info-mac@uw-beaver (01/01/85)
From: LEVITT%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA I suggest option 1, No Protection, for reasonably priced products of personal (as opposed to primarily business) use. It works to the vendors' advantage, much as the "test drive a Macintosh" policy works. A handful of people (I know just one really) are so religiously against software ownership, copy protection, and threats of litigation against software pirates, that they vocally claim not to buy or use copyrighted or protected software. They have never organized a successful boycott; don't bother be intimidated by their tactics. Most Macintosh users are adults who paid $2K+ for a computer system. The ones I know are mostly hackers who routinely trade copies of demo software - often beta test and generally unprotected. They consider it a matter of pride (or perhaps software business karma) to pay for software they really use, if they can afford it at all. $50 is 2% of the Mac investment, so most any Mac owner must admit he can afford it. Users - especially hackers and developers - must encourage one another to be clean about this, or we'll find that complex software rarely gets an adequate demo, because it has to be showcased in a hurry by an incompetent in some heinous software store. Such "protection" is counterproductive. If it does what you say, a product like Great Wave ConcertWare has already created the best good will through outperforming the competition and reasonable price. Foolish pricing is the root of piracy. For software intended for use in businesses, schools, or by youngsters (e.g. some game software), it's not as clear. Kids will be conscientious only if software directed at them is affordable even on kid budgets. But for products like ConcertWare, I don't see justification for institutionproofing or kidproofing. David L. Return-Path: <decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!nlil@uw-beaver.arpa> Received: from uw-beaver.arpa by SUMEX-AIM.ARPA with TCP; Mon 31 Dec 84 09:57:53-PST Received: by uw-beaver.arpa (4.42/2.5) id AA08306; Mon, 31 Dec 84 09:57:08 PST From: decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!nlil@uw-beaver.arpa Return-Path: <decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!nlil> Received: by decvax.UUCP (4.12/1.0) id AA16654; Mon, 31 Dec 84 12:24:14 est Received: by mcnc (4.12/4.7) id AA13672; Mon, 31 Dec 84 09:37:59 est Original-From: <ecsvax!nlil@mcnc> Message-Id: <8412311437.AA13672@mcnc> Date: 31 Dec 84 8:14:06-EST (Mon) Original-From: Larry Robinson <nlil@ecsvax> To: uw-beaver!info-mac Subject: Re: Music/Protection References: <313@uw-beaver> I vote for FreeWare. Quality software at a reasonable price, and no copy protection. All copy protection schemes that I have encountered so far have been circumvented with Copy II Mac. Thanks for the chance to express my opinion.