I want people to buy the SE:SS expansion. In fact, I need people to buy it. I've used pretty much all of my savings making it, and both my finances and my health are not in the best state at the moment. Simply put, if the first expansion pack doesn't sell, there won't be another one, and I'll have to look for some other kind of work that will actually feed me.

So there's a certain temptation to try to make sure that anyone who plays the expansion pack actually pays me for it. Which is, after all, what they're supposed to. And the standard way of doing that is to put in copy protection.

Now, copy protection started with licence codes. You buy a code, you enter it into the program, and that allows you to use the full version. And the idea is that you are not allowed to share your code with other people. But there isn't really any way to prevent that from happening. So licence codes aren't really copy protection. So they're more a way to clearly indicate which parts of the program you need to pay for. If you're using the full version without having bought a code, you're doing it wrong.

But because it's so easy to share licence codes, companies have been trying to find ways to do "real" copy protection for decades - and created a bunch of invasive technologies now euphemistically called "Digital Rights Management". The newest fad is to require people to stay connected to the Internet whenever they play the game. As we've seen in the recent Assassin's Creed 2 debacle, this doesn't work particularly well!

Even very pervasive DRM can and will be broken. And the fancier your DRM system, the more enticing a target you are to people who like breaking DRM.

So the expansion pack for Space Exploration: Serpens Sector is not going to have any kind of copy protection, or "Digital Rights Management". I played around in my head with using licence keys, but you have to download the expansion pack when you buy it. Also giving you a license key to enter doesn't add anything but inconvenience. And the contract is still exactly the same: don't play the expansion pack without paying for it.

Of course some people will do exactly that, but there is frankly no way of stopping them. So why should I spend my time and effort trying? I'd rather spend it improving the game.

In summary: Please buy my game, so I can eat and make more games. I won't put in any copy protection, because copy protection doesn't work and just makes life worse for you, and because I've got better things to do with my life.

See also: No Horse Armour.