There were some very elaborate copy-protection schemes. Like, “go to page 12 in the manual and enter the word at the bottom of the page”. Of course, people could just share what the word was, so some games did stuff like having a fucking codewheel in the manual, instead. So you had to take the code the game gave you, turn the wheel to the correct spot, and then enter the result the wheel gave you.
One of the most famous moments of Metal Gear Solid is an anti-piracy measure.
You talking about the radio frequency to contact Marrow? Not much for anti piracy, really. If you called Colonel Campbell three times total, her frequency was added to your saved frequency list.
Ah, I never knew that. But even that was a callback to them using a very similar trick in the old MSX games as anti-piracy. (Meryl, btw.)