IP theft protection for 3rd Party Developers

I noticed recently that simmarket just started adding email and key to their installers. Maybe that’s a step forward? But, now that I look at what’s actually installed, there doesn’t seem to be anything that keeps from copying. Nothing binding the software to “me”.

Can’t the same methods be used that X-plane scenery devs use? Apologies if this is a dumb question, just know I’ve encountered needing keys for X-plane addons.

The only way I see getting protection in place is to allow scripts to authenticate a key remotely.

Note I’m not a sim dev, but do secure dev work for other software.