Honestly, I hate all of these things. My employer spends multi-millions on software licenses every year. All these DRM schemes are painful, insulting, and inevitably break at the worst possible moment. We have one box -- legally acquired -- with a hardware dongle, plugged in the back of the machine. Someone smashed it when moving the thing accidentally. Were we inclined, with SEM, TEM, AFM and plenty of x-ray facilities, I'm sure that it's not beyond our ken to crack the sodding thing, and honestly, after that experience I was sorely tempted.
I'm fed up of being treated as a rich criminal by businesses. They want an un-get-out-able subscription agreement, for life, and with "markets made" at every available opportunity, i.e. $METRIC_FUCKTON_OF_MONEY for $MINIMAL_INCREMENTAL features. One commercial FEM solver I use charges per GPU, per CPU, and per year. The whole thing is based on maths invented in my university!