vishniac@wanginst.UUCP (Ephraim Vishniac) (12/02/85)
Yesterday, I bought a copy of "Pinball Construction Set" by Bill Budge. Unlike some companies, Electronic Arts does not impose any license or usage restrictions on the user. Instead, Apple does: "Macintosh System Software are copyrighted programs of Apple Computer, Inc. licensed to Electronic Arts to distribute only in combination with Deluxe Music Construction Set. Apple Software shall not be copied onto another diskette (except for archive purposes) or into memory unless as part of the execution of Deluxe Music Construction Set. When Deluxe Music Construction Set has completed execution Apple Software shall not be used by any other program." Ignoring the obvious error (that the Mac system is licensed for use with a program I don't have instead of the one I bought), this is still mind- boggling. If I move another program onto the PCS diskette and run it, I'm violating Apple's rights? If I run a program from another diskette, but that diskette doesn't have a system file, Apple can sue me? If I fail to reboot my Mac after running PCS (because INIT's hang around in memory) Apple will haul me into court? Too bad net.bizarre isn't with us any more... So far as I can see, the system and finder are just the plain old system and finder. They are indistinguishable from the system and finder that your local Apple dealer will *give* you, without restriction, if you bring in a blank diskette. Anyone from Apple or Electronic Arts care to comment? -- Ephraim Vishniac [apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!vishniac vishniac%Wang-Inst@Csnet-Relay
gus@Shasta.ARPA (12/03/85)
> Yesterday, I bought a copy of "Pinball Construction Set" by Bill Budge. > Unlike some companies, Electronic Arts does not impose any license or > usage restrictions on the user. Instead, Apple does: > Yes, I noticed this weird statement when I bought a copy of PCS a few months ago. I should also add to your comment that the documentation suggests how to use PCS with switcher!!! Now while this can be considered 'Apple software,' it is certainly not that 'Apple software' that came on the PCS disk. I mulled over this one for a while and finally came to the conclusion that there IS a 'legal' way to use PCS with MacPaint and Switcher. Create a system disk with MacPaint and Switcher. Boot from this disk in drive 1. Bring up Switcher and MacPaint. Bring up PCS in drive 2. Use the remaining space in drive 1 for file storage. In this configuration, you always use 'your' system, because switcher locks that down to drive 1. There is no provision in the restriction for using some other system with PCS. Seriously, folks. I think that this was an honest slip of the pen on the part of Electronic Arts. The copy protection system, however, which doesn't seem to do much anymore other than make the program incompatible with the Mac XL and slow down boot up significantly is, however, very deliberate. I found that this program causes the Mac XL to automatically reboot upon launch. When I removed part of the protection system, (The part that actually chaecks for a bad sector on the disk) the program worked PERFECTLY!!! I still havn't gotten around to removing the rest (the part that decodes each of the code segments) but I strongly believe that doing so would provide a 10-50% decrease in segment loading time. Note that their Deluxe Music Construction Set has an almost identical protection system. Although I would never expect this program to work on an XL, I would expect EA to realize that any new protection system, no matter how sophisticated, will only stand for at most about a month before it is defeated and rendered simply a hinderence. Gus Fernandez
tim@ISM780C.UUCP (Tim Smith) (12/07/85)
Any hints on how to find the copy protection in Deluxe Music Contruction Set? I haven't had time to seriously attack with MacNosy. -- Tim Smith sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim ^ ^-- Not ISM780C, ignore the header!