That said, I am shocked that 'Me First' (or Me Next, whatever) thinks that TVP should not be able to take steps to protect themselves from people using illegal copies of TVP for free. This seems a bit to me like if I lost the keys to my Toyota and instead of selling me a replacement set of keys the Toyota dealer tells me: 'Sorry, but you'll just have to purchase a whole new car, the original set of keys were your only keys, no replacement keys are available.' What if the original dongle is damaged ? Can it be returned to TVP in exchange for a new working dongle ? (someone correct me if I'm wrong about that). Even if the TVP company has a record of the user having legally purchased a full license of TVPaint and the user has their sales receipt showing that they legally purchased it, they must still purchase a new license if the original dongle is lost.

There is no allowance made for getting a replacement dongle. The only problem I see with the present dongle system is that as I understand it if a user loses their dongle or the dongle is stolen then the user must purchase a new license of TVPaint. I can only imagine how this makes the developers feel. The nerve of some people! The real hypocrisy, however, is that these chumps throw fits in the event their 'artwork' is stolen or used inappropriately. That argument aside, I feel I must remark this is the only software user forum in which I have seen people (shockingly often) register an account specifically to expose themselves as pirates and scold the software developers for their attempts to protect their investment. The only other solution is DRM, not to be confused with a dongle's driver, which would serve to cripple the software in the event of a software or major OS update, not to mention the menagerie of errors which can, and do, occur in the regular operation of a computer.

Small, quality developers like TVP need some way to protect their assets against a clientele which would, let's face facts, prefer to pirate the software. That said, the rate of software piracy, particularly in the fields of graphic design and animation, is atrocious. They're fragile, they're expensive, and they certainly detract from my experience as a tablet user. I have to agree that a dongle is a poor solution, especially when the average Tablet PC has only two USB ports.

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