Anti-piracy Fallacy

The Fallacy

"...the vast majority of software pirates won't spend 500 hours reverse engineering and patching a simple $10 shareware application."

The Reality

Every anti-piracy method is based on this assumption. Every one fails because it is not true. It was not true back when it was a bunch of computer nerds copying 5 1/4" floppies using BitNibbler downloaded off a dial-up BBS and its not even remotely true now with your grandma downloading music over BitTorrent.

The vast majority do not need to break the obfuscation. Just one. The Internet takes care of the rest. And there's always somebody who does this sort of thing for fun and is ASTOUNDINGLY good at it.