Avid Technology : Inside Brainworx and Plugin Alliance with Dirk Ulrich

DH: Tell me about the authorization scheme-why did you choose this approach and how does it work?

DU: Just as we were about to start the Plugin Alliance we decided that, rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars on commercially available security systems every year and then still see cracked version appear, we would rather create an activation scheme that's as easy to use as possible. We feel that the best copy protection is offering a smooth authorization process and high value products. In other words, make your products easier to buy than they are to steal.

So we started Plugin Alliance, and it was a big success. When we started we had less than 10,000 individual user accounts and within one year I think we had 40,000 user accounts. We combined all our products, and everybody was able to demo them without a dongle at that time, which was a big deal, and people could combine plugins from various partners, create their own bundles etc. While we developed our own authorization system, which includes security protections, our emphasis has always been, and always will be, on customer experience. We want the process of authorizing demos and purchases to be as easy as possible for users and this balance has served us well as we now have over 150,000 user accounts.