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From: rusty@vertigo.UUCP (M.W.HADDOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Message-ID: <146@vertigo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 13:19:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: vertigo.146
Posted: Fri Jul 24 13:19:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 16:52:03 EDT
References: <197@dana.UUCP>
Reply-To: rusty@vertigo.UUCP (91341-M.W.HADDOCK)
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products Laboratories
Lines: 122
Summary: All software is not sold thru dealers....

In article <197@dana.UUCP> rap@dana.UUCP writes:
>Re copy protection ... I don't know how others would feel about this,
>but if a company might institute something like "dealer must customize
>the product on purchase" things might be easier for the customer.

Since when are department stores and discount houses (Federated and the
like on which I base most of this "discussion"), concerned about making
life easier for their customers?  They're there to pump as much stuff
out that door as they can.  If they can't do this with [a company's]
software product they'll drop it like a hot rock and find other software
to sell that demands less of a hassle to peddle.

In the situation like the Amiga, I would think that sales are everything
if this machine is to survive past the next coupla years.  You don't
wanna get your distributors,wholesalers,retailerss P-O'ed at yo, now
do you?

>For example, lets say there is a copy-protected version of a disk
>sent out to a dealer who prefers copy protection, along with his
>orders of real honest-to-goodness program disks, each missing
>a critical file, that is, the program itself (data files, overlays
>or whatever, are already on this non copy protected disk).
>
>The customer hands over his Visa, M/C, Amex or check, and the dealer
>runs the personalization program that encodes this data with the customer's
>name into something that causes this info to appear onscreen each time
>the program is booted or packed into an on-the-fly-created requester
>in response to an "about-this-program" request.

This is far too much to expect for anything but a small dealer.
This will also ALWAYS require hardware the appropriate h/w around
with which to do this sorta thing.  This will be a definite bite
in the you-know-what for s/w only stores/distributors.

>
>The personalization file is written to the non copy protected disk,
>completing the product.    ...
>
>Same could go for mail order sales.  Yes it requires more work, but
>maybe it'd be a little better for all concerned?
>

.... and I suspect too much work for the differential in sales it
``may'' foster.  I believe that the major or people buying software
nowadays doesn't give too much of a hoot about copy protection unless
it prevents him/her from getting work/play done.  This type of person
GENERAL is the type that buys the computer as an appliance and not
something to play with 'til the wee hours of the following morning...
say until around noon or so. :-)

Considering the salespeople I've encountered in my life so far,
I feel that very few of them could handle inserting a disk into
an Amiga to "complete a product" much less turning the machine on!
And to do this during a Christmas shopping rush?   Right....

And I'm sure the mail order people will wanna take the time, slow
output (unless they can afford or want to hire still more people)
just to personalize software.

	>
	>Just a thought.
	>

Same here too and it's just past noon. :-)

	>Rob Peck		...ihnp4!hplabs!dana!rap

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Summary: 
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References: <207@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM> <4386@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <197@dana.UUCP>
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In article <197@dana.UUCP> rap@dana.UUCP writes:
>Re copy protection ... I don't know how others would feel about this,
>but if a company might institute something like "dealer must customize
>the product on purchase" things might be easier for the customer.
>
>For example, lets say there is a copy-protected version of a disk
>sent out to a dealer who prefers copy protection, along with his
>orders of real honest-to-goodness program disks, each missing
>a critical file, that is, the program itself (data files, overlays
>or whatever, are already on this non copy protected disk).
>
>The customer hands over his Visa, M/C, Amex or check, and the dealer
>runs the personalization program that encodes this data with the customer's
>name into something that causes this info to appear onscreen each time
>the program is booted or packed into an on-the-fly-created requester
>in response to an "about-this-program" request.
>
>The personalization file is written to the non copy protected disk,
>completing the product.  Now if the user chooses, he/she can make
>as many backups as desired.  If they give it away to all of their
>friends, they also give away their personal charge information,
>which isn't exactly a good idea.  The pirate would still find a
>way to locate and defeat this method, but it could at least
>make the casual giver-of-software think twice about what was
>being given away (besides the copy-rights of the originator, that is).
>
>Same could go for mail order sales.  Yes it requires more work, but
>maybe it'd be a little better for all concerned?
>
>
>Just a thought.
>
>Rob Peck		...ihnp4!hplabs!dana!rap

	Rusty Haddock
	AT&T Consumer Products Laboratories
	Holmdel, New Joysey
	{ihnp4,cbosgd,rutgers!moss}!vertigo!rusty
-- 
			Rusty Haddock
			AT&T Consumer Products Laboratories
			Holmdel, New Joysey
			{ihnp4,cbosgd,rutgers!moss}!vertigo!rusty