Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Software piracy
Message-ID: <1990Jun17.173352.2234@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: 17 Jun 90 17:33:52 GMT
References: <56447.2673B586@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG>
Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System)
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
Lines: 42

In Chuck.Arelei@f31.n343.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Chuck Arelei) writes:
> "The best way to prevent illegal software piracy is to lower the
> softwares' prices, you hear me out there? Mr. Adobe & Mr. Letraset?"

	In my experience, piracy and price have little relation.  In
general, people who don't have any compunction about pirating software are
just as happy pirating a $400 program as they are pirating a $100 one.
This is, of course, a broad generalization, and I'm sure for every example
I can find to back up my assertion, you can find a counterexample.

	My gut feeling is that one good way to cut down on pirating is to
require the use of an installer program which personalizes the original copy
on the distribution diskette so that "registered to foo" is boldly displayed
on the startup screen on every copy made.  It won't actually prevent anybody
from making pirate copies, but it is a subtle reminder.  At least in a campus
(industial or academic) setting, it will make it easier for tech support
people to spot pirate copies when providing on-location help.  Of course, to
do this requires that you insert your original disk in your machine with the
write-protect tab in the "writable" position, which is clearly not desirable,
leaving you with a dilema that I don't know the answer to.

	Another thing which would make it easier for large sites to prevent
internal pirating (i.e. a situation where administration/management is
desirious of obeying the copyright rules but individials are not) would be to
have sensible site-license agreements.  To take a case in point, we probably
have about 15 or so Macs in our organization, with probably another 10 or so
in employee's homes.  I would guess that for typical popular programs (say
MS-Word, Cricket Graph, or Dreams) at least half the copies are hot.
Management has expressed a (perhaps reluctant) willingness to negotiate site
licenses with the suppliers of these programs, but in all cases, site
licenses are either unavailable, or the cost is so prohibitive as to make it
totally out of the question.  Sometimes there are, for example, quantity 10
discounts which are attractive compared to quantity 1 list prices, but worse
than quantity 1 pricing from MacConnection.  Faced with economics like that,
management declines to negotiate a site license, and individuals continue to
make pirate copies (40% off at MacConnection may be a good deal, but 100% in
the next office is even better).
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"Arcane?  Did you say arcane?  It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"