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A thin client type of system would go a long way in preventing piracy. >>
Folks like to think they own software and can make copies as they wish, at least for personal use. I don't see this changing anytime soon.
Piracy seems always to always be a problem. Codewheels didn't work. Requiring floppies to be in the drive didn't work. Copy protecting floppies didn't work (back in the Apple days there used to be software that would allow you to bypass floppy protection by changing the RPM rate of the floppy drive itself, sector by sector, not that I ever did anything like that

). Registration codes didn't work. Dongles worked...yet didn't. They tried to sneak a hardware ID on the CPU in order to facilitate hardware locking. Didn't work.
In the future personal IDing might be attempted (something biometric like fingerprint IDs). But if the first finger print IDs an be fooled by a green booger what use will they be?
Seems the cycle continues: new approach, broken, new approach, broken.....