Ages ago, I was told to add copy protection to one of the products I managed.
I didn't want to. Hackers posted cracked versions of our apps within a few days any way. And our legit customers hated it.
Our company's QA/Test in charge of these things signed off on my implemention. Surprising. I knew it didn't work (as expected). But what the hell. I embraced her acceptance (buyoff), and burned those gold master CDs, meeting our deadline, pleasing our dealers, and had a new release to show-off at the trade show. Woot.
About a year later, this QA/test person figured out that implementation (for that release) never worked. She wasn't very happy with me.
What does that mean? My understanding is that a buyoff is a bribe, but your last paragraph implies it wasn't a bribe.
[1] https://github.com/maniacbug/FreeRTOS/blob/1d772c834b2e5e9bf...