ejb@think.ARPA (Erik Bailey) (11/16/85)
I'm posting this for a friend : David Whitney DCW%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA -----------------------------Fold, Staple, mutilate------------------------ I think that Mr.Fernandez is absolutely right. There are better ways to defeat pirates than complex copy-protection. As he mentioned, the development of such protection takes a long time and is undoubtably very expensive. One of the best alternatives to protection is mentioned in his final paragraphs. Although a good idea, it can be defeated in the same way any other protection can be defeated. Everyone has been trying to protect their software with protection software. A better approach is hardware or large manuals. In the case of the Mac, requiring special hardware for protection can be complicated to accomplish. But, if the program is just too hard to 'figure out', a manual is obviously needed. If that manual is too expensive for the pirate to Xerox (about 10 cents a page) then he can't re-sell copies of the program at discounts. If he can't sell at a discount, people won't bother buying from him. This method works, of course, only if the company producing the software can print the manuals at a cost of less than 10 cents a page. This might be possible only in the case of Jazz, where a large company is selling many thousands of copies and the manuals are printed at a reduced 'bulk' rate. Although copy-protection in one form or another can be a hassle to the users, I believe that it is a right of the company to protect themselves. I think that we the users will have to consult someday with the companies in order to negotiate a method of copy-protection that is useful to the software house, yet not a detriment to the user. David Whitney (DCW%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA) -----------------------------------Unfold, Unstaple, Unmutilate--------- -- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- -_- Erik Bailey -- 7 Oak Knoll (USENET courtesy of ihnp4!godot!ejb Arlington, MA 02174 Thinking Machines Corp. ejb@think.com.arpa (617) 643-0732 Cambridge, MA) "I was walking in a forest one day and a tree fell in front of me, and I didn't hear it."