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From: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: With friends like these....
Message-ID: <227@mcdsun.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 12:30:45 EST
Article-I.D.: mcdsun.227
Posted: Tue Jan  6 12:30:45 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Jan-87 21:38:26 EST
References: <1112@spice.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division
Lines: 62

In article <1112@spice.cs.cmu.edu> mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes:
>When is owning an Amiga not fun?  When you encounter the following
>scenario:
> [detailed description of Mike's frustrating experience deleted -- fnf]

Wow, I hope most people are able to find copies of the disks without having
to go through that kind of run-around.  At least you didn't drive all
over the place to boot!

>					They said that I could
>copy the disks in-store for a fee of $3 per disk NOT COUNTING media,
>which I had to purchase myself.

Copying 50 or so disks ties up a machine for quite a while (believe me,
I know :-), so in principle, it doesn't sound unreasonable to me
for a store to charge a "machine rental fee" for arbitrary people
wandering in off the street (as opposed to their regular customers).
However, most stores are perfectly satisfied to just sell you the disks
and point you towards a machine.  If you walk in the door with a box
full of blanks they might not be so cooperative though.  I must admit
$3 per disk sounds kind of steep since it is your time and materials.

>			  They also told me they sent all their
>disks back to their central store in Livonia for updating (since the
>contents of the disks do not change, I silently wondered to myself
>why this was necessary).

Updating!!!  I have a firm policy of not changing disks once they are
released.  If anyone is adding material to, or deleting material from,
any of my disks and then passing them on as official copies I would
definitely want to know about it.  I had one scare about 6 months ago
when a rather irate gentleman called and wanted to know why I was 
distributing copies of his commercial product on my disks.  I had
never heard of him or his product.  Turns out a computer dealer
had "reorganized" some of my disks to produce his own library, and
this gentleman's product somehow ended up on one of them.  The matter
was resolved amicably for everyone concerned.

>	1) Where do these people get off restricting access and
>charging fees for access to freely redistributable software?  Can they
>legally do this?  For the record, Micro World's rental club requires a
>$19.95 fee to join (free if you buy your machine from them) plus a
>$200 security deposit.  The rental fee is 25% of purchase price,
>applicable toward purchase should you opt to buy it.  I would be
>interested in hearing Fred Fish's word on this issue.  Fred, are you
>listening?

There are quite a few user groups that charge small fees for mail-ordered
copies of their library disks, and a few that do the same for disks
copied at their meetings.  I do not feel "ripped-off" or taken advantage
of by this practice, as in most cases, any small profit generally goes
to help fund other activities and promote the Amiga.  The same goes
for magazines like Amazing Computing that make the disks available for
their readers.  I think the law of supply and demand will probably 
prevent profiteering, for the most part.

-Fred
-- 
===========================================================================
Fred Fish  Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282  USA
{seismo!noao!mcdsun,hplabs!well}!fnf    (602) 438-5976
===========================================================================