liberte@uiucdcsm.cs.uiuc.edu (06/16/88)
Back when friends and relatives where into Amway and similar schemes, I thought a similar scheme for selling software (and other copyable products) might be possible. What would happen if the initial purchasers of a product at a higher price were essentially investors? The initial purchasers would get a kickback proportional to future sales at lower prices. Intermediate purcharers would also get a smaller kickback. Eventually the cost of the product would be so low that purchasing a legal copy is a better deal than obtaining an illegal copy. With this scheme, it would be to the purchasers' benefit to not copy the product because they would be contributing to the loss of their return on investment. The securities and exchange hassles could kill this scheme though. Dan LaLiberte uiucdcs!liberte liberte@cs.uiuc.edu liberte%a.cs.uiuc.edu@uiucvmd.bitnet