Most secure way to license software
.net, licensing, security, vb.net
Solution
Since I am not sure whether or not I could host a registration database of any sort, is there any way to keep liscensing self-contained securely?
No, there is no way to do it securely. Even if you do have a registration database, it is crackable.
Remove full version code from the demo. If you have a small amount of buyers, this lessens your chance of leakage greatly.
If you want to make copy protection, you should start reading up on it. Since you are asking about this, I can tell that it will take you a very long time to make decent copy-protection. It's best to just hire someone else to do it for you.
A .net obfuscator is probably the easiest and most effective solution for you.
Problem
What is the best and most secure way to license software? Is there an existing program for doing so? I want to sell a script of mine, but I want to make sure that users cannot redistribute or sell it themselves (of course, if they deactivate the registration on their own computer and choose to resell, that is their choice). The software language is VB.net. Since I am not sure whether or not I could host a registration database of any sort, is there any way to keep licensing self-contained securely? I would like the user to be able to download the demo and be able to upgrade to the full version somehow. Thanks for the help! If there is not currently a software in existence to do this, how would i go about making one?