pollack@uicsl.UUCP (04/27/84)
#N:uicsl:7000065:000:4328 uicsl!pollack Apr 27 02:22:00 1984 (:- In the search for AI, Struggle is Continous, Victory is Certain -:) THE INTERNATIONAL VALUE OF INFORMATION Say you are going to Canada with your portable computer and the original and 2 backup copies of your favorite overpriced software. Would you want to pay duty on the "retail value" of each copy of the program? Luckily, you don't have to. In a customs agreement between US and Canada, Software can be declared for the value of the magnetic media. Even the most uprightious anti-pirate would shudder at paying duty on three copies of Dbase-II. The court case resolving the international value of information, as related to me by Paul Martin, was settled by a case of chick-sexing. Seems a Canadian chicken farmer one day loaded two trucks full of chicks, drove them to northern California, where the best chicken-sexers in the world quickly sex your chicks for a penny a head, so you can subsequently drown the males. On his way back to British Columbia, he was stopped by customs, who didn't believe his story that these two trucks were the same Canadian chicks declared when he "went for a drive". "Ah, but you see, officer, I left with two trucks of androgynous chicks. Now the boys are in one truck and the girls are in another!" They attempted to hit him with the duty for two full chick trucks, and eventual appeals up the court system established the nil value of information. WHAT IS THE VALUE OF SOFTWARE? Now if you don't think you should pay duty for carrying software across borders, how much is it really worth? WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SOFTWARE PIRACY Piracy is a silly word for "grassroots software distribution." If you sell someone something, the property changes hands and the new owner is free to dispose of the property as she or he sees fit. How many computer dealers do you know who don't throw in illegal extras? How many members of computer clubs morally abstain from trading? And how many of the rare moral dealers and hobbyists would volunteer to pay software duty? Real Software Piracy would be the invasion of, say, Microsoft's mainframe, stealing the source to their unannounced super-product, and scrozzling all their hard disks! Only BlueBeard or Captain Krunch would resort to this, and only if they were planning to run for president! Real Software Piracy is an operating system which loses 4 hours of my time by not updating the disk directories before a crash! YOU ASKED FOR SOLUTIONS? 1. Sell single piece of software + multiple copies of documentation to computer dealers for lots of money -- then the dealer can set his own price based on demand. To say that the free enterprise system is working when WordStar still costs 350, even after the machines for mass production have been depreciated is a big joke. 2. "Rental Software" (This is how I would do it if I weren't afraid that becoming an entrepeneur would soil my soul.) Every 90 days, based on the calendar built in to many computers, or based on 100 passes through the rented code, a message appears saying: Please call 800-abc-defg Have your MC/VISA ready Present this number: 3289230939 (random encryption key) Enter response code: The operator who accepts your call bills your chargecard for $10 dollars, and gives you the proper response. He may also tell you of other available products or revisions. The disk upon which the software is written has been modified not to run until the response code is entered, which, of course could be any length of time. The advantage is, like the distribution scheme of the programmer's guild, it enjoys being "pirated", but, unlike the guild's approach, it is painlessly enforceable. Now, of course, any hacker worth her salt could easily factor small prime numbers, or disassemble and reassemble the code, or step past the roadblock with DDT, or make lots of backups (for the loop-count version, but why would she bother circumventing such a small rental fee? THE MORAL IS No piracy protection scheme can be both totally secure and mass marketed. Better to reward the natural tendencies of users and cooperatively coerce them into rewarding you in turn. Jordan Pollack Urbana, Illinois pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!pollack P.S. Since the preceding diatribe borders on the anarchal, remember - "Steal My Ideas but Mention My Name."
mmr@utmbvax.UUCP (Mike Rubenstein) (04/28/84)
> Now if you don't think you should pay duty for carrying software across > borders, how much is it really worth? What do tax laws have to do with value? I've lived in several states in which there is no sales tax on food. I've not heard anyone claim that this was evidence that food has no value. > Piracy is a silly word for "grassroots software distribution." Piracy is a silly word for theft. > To say that the free enterprise system is working when WordStar still costs > 350, even after the machines for mass production have been depreciated is > a big joke. I see no evident that the free enterprise system isn't working here. If just one or two of the people who claim that software is over priced would produce an alternative at a low price, everyone would be happy and they'd make a fortune. On second thought, I don't like that last argument. Software being overpriced has nothing to do with it. If any product -- automobiles, televisions, software, whatever -- is overpriced, the proper action is to not buy it. (Yes, I'd make some exception to that statement in the case of products which are controled by a monopoly or cartel, but even there, the answer is not theft. In any case, I've heard no evidence that software falls into that category. In fact, producing software seems to be one of the easiest businesses to get into.) -- Mike Rubenstein, OACB, UT Medical Branch, Galveston TX 77550