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From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: boycott it!
Message-ID: <1121@killer.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 02:36:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: killer.1121
Posted: Fri Jul 10 02:36:35 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 18:02:05 EDT
References: <2470@husc6.UUCP>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 48

in article <2470@husc6.UUCP>, hadeishi@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (mitsuharu hadeishi) says:
> 
> In article <4259@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) writes:
>>Very small? Gee, that's odd. As long as I avoid companies that sell
>>games as the bulk of their products, I don't have problems with things
>>being copy protected. But I tend to stay with programmers & CLI tools,
>>and not business applications and games.
> 
> 	That's fine for you (and me) Mike, but if you are interested
> in getting software out to the masses, which I am, then I'm afraid
> we're all going to have to live with copy protection.  

I must agree that copy protection IS necessary for consumer software.
HOWEVER, in most instances of non-trivial software, disk-based copy protection
or "keyword"-type copy protection is not necessary. Any software package with
an 80 page or larger manual will be, via the vagarities of the software
pirating industry, "protected" (assuming that the manual actually is necessary
for the operation of the program, and isn't just "glitz"). Most people, when
they want to copy something, are quite discouraged to find out they'll have to
place each and every one of these little sheets of paper on a little glass
plate and feed nickels to it for half a day (assuming, of course, you're not
the print shop manager -- if you are, you just plunk it into the automagical
document feeder, and whiz away!).

The most popular BBS program for the Commodore 64 is named "C-NET". I know of
at least 30 C-NET boards in Houston, Texas. Maybe FIVE of them are legal. This
is how bad things are in the consumer market, where the big volume is -- for
every 5 you sell, you have 30 pirated.

How effective is manual-based protection? VERY. I know of several pirated
copies of Bayou Telecommunication's latest product in Houston. Legal ICE
owners have reported that they get calls from users who ask them "for help
setting up the program". You see, there's several charts in the manual, where
you must read numbers from for various modem types (heheh)....... anyhow, NONE
of those pirated copies have yet to appear on the carrier waves, and probably
won't until some kid gets the bright idea of getting the whole gang together
for $5 apiece and going into the manual-copying business.... which I suspect
they'll tire of immediately (nothing more fickle than a kid -- sitting in
front of a copying machine feeding nickles into the thing is enough to get
ANYONE impatient, much less a 15 year old!).

I agree that programming tools should not be copy protected. But consumer
software and games are a different story indeed.
--
Eric Green   elg%usl.CSNET     CS student, University of SW Louisiana
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg      Apprentice Haquer, Bayou Telecommunications
Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191      BBS phone #: 318-984-3854  300/1200 baud
Lafayette, LA 70509            I disclaim my existence, and yours, too.