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From: FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Pirates and swapware
Message-ID: <31565@cup.portal.com>
Date: 9 Jul 90 08:10:34 GMT
References: <2318@corpane.UUCP> <8584@cognos.UUCP> <50107@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
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There are two classes of pirates in this discussion (well, at least two)
and people seem to mix them up while talking about them.  One type
is the mystical 'cracker' pirate who is reputed to demolish any and all
types of protection without pausing, slowing down, or breaking into
a sweat, and who then casts the resulting program (sans protection) to
the winds (well, onto the ring of pirate BBS that the whole world taps
into) resulting in every other person getting an illegal copy of the 
program.  The other type of pirate is everybody else who uses a copy
without paying for it, gets a copy without paying for it, or uses a 
purchased copy on more than one CPU (depending on your exact definition).

Now in my mind the first pirate is a a pest when he cracks the protection
and a criminal as soon as he gives away or sells the first copy.  No
problem, he is a thief and is very destructive.
But the second pirate is more difficult to define.  In some cases
I would not agree he is a thief, in others I would agree that while a 
thief he is not a great loss of revenue and should be educated not
prosecuted, and of course there are cases where he is just as destructive
as the first type of pirate.  So when I refer to a pirate, I am talking
about the second type.  Someone like me.  I make copies for my own
use as backups despite what the license may say.  I make copies to
try out the software before I buy (and I do buy or I erase!)  I use copies
on more than one machine (but not at the same time).  I can break copy
protection but chose not to spend the time.  That's the guy I would like
to discuss because the first type of pirate is slime and I think we can all
agree on at least that point.

Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com