Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!coy From: coy@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stephen B Coy) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Piracy Message-ID: <1350@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 16:11:52 EDT Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.1350 Posted: Thu Jul 23 16:11:52 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 12:59:13 EDT Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA Lines: 40 I think this problem is being looked at the wrong way. The problem as I see it is that illegal software copying is looked upon as a hobby when in reality it is theft. Every pirate knows what he(she) is doing is not legal. They also know that nobody is going to do anything about it. Any copy protection scheme you come up with will be broken. The harder you make it to break the more pride a pirate will have in distributing a demonstration of his talents. Protection is a no win situation in this case because as the schemes get more complex the problems for legitimate users also rise which is not a good thing for sales. And sales lost to pirates look exactly like sales lost to annoyed customers when your ledger is openned. So what solutions are there? I see two goals that I think will help the software industry and their customers. 1) Software publishers must provide something "extra" for legal owners. This can either be in the form of updates, support, or materials that just cannot be duplicated with a Xerox(tm) machine. Infocom is a good example of this. On the Apple ][ their copy protection could be broken using the standard disk copy program that comes with every Apple but all the neat extras packaged with the adventures made buying the games much more attractive that pirating. Some of the extras where also required to get clues for the game. This is just a very subtle form of keyword in manual type protection but since it is a part of the game the annoyance doesn't exist. 2) The public must be educated about the crime of software piracy. I think the number of pirate BBS's would dwindle quite rapidly if the sysops knew that getting caught would result in confiscation of computing equipment, ~$10,000 fine, and maybe a few hundred hours of community service work. For this to work we would also have to have some branch of law enforcement taking this seriously. Right now we have local officials saying its an FBI problem and the FBI saying its too small to mess with and the pirates laughing at everybody. Maybe we can fight back by calling up every pirate BBS we can find and uploading as much crap as possible. Core dumps would be nice. :-) Enough ranting for now. comp.piracy anyone? Stephen Coy uw-beaver!ssc-vax!coy "Charlie don't surf!"