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From: rap@dana.UUCP (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Message-ID: <197@dana.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 17:07:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: dana.197
Posted: Wed Jul 22 17:07:45 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 01:50:46 EDT
References: <207@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM> <4386@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 32
Summary: personalization is another way?

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