bro@RICE.ARPA (Doug Monk) (10/10/85)
In response to the suggestion that Microsoft's protection scheme that oh-so cleverly prints: > Internal Security Violation > The tree of evil bears bitter fruit > Crime does not pay > The Shadow knows > > And finally the punchline: "Trashing Program Disk." and either does or does not trash the disk as it promises, I should point out that the standard legal disclaimer that comes with almost all software says that the manufacturer and/or distributor of the software cannot be held liable in any way for virtually ANYTHING that goes wrong, including doom, despair or agony of any kind. Over on the info-amiga list, someone mentioned that they had tried the IBM-emulator and had this same message appear ( for a legal copy of Microsoft Word, I believe ) and had yanked the disk from the drive before it could carry out the threat. Given that at any particular moment, I might want to use a program for which I paid good money on any number of look-alike machines or other configurations, I would have to say: ***FLAME ON*** DON'T BUY DISKS THAT ARE PROTECTED IN THIS "RETRIBUTIVE" FASHION!!! ***FLAME OFF*** If it refuses to boot or execute, I can live with that. I'll take it back to the dealer and get a refund. That much of a warranty is required by law, and no disclaimer on the package can get around it. In point of fact, I think that this kind of disclaimer should be tested in court, given the kind of behavior described above. Either: the message is an empty threat, in which case I think people with valid copies have a right to sue for unnecessary emotional distress, or the message means what it says, and the disk is formatted or otherwise "trashed" in short order, in which case the valid owner is owed at the very least reimbursement for the time it takes him to get another copy from the dealer or Microsoft. Of course, REAL pirates deserve what happens to them, but we are talking about valid users of paid software. Remember this when you get out in the real world and do this yourself.
rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.) (10/15/85)
In article <2027@brl-tgr.ARPA> bro@RICE.ARPA (Doug Monk) writes: >In response to the suggestion that Microsoft's protection scheme that oh-so >cleverly prints: > >> Internal Security Violation >> The tree of evil bears bitter fruit >> Crime does not pay >> The Shadow knows >> >> And finally the punchline: "Trashing Program Disk." > . . >***FLAME ON*** >DON'T BUY DISKS THAT ARE PROTECTED IN THIS "RETRIBUTIVE" FASHION!!! >***FLAME OFF*** Agree Fully!!!!!!!!! (But how do you know?) >Of course, REAL pirates deserve what happens to them, but we are talking >about valid users of paid software. I suspect disk trashing is both morally and legally equivalent to setting a "man trap" against tresspassers. If you maliciously set a trap to damage others, you will (under common law) be liable for those damages, even if they were tresspassing when the damage was done. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and may not be correct) It seems to me that the position of common law is that even REAL pirates don't deserve this sort of trap. And then, what about the guy who takes a copy of a piece of software to try it out? I personally don't feel this is wrong (as opposed to legal/illegal), but that guy might unwittingly wind up with his hard disk trashed. The use of a disk trasher is at best a grossly irresponsible act and at worst criminally negligent. It is upsetting to see such action, even if only a threat, from a large, presumably respectable corporation like Microsoft. Rick Sellens UUCP: watmath!watdcsu!rsellens CSNET: rsellens%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: rsellens%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Physical: 372A Churchill Court, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 6B4
ritzenth@bgsuvax.UUCP (Philip Ritzenthaler) (10/17/85)
If I remember correctly, Microsoft is on this net. Does anyone from Microsoft
wish to respond to this?
Hello? Is anyone from Microsoft out there?
--
"Don't blame me, I'm only the keyboard man . . . "
Phil Ritzenthaler |
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ARPA : ritzenth%bgsu.csnet@csnet-relay
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