Get the DRM-free version of Runaway at GOG and you'll never have to worry about the game failing because of the copy protection.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/runaway_a_road_adventure

Activation problem is back....
 

Arg! Getting the same problem now with Gray Matter. Just bought it a day or two ago, and after a NIGHTMARE of a time trying to get it to download, I finally thought I'd be able to actually play the game. Nope; TAGES had other plans. Like Catnip, I have painstakingly exhausted ALL methods of activating the game (auto and manual, with and without firewall, on a different computer, turning off security system), and nothing is working.

Damen: Can you get on TAGES' butt again or do whatever you did to contact them and get them to get their servers back online or whatever the problem was?

You'd think that, after a year (looking at the dates of all the posts ahead of me), TAGES would have resolved this problem or at least posted it as an example of a common problem on their troubleshooting website, so that users like me wouldn't have to be running around for HOURS trying to figure out what's wrong, only to stumble quite accidentally onto this helpful forum line.....

Any solutions? Or do we just have to wait it out?