Copy Protection (mac apps): most cost effective solution?

Question

... after having just read http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?CocoaInsecurity ...

I am curious to know about your experiences with copy protection solutions for protecting macintosh applications.
Is it worth investing any time in at all? OR Is it worth investing money in a commercial solution? (& if so, which?)

please consider in your answers:

1) How convenient (or INCONVENIENT) is the solution for the (legal) end user?

2) Does the solution have any effect on the real-time performance of the software (CPU hit?)

3) does the solution incur copy-protection related support incidents?

thx->adv,

|K<

Answer 1

You can check this related question: What copy protection technique do you use?

You can also take a look at this blog article: My Product Registration Solution.

Answer 2

EVERY approach is inconvenient for the legal end user and MOST will be hacked at some point anyway (assuming anybody is interested in the app).

Given the rising popularity of the Mac App Store and users becoming rapidly accustomed to it our experience is that they're at the same time less understanding when it comes to the hassle that every copy protection scheme involves.

Matt's blog article has a nice pros/cons list on the topic of selling through the MAS and coming up with your own copy protection scheme.