"Broderbund is a company synonymous with various products including the legendary Print Shop publishing software, which I have used since its early inception," the reader wrote. "Having gone through the various upgrades over the years brought me to their Version 20 of the software. I purchased this product early last year directly from the company, which sent me a set of CDs that needed to be activated over the web. I figured no problem since it saved me shipping/handling charges and I already had the media in my hands. I went through the web ordering process with my credit card and after registering I was able to log-in and the software was activated from the web."

All was fine until the reader experienced a hard drive crash and needed to re-load his application. "When I went to the Broderbund site I was informed that I needed to enter an e-mail address and password, whereas before I had registered with a user ID and password," the reader wrote. "Since I did not have my account set up with an e-mail address, I was forced to call their customer service for assistance. When I finally got through to a human being I explained my situation to the representative on the other end. He informed me that Print Shop is no longer activated through the web and it would cost me $5.99 to get the actual CDs in the mail in order to re-install. Again, I already had possession of the original CDs, which evidently would only work with web activation. He also stated that web activation was only guaranteed for 90-days from the purchase date of the product. Didn't I buy a license to use their product? By Broderbund no longer providing web activation, aren't they stopping me from using the product I already paid for?"

But $5.99 for a new set of CDs wasn't all the reader was out. "I also had purchased American Greetings CreataCard Version 8 from Broderbund as well early last year," the reader wrote. "As you may guess, I also needed to re-install this software after my hard drive crashed, and again I had used web activation. In this case the same rep informed me that Broderbund no longer had a business relationship with American Greetings and would not be able to provide me with new CDs as was the case with Print Shop. I told him that's fine and just give me a contact at American Greetings to talk to. He then proceeded to inform me that Broderbund handled the actual CD publications, distribution, and product activation for American Greetings and there is no one for me to talk to and there was nothing he can do for me. So I asked him if I'm basically stuck with a useless piece of software which I had legally purchased a license for and activated on-line as I was supposed to. He confirmed that's the case."

The reader grudgingly ordered the new Print Shop CDs for $5.99, but he wondered how Broderbund could just eliminate the registration system they'd been using when he bought the product. "According to the Broderbund rep, they had a statement in small print at the bottom stating the activation is only good for 90 days," the reader wrote. "He may be right -- I just don't recall seeing it. The other issue I argued with him about is that I never received any e-mail stating that their activation policy was changing. He agreed and apologized for that. It's bad enough to charge me $5.99 for receiving for another set of Print Shop Version 20 CDs without on-line activation; however, it's totally unacceptable to simply not be able to use my CreataCard software anymore. As you may expect, I will never buy another package requiring online activation nor will I ever buy another Broderbund product again."

The reader's experiences with both products certainly raise a number of questions. Do current versions of Print Shop require activation? Does someone else now publish CreataCard? And how can software customers protect themselves from activation schemes that vendors stop supporting? Unfortunately, my repeated calls to press relations officials for RiverDeep, the company that now owns the Broderbund brand, were not returned. So I guess we're just going to have to see if we can answer such questions for ourselves.