Yes, you can use Macrovision, but it will cost you a LOT of money. You first need to buy a special box that will put the Macrovision signal on the tape and then you need to pay for every copy you make using Macrovision. It is not cheap, and usually not worth it unless you are making millions of copies of your tape for distribution.

You can put a logo on a corner, and change its position every minute. if someone would made a copy the only solution for him is crop your image.

Josaver.

Wouldn't that really annoy the viewer though. I know when they first started putting those little transparent logos on all the TV stations it was really annoying. I think it would be really bad if it was jumping all around the screen every minute.

I find those logos annoying on TV stations too. At work, I have to run the station logo. I was told we put it on so people know what station they are watching. I guess the channel on their tv/vcr/cable box isn't enough. :)

I think the TV logo in the corner started because of cable and remotes. Since cable channel numbers seldom match the Broadcast channel number, people who are surfing with the remote do not often know what channel they stopped at. With the bug in the corner, it is always clear. In fact, I have gotten used to using that as a visual cue of where I am.

Just another advertising kind of thing.

Dave T2

Copy protection is not your friend.

I ran a resonably well-known software company back in the 1980's. Our marketing partner tried insisting on adding copy protection to our discs, much as Ashton-Tate and Lotus did with their first-generation products. We finally prevailed to have the product distributed without copy protection. Our reasoning then -- and I think it is still valid today -- is that a certain number of copies would get ripped off by unscrupulous individuals. These people would not have purchased the product no matter what we did, so we really didn't lose any sales to them.

Very few domestic or European companies (I live in he U.S.) would steal the software, because the laws -- even then -- were too harsh, and winning lawsuits against this kind of theft was easy (disgruntled employees always turn in their employers after they leave).

This leaves those that might want to rip off the software, but aren't entirely unscrupulous. Some of these ended up stealing it, but many of them eventually purchased, either because of guilt, or for one of the reasons I cite below. Those that did not purchase still helped us, however, by spreading the word of mouth about our product. We thought of them as a "marketing expense." While we in no way enouraged their theft, we realized that if they never used our software, we would never get their help in spreading the word. In other words, their word of mouth recommendations generally balanced out their theft.

Wholesale piracy in China is a major problem, and wholesale distribution of music over the Internet is also a problem. By contrast, occassional copying of software -- or in your case a VHS videotape -- is probably not going to lose much money, and you certainly won't recoup your investment in Macrovision licensing and hardware.

Final thought. I sugest that you give all prospects reasons to buy from you, including:

1. Excellent packaging. People pay for something that looks professional.
2. Support. Provide additional services, and products to paying customers.
3. Quality. Make sure your videotape is top quality and that your duplicator produces top-notch results. I'd also suggest offering a DVD for those that have the equipment (better quality still).
4. Discounts on future products. At the risk of sounding like some marketing seminar, you want to create a relationship with your customer.

Repeat business is how you get rich.

John...very good points!!

Copy protection on VHS (and DVD) is really a false sense of security. If someone really wants something - there is always a way to get it....or to get around it.

But, I tell you what - what John is saying makes perfect sense. Although it wasn't an illegal copy (it was actually free)...I got my hands on a piece of software back in 1992. Our company was using Quattro Pro and an upgrade that we got came bundled with a flight sim. "Jetfighter"

It was a little game (totally fit on a floppy disc), but it was fun as hell!! Me and a co-worker spent many hours after work flying that damn thing!!

Anyway...JF II came out and we bought it. JFIII came out...I bought it. Loved that damn game!! Subsequently, I got all into flight sims and worked my way into Janes, and Novalogic...I pretty much flew almost all of them. Novalogic is by far my most favorite (so far).

Anyway.....I lost track of JetFighter and the series. One day I'm just troling through the store and I see JetFighter V or VI (it didn't matter)! I bought that sombytch so fast...didn't even have to look at the screen shots or read anything about the game.

That little "free" disc sure made that company a pretty penny off of me!!

Everyone,

I appreciate the feedback and Jon "great" points, thanks for taking the time to share them.

I was in way assuming that there was no inexpensive way to protect the video, but wanted to make sure. Everyone is absolutely correct when they say there is a way to get around the protection.

Thanks again,

Chad

Yup, any time someone invents a new type of copy protection, there are thousands of hackers just waitng to crack it.

The first program I copies was DOOM 2. So id software lost $50 on me not buying that game. Since then I've been a loyal fan and have bought every product they's made since then.

Infact, I started using Vegas with 4.0beta. I liked it so much I ordered it! To bad not many companies have good demos/shareware out now a days.

I just wanted to chime in with my thoughts on something being uncrackable. Now Ill be honest for a moment. I used to be a member of Cinema Now and would download movies every month and save them to cd-r for viewing at my convience. Cinema Now uses WMV 8/9 for their encodes and DRM.

To my knowledge, no one has come up with a way to crack this technology. There is no way to even strip the movie from the wmv container whatsoever. But everything else I have seen, can be cracked.

"To my knowledge, no one has come up with a way to crack this technology. There is no way to even strip the movie from the wmv container whatsoever. But everything else I have seen, can be cracked."

Well....that's an easy one to crack!!!

All you need is a little plutonium, and a flux-capacitor. Hook it up to your car, cruise to 88 MPH, go back to the past the day before they invented compression - bust into the guys house, knock him out...crack into his computer, write in a backdoor to the code...get back in your car and hit 88 - go back to the future, download the movies - and put in your backdoor passcode and crack it!!