Wiktionary
n. A software or hardware mechanism designed to prevent copying.
Wikipedia
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, is any effort designed to prevent the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons. Various methods have been devised to prevent reproduction so that companies will gain benefit from each person who obtains an authorized copy of their product. Unauthorized copying and distribution accounted for $2.4 billion in lost revenue in the United States alone in the 1990s, and is assumed to be causing impact on revenues in the music and the game industry, leading to proposal of stricter copyright laws such as PIPA. Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticisms because it caused inconvenience for honest consumers, or it secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer. Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights is still an ongoing problem with media publication.
Usage examples of "copy protection".
These guys add a whole new meaning to copy protection: This was just a polite cease and desist notice by their standards.
Edward Felten of Princeton has so far been unable to get a court to declare that he has a First Amendment right to publish his research on certain methods of copy protection.
From that it was one small step to cracking copy protection to get games he couldn't afford to buy and one thing led to another.
From that it was one small step to cracking copy protection to get games he couldn’.
All of the cylinders are marked with those, Louis said, Preiser and Howards means of, shall we say, copy protection.