Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon From: dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga pirating... Message-ID: <8812062316.AA06717@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 6 Dec 88 23:16:36 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 59 :Lately I've been seeing a lot of writing about copying software on the :Amiga, and quite frankly I'm getting worried. I just recently sold my :Atari ST, and one of the major reasons was because of the amount of :pirating that is done on that computer. I'm part of a developers group :and we recently switched to programming for the Amiga. Is the pirating :problem bad on the Amy? I've seen the ST fizzle slowly as the pirate :BBS's added HD's. Has this recent trend snuck into the Amiga community? :One that seemed more serious than that? There is pirating on every computer. I like to think that, due to the type of the majority of people who bought the original Amiga's and those who are now buying Amiga's, there is more responsibility relative to other microcomputers (IBM-PC's, Apple II's, and, sadly, the new Atari's). It is difficult for professional pirates to gain a base in the Amiga community when their prospective clients are more likely to turn them in. I would be stupid to say that pirating doesn't exist on the Amiga, and I for one do not underestimate pirates as most corporations do. On this group, except for one poor high school student many months ago who didn't realize who he was talking to, there are no professional pirates in active discussion. All of the discussion on copying disks relates to the following points: (1) disk based copyprotection, especially when the disk gets written to, usually destroys the disk and makes the game unusable after a period of time. (2) Honest people are not allowed to make backups, or are so limited that even being allowed a single backup is useless. (3) In many cases it is not possible to put the game on one's HD. (This is BIG). On a related topic, nobody likes a game which takes over the entire machine. Most commercial games do this, which is utterly useless to many of us who want to do other things at the same time. This is a relatively new concept due to the multi-tasking nature of the Amiga. All of this also pertains to commercial software (non-games) but to a lesser extent. Fortunetly, there are many PD, Freeware, and Shareware games out there that serve to give the professional companies notice that their methods of protection and philosophy of machine are outdated. My favorites are: Larn Asteriods Amoeba I have other favorites but I am thinking fast now and haven't the time to remember them (ha). The three above are very well written, do not take over the machine, do not crash the machine, have no copy protection (of course, being PD/Fw/Sw), can be installed on one's HD, and do not make tacit assumptions as to the configuration of the machine. So what you will have here often are a lot of flames directed towards software companies for being idiots in their schemes. -Matt