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From: cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: boycott it!
Message-ID: <22939@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 8-Jul-87 14:13:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.22939
Posted: Wed Jul  8 14:13:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 14:10:38 EDT
References: <4826@sgi.SGI.COM> <4238@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 29
Keywords: software terrorism, copy protection, South Africa

[Whew! Lots of heat, some info, and mucho smoke and opinion]

I try to keep out of the copy protection debate, primarily because I can 
argue it from both sides. Either way someone, the manufacturer or the user
thinks they are getting screwed. But my one point that I try to get across
that no one has brought up yet, and I think is more important for a new 
machine like the Amiga is this :

    One hopes that by Christmas there will be twice as many non-technical
people using the Amiga as there are now. These people will buy software and
will inevitably get copy protected software. When the copy protection is
done poorly (as in the case of MicroProse's Silent Service) the program will
break. What happens next is the sad part, the user BLAMES THE AMIGA! Yes,
thats right, the user say's "This stupid machine can't even run a program
three times without corrupting a disk!" Which is TOTALLY UNTRUE. And I 
personally feel that this is an unforgivable sin. Here a perfectly wonderful
machine is denigrated because some copy protection worked to well, (it made
the disk unreadable after all, and thus hard to copy). I have heard stories
where naive customers bring back machines because there machine can't make
a copy of their DPaint disk but their friend copies his copy all the time.
(You see they don't know about the extra $20 for the unprotected version).
Anyway, the bottom line is this. When copy protection makes an otherwise
useful program unreliable the Naive user blames the machine not the software.
This is a bad thing.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.