Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!oliveb!mipos3!td2cad!jmarek
From: jmarek@td2cad.intel.com (John Marek)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Making Piracy work in your Favor
Message-ID: <2028@td2cad.intel.com>
Date: 20 Jun 89 12:38:52 GMT
References: <4332@druhi.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: jmarek@td2cad.UUCP (John Marek)
Organization: Intel TD, Santa Clara CA
Lines: 32

In article <4332@druhi.ATT.COM> terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE) writes:

>How to exploit piracy to your advantage:

>1.[...]
>	If you're providing timely updates, the pirate is likely to
>	be requesting support on an out-of-date version of the program.  
>	Sell the caller the new version!

I agree with most of this post, but one should not assume that a request for 
support on an old version means pirating.  I almost got burned by Federated 
selling me a very old version of a software package ... the old version had 
lots of bugs.  I finally called the manufacturer who promptly sent out a new
diskette with the most recent version.  (I now highly recommend Sonus 
SuperScore SST).  

>2.	In the program's documentation, give ordering information, and
>	list the advantages of purchasing the product.  If a pirate
>	is convinced, you may get an order.

A key point is also to produce high quality documentation.  Don't distribute a
draft-quality document with an expensive software package.  Also, if it's 
reasonable, put color into your document to make it hard to reproduce.  Owners
of pirated software will probably find they need complete documentation to 
truly take advantage of a software package.


-- 
     John Marek                                     jmarek@td2cad.intel.com
             "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

     Any opinions in the above text are my own but feel welcome to use them.