I honestly don't understand what the problem is here. Companies institute this sort of copy protection all of the time. We (a company of one) have: -World Construction Set - comes with a dongle (costs about $650) -LightWave - comes with a dongle and you need a registration number (costs about $2000) -Mimic - Poser plugin that requires the CD in the drive EVERY time you run it (cost about $180?) -Onyx Tree Pro - comes with a dongle and you need a registration number (costs about $500) -RPC Lightwave plugin - you need a registration number and it will only work with THAT machine (cost about $200) -assorted Lightwave plugins - many are attached to the LW dongle and are VERY difficult to switch to another dongle should the original one fail(check out Dynamic-Realities) -Poser 4 & ProPack (cost about $220 & $150) The dongle breaks - it can take a LONG time to get the replacement. The registration number can also be a pain to get as well. These programs listed above are EXPENSIVE. Poser 4 and the ProPack are quite a bit less - but for what they were designed to do they do it VERY well. It's not easy to create human models. I work mainly in Lightwave and it's great to go into Poser and modify characters and bring them into Lightwave - and now with the ProPack, integration is significantly easier. Now imagine you are one of the 25 employees at Curious Labs and you feel that unless you deter (somehow) piracy or even slow it down - you won't be around to implement the next version of Poser or the Pro Pack? I think I would want to implement some sort of copy protection - something that wouldn't double the price of the software. I doubt that there is really anyone out there if faced with this situation who would say NO to copy protection. Concerning the problems that many here may have about "not really owning the software since CL has the key" - it's the same with alot of high-end software. And if CL does end up going out of business, Steve Yatson of CL has already said: "I have already stated elsewhere on this forum, and we will publicly state on our Web Site that if something happens to CL we will post a free updater to eliminate the copy protection." Steve Yatson, Product Manager, Curious Labs. The e-mailing for a registration number is a minor irritation - one that many companies have instituted for a VERY LONG TIME; once again, my humble opinion. We can all continue we these sort of threads but the fact remains that every software manufacturer has to deal with piracy one way or another. The protection that Curious Labs has decided on (IMHO) is not "over-the-top" or uncalled for - they feel that they need to do something. It's just what they've decided to do. Would I prefer no copy protection? YES! Will I stop buying their product BECAUSE of the copy protection? NO! Every one will have to decide on their own what they intend to do. I'm used to this sort of annoyance with other software - it's because of the world we live in. Why should Curious Labs be any different? Until the human race becomes completely trustworthy and honest it probably won't change. Now anyone have any idea when that will happen?