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From: sat@unicus.UUCP (S.A. Thurlow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Message-ID: <808@unicus.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 18-Jul-87 13:41:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: unicus.808
Posted: Sat Jul 18 13:41:32 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jul-87 00:52:33 EDT
References: <8707171737.AA01789@THYME.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: sat@unicus.UUCP (S.A. Thurlow)
Organization: Unicus Software Inc., Toronto, Ont.
Lines: 44

I think that we are having this debate at all shows that the computer
software industry has gotten its priorities all confused.

Firstly, we should remember that software companies exist to help users,
not the other way around.  Customers will not buy a product unless 
it helps to solve a problem.  By selling a package to a customer, a company is
helping him to solve problems more efficiently than he could otherwise.
By copy protecting software, a company is making the assumption that the
customer is an evil thing they harness for their benefit.  This is bad.
How many people go back for more abuse if they can avoid it?

Secondly, for any serious software, the "customers" will tend to be
corporations.  Corporations tend to like things like "site licenses" and
"support".  They like to manage their internal software distribution
and will tend to be responsible about controlling the illegal
copying problem.  Corporations would much rather pay real money for a
product and *know* that you will be there to help when there is a problem
rather than become dependent on something that is unsupported (like
an illegal copy of a program).  After all, what good is a productivity
enhancer if you can't use it?   Corporations also make nice big legal
targets, so it is not in their best interests to expose themselve by making
illegal copies of anything, software included.  Of course there will be the
occasional user who makes an illegal copy of a program he uses at the office 
to use at home.  But he generally makes up a small number compared to the
size of a corporate customer and would probably not buy the software anyway.
There is no excuse for copy protecting serious software.

In short, a company sells software to help others, and copy protection
generally strips reliability (what do I do if the disk dies, I lose the
gizmo, or the manual) from software and makes it a less attractive problem
solver.  I may just be naive, but I don't think so.  If a company tries to
help customers rather than inconvenience them, customers will remember and
back (that is why IBM is such a big name), especially if a solution works.

In case you're wondering, I am *NOT* a pirate.

Scott.

Disclaimer:  This is my opinion only.  My company may, or may not, share it.
-- 
Scott A. Thurlow					Unicus Corporation
InterNet:	sat@Unicus.COM				(on a good day)
UUCP:		{seismo!mentor,utzoo!utcsri}!unicus!sat	(on a bad day)
ARPA:		mnetor!unicus!sat@seismo.CSS.GOV	(on a REALLY bad day)