I actually thoght about mentioning these topics when I posted that message, but got lazy. You're right: Copy protected games are a perfect example of how copy protection inconveniences the honest consumer.

An example: My CD-ROM drive won't read 80-minute CD's, a current favorite copy-protection technique. I've bought more than one game that can't be read on my CD-ROM drive. Recently, I bought Sierra's Homeworld, and it had this problem. The installation wouldn't complete because some of the install files were out past the 74-minute boundary on the disc.

Most folks would just return the game in this case. I didn't. I took it to work, got the files off the CD on a compatible drive there, downloaded a crack from the internet, zipped the cracked files, and took the zip home on my own CD-R.

It's ironic, because if the thing weren't copy-protected in the first place, I never would have needed to crack it and make a duplicate of the cracked copy. But now I have this cracked, zipped copy sitting here, ready to distribute illegally if I so choose.

Other games have given me similar fits: Thief, Freespace 2, etc. All honestly-purchased games that won't run on my existing hardware because of copy protection.

I work at a software development company, so I understand the need for copy protection. I don't begrudge the software makers for implementing it. All forms of copy protection are a trade-off: How much trouble do you want the legitimate users to have, compared to how much trouble you want to give the pirates. The final rule comes down to: If you can execute the code with the protection in place, then there will always be a way to execute the code without the protection. No matter how good your protection is, there will be pirates who can break it. The most effective copy protection schemes use some kind of remote server authentication mechanism: like CD keys that report back to the manufacturer over the internet. But even those can be broken if the pirates are willing to put enough energy into it.

But the most important thing is what you said: The audio CD market is much more picky when it comes to compatibility. Us PC users are willing to tolerate the copy protection because we're used to the fact that computers don't work perfectly all the time. Consumer audio has a much less tolerant set of standards. No one would put up with an audio CD that only played on some of the players. Even if "Some" was 90 percent, that remaining ten percent would be a nightmare for the record stores and record companies.