In the wake of StarForce's forum post about games not using copy protection and linking directly to a pirated copy of Galactic Civilizations II, Gamespot scored a rather insightful interview with the game's lead designer and Stardock head Brad Wardell where Brad expressed his views on the usefulness of copy protection.

I totally agree with Brads view that copy protection doesn't work and how it hurts ligitimate users like me.  I purchased Battlefield 2 from Europe because it was $20 cheaper and when it got here the disc was cracked.  A friend also owned the game but I couldn't simply copy his disc and use the valid serial I paid for.  Instead I had to copy it, hunt the web for a crack, download it, install daemon tools, and load the crack in daemon tools everytime before playing the game.  Ridiculous!  The serial alone is enough to stop piracy since you have to have a valid serial to play online and Battlefield 2 sucks for single player action.

Of course, all this publicitiy will do wonders for Stardock and I have no doubt people will buy this game just to support a company that supports it's customers.

Oh, and a comic to top off the story.