cem@intelca.UUCP (Chuck McManis) (12/11/84)
> The recent case of a major company being taken to court concerning the >illegal copying of software packages by employees caused me to consider the >long-term consequences. > As more and more instances like this occur, companies will try harder >and harder to prevent their employees from making illegal copies. > However, considering the ease of copying (in most cases), the rapidly >growing use of "personal computers," and the high cost of (some) software, >it will be extremely difficult to prevent illegal copying. At best, purchases >of a sophisticated (read "high priced") program will be rare, and access to it >will be tightly controlled: The more expensive the software, the higher the >temptation for pirating, and therefore the higher the "risk". > The time will come when a company purchase of a $5000.00 package will be >next to impossible. Only the inexpensive packages will be purchased - those >which a departmental budget will allow "n" copies to be bought. The expensive >programs simply won't be bought, the "risk" will be too great. > In turn, the development of low-volume, high-cost software will cease. >Only high-volume, low-cost products will be developed. This will require new >levels of development efficiency to be found. Or the time will come when XYZ software will realize that they can either sell a corporate license for $X where X is sufficiently large, or not sell to big business. They still make money on the documentation sold and usually make money on the software. (After all the corporation is picking up the cost of disk duplication.) Its the guys that won't settle for a mutually agreed upon rate for ALL of the PCs in a shop that bother me. Of course evolution indicates that these people will find they can't sell to corporations, lose capitol, file for Chap 11 etc, etc until only the smart ones are left. It can be a pain though. --Chuck -- - - - D I S C L A I M E R - - - {ihnp4,fortune}!dual\ All opinions expressed herein are my {qantel,idi}-> !intelca!cem own and not those of my employer, my {ucbvax,hao}!hplabs/ friends, or my avocado plant. :-}