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From: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: software piracy/copy protection
Message-ID: <1223@spice.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 03:49:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.1223
Posted: Tue Jun 30 03:49:32 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 20:22:12 EDT
Reply-To: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 52

Keywords:


richc@madvax.UUCP (Rich Commins) writes:

> Some copy protection is worse than others, but for different reasons. 
> 	  I HATE ALL COPY PROTECTION OF ANY KIND!

I echo your sentiments.  How are you going to play that whizzy game
once you misplace the instruction manual?  Inconvenient at the very
least.  I would think losing the instruction manual can be as likely
as a media error, given your level of organization.

My housemate purchased "Little Computer People" from Activision, to
play on my Amiga.  This game is copy protected.  It also WRITES TO THE
MASTER DISK!  This is only begging for some catastrophe to occur.
Sure enough, a not-so computer literate friend of mine reset the
machine when the game was writing to the disk.  Boom.  I can't see how
Activision can be so irresponsible about copy protection, especially
with a product that has such a large audience of computer neophytes
(children in particular).  If the software wasn't protected, DiskSalv
or DiskDoctor might have fixed the problem (they don't -- I tried them
on a Marauder-II copy of the disk after the catastrophe occurred).  I
can't recommend that anyone purchase software from Activision with
such an attitude towards copy protection. 

> If the software that is being sold was of better quality I think their
> would be less stealing of software.  I've seen better public domain
> software, than some of the stuff being sold.  

which is why I rely on PA software for most of my Amiga computing
needs.  I'm not new to the world of piracy; I used to own an Atari
800, notorious for the amount of piracy among its owners.  Every Atari
BBS I called was into some form of piracy or another.  Some sysops
even had their software collection as an option on the main menu, so
you could see what to trade.  Most of these people pirated software
because it wasn't worth the price it was selling for.

Perhaps when software houses realize that $40 is a ludicrous price for
a piece of game software, less software theft will occur.  I usually
get bored of even the best games after a few weeks (my attention span
record was with Miner 2049'er).  I can buy about three CD's or ten
books with the same money, and I'll get more, longer-lasting enjoyment
out of them.  Considering a musical artist or an author can put at
least as much work into an album or a book as a software author, I
think the price scale is a bit stilted.

				--M


-- 

Mike Portuesi / Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department
ARPA:	mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu	UUCP: {backbone-site}!spice.cs.cmu.edu!mjp
BITNET:	rainwalker@drycas (a uVax-1 run by CMU Computer Club...tons o' fun)