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From: rosenkra@hall.cray.com (Bill Rosenkranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Making Piracy work in your Favor
Message-ID: <3550@hall.cray.com>
Date: 1 Jul 89 17:13:33 GMT
References: <890625.11081288.023669@SFA.CP6> <975@ultb.UUCP>
Reply-To: rosenkra@hall.UUCP (Bill Rosenkranz)
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Mendota Heights, MN
Lines: 26


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there is no way to stop s/w piracy...


adding copy protection, dongles, serial numbers, etc does nothing. it only
aggrivates the people who actually BUY the s/w. anyone with a disassembler
and time can crack any scheme invented.

the solution, if you are a developer (like me) is to either accept this
fact and continue to produce mass-market s/w, hoping that you sell enough
to cover your costs (read: TIME) fast enough (before THEY get at it) or
switch your efforts to the commercial marketplace (the forture 1000 has
deep pockets if u really need to sue because of illegal copying/distribution).

why s/w is any different than any other product/commodity is totally beyond
me. they throw u in jail if you steal a car, but stealing software is (somehow)
acceptable (or at least difficult to prosecute).

there is a 3rd alternative: make software that requires a special h/w
device. then you are in the h/w biz and the software is a give-away :^).

bye-bye...

-bill
rosenkra@boston.cray.com