A Brief History of Software Protection and Licensing
November 8, 2013
Up until the 1980s, there were few if any licensing strategies, beyond simply selling a software program and hoping that it wouldn’t be copied. Licensing wasn’t an issue for many early applications, because the software was shipped in a hard to copy format, such as proprietary game cassettes or on audio tapes, which were difficult to duplicate in the days before mass market cassette recorders. The advent of 8” and 5 ¼” floppy disks suddenly made it easier to copy...
