classic adventure game ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure|Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade]]'' Marcus would ask Indy to translate some symbols for him, which would need to be looked up in the manual. Failing to do so would let the game continue as normal - until a crucial point where Indy, at Donovan's place, would fail to translate a tablet concerning the Holy Grail (Indy mistakenly translates it as "Holy Grain"), prompting Donovan to say "Seems you're just an illegitimate copy of the man I thought you were."
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** It should be noted that several companies, including Ubisoft, have previously tried to convince Microsoft and Sony to let them release console games that would require the player to be connected to Xbox Live or the Playstation Network at all times, irrespective of whether the game has any online elements. And despite the fact that such a mechanism would probably be far easier to implement on a console than on Windows, both Microsoft and Sony have smacked down such requests each and every time, on the grounds that they don't want to be responsible for the fallout that would inevitably happen. Let's reiterate: Sony, who ''love'' locking up everything harder than Fort Knox, using proprietary solutions wherever they can, and who have in the years attracted a lot of hatred due to their [[wikipedia:Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal|boneheaded antipiracy measures]], [[Everyone Has Standards|have rejected Ubisoft's project]]. You'd think this would be an eye opener in and of itself for Ubisoft...
*** That certainly didn't stop [[Capcom]] of all things [http://www.capcom-unity.com/ask_capcom/go/thread/view/7371/23158177/Why_does_Final_Fight_Double_Impact_require_me_to_be_in_PSN pulling off that dirty trick on the consoles]. At least the [http://www.giantbomb.com/news/bionic-commando-rearmed-2-psn-requires-an-internet-connection/2895/ Second time] they did it, they said it required a PSN login right on the description. (And it still only affects the [[Play Station 3]])
**** [https://web.archive.org/web/20110607032039/http://wii.ign.com/articles/117/1172319p2.html That type of copy protection actually is allowed by Microsoft and Sony], but only on download titles—even then, however, the game has to go through a more rigorous validation process than usual, which is why most game developers don't do it. However, Ubisoft (among others) have repeatedly demanded to be allowed to implement this type of protection on ''disc-based'' games, which is silly when you consider that a significant amount of people still go without internet connections on their consoles. Fortunately, both Microsoft and Sony both have more sense than the developers in question, and still refuse to allow them to do so.
** Ubisoft tried to guard against the first ''[[Assassin's Creed (video game)|Assassin's Creed I]]'' being leaked by deliberately introducing a performance-degrading bug into the code, to be removed only when the game was sent to be mass-produced. Unfortunately, they didn't actually tell anyone, so when the bugged version was inevitably leaked, it considerably hurt their sales because the pirates spread through word of mouth to potential legitimate buyers that the game had [[Porting Disaster|terrible performance even on high-end computers.]]
* ''SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3'' forces you to pay 20$ to play online on pirated '''or''' second hand copies. And it didn't take long to crack it, which makes this PSP copy protection irritating as it was preceded a month before by...
* ...the initial Japanese release of ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]''. Why? At the time of the game's release, no one fully cracked the 6.20 firmware, which the game requires. The game was released in early January; it took until early March for a major cracking progress. Yeah.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]: The Battle For Middle Earth'' contained a rather unique form of anti-piracy. About ten minutes in, if the game decided our copy was pirated, your entire army would self destruct resulting in a game over. Caused some problems because bugs resulted in the game doing this to even legal copies sometimes.
* ''Bonetown'', an [[H-game]] by western gamers, has been noted for being "Uncrackable" despite using only Securom. The big problem? The Securom was rather archaic and was quietly subverted once the Retail Version was released (aka the physical copy) rather then the Direct Download version
* [[Spirit Tracks]] had this when you got on the train. The controls for it wouldn't show up so you would end up crashing into another train over and over again in the tutorial section. This was patched.
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* ''[[Oregon Trail]] II'' normally has to load the oregon.dat file from the CD drive, but this can be easily circumvented by copying the file to the hard drive and instructing the INI to load it from there.
** This is actually true for most if not all [[Edutainment Game]]s. Their reasoning being 1: the customer base (mostly schools and libraries, as well as parents, who're buying the game for students) needs a way to make a backup of the game, seeing that the media will be mostly handled by kids, and 2: their software are rarely attractive to pirates anyway.
*** Except there were indeed pirates who did release children's games, but that is mostly a niche subject compared to other genres.
* Most modern CD/DVD-ROM games require the original disc, not a copy, to be present in the drive for the game to run. Such as the aformentioned Safedisc system. Not surprisingly, most of these games have illegal no-CD cracks, although they can be flaky at times.
* ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project'' would make enemies tougher and the bosses invincible if the copyright code was modified.
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** Amusingly, United States courts have ruled that copyright traps are not, themselves, copyrightable, because to let them be so could a produce a [[Logic Bomb]] situation where an error in listing facts (which themselves are not copyrightable) might result in copying a "false fact" which itself would violate copyright.
* Similarly, dictionaries, encyclopedias and other reference works may include [[w:Fictitious entry|fictitious entries]] intended as copyright traps. For instance, in 2005 the ''The New Oxford American Dictionary'' included an entry for the non-existent word "esquivalience", defined as "the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities", as an explicit copyright trap.
* [[VCR|Betamax and VHS]] used security services like [[w:Macrovision|Macrovision]] to prevent piracy for movies and shows. Copying a Betamax or VHS tape would make the copy unwatchable by scrambling the screen. In modern VCRs (since 1997) and all DVD recorders, they have a chip-in to detect that it's copy-protected and would stop the recording, And leaves you with an error screen that reads things like ''Recording Error!: This program is not allowed to be recorded!'' The first movie to have a copy-protected home video release was the crime drama ''[[w:The Cotton Club (film)|The Cotton Club]]''.
* Copy-Protection on [[Laserdisc]], [[DVD]], and [[Blu-Ray]] had been quite common for many movies and shows to prevent viewers from making bootleg copies.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Videogame Culture]]
[[Category:Copy Protection]]
[[Category:Home Video Tropes]]
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