How do you protect your commercial extension??

ingvarai wrote on 3/8/2015, 9:46 PM
Eventually, I want to market an extension I am programming right now.
The question is how I can make a regime with a serial number etc., to protect it.
I have been in this business long enough to know that protecting any piece of software from being hacked, is impossible. So that is not the case.
What I want is to have some kind of protection that prevents ordinary professionals to jus copy it form one PC to another. Some kind of mild protection.
Is the Vegas serial No accessible through the SDK?

Do you guys use an obfuscator for the C# libraries?
Any suggestion that will bring me further up this road, is most welcome!
-Ingvar

Comments

Gary James wrote on 3/9/2015, 9:58 AM
Various schemes are available to protect .Net based software. The most common have to do with license keys. Here's a link to a CodeProject article that gives one example. The problem with .Net based programs is that the program is essentially a compressed version of the source code. There are numerous utility programs like Net Reflector that can rebuild the program source code directly from the .EXE file.

My Timeline Tools extension is freeware, so I have no need for any licensing key protection. But I do have some concern over intellectual property rights, as more software designers do. So to minimize the ability of reverse engineering my program I employ obfuscation in my Extension. I use a program called Crypto Obfuscator to obfuscate my program source code. Obfuscators make the program source code humanly unreadable. Although it is possible to reverse engineer an obfuscated program, it makes it so difficult, only the most dedicated individual with exceptional determination would even try.
ingvarai wrote on 3/10/2015, 12:19 AM
Ok thanks, Gary.
I was wondering whether it would be a way to tie the extension to the installed Vegas version. For Cinema 4D, the SDK exports the Serial number of the Cinema 4D installation, so the plugin user, when ordering, has to enter the serial, then get the binaries.
It is not the complete serial, so the user's security is not compromised.
I need the complete line, Paypal payment, licence key generated and setup made. So there is still a long way to go, even oif the extension is almost ready for initial testing.
If someone here in this forum make commercial extensions, I would appreciate if you could share some of your experiences!
-Ingvar