Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!spdcc!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: software piracy (was "Interactive and me")
Message-ID: <1990Jul19.202446.7897@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 19 Jul 90 20:24:46 GMT
References: <3126@rsiatl.UUCP> <1990Jul11.164044.7241@sco.COM> <1990Jul13.231942.14009@ico.isc.com> <1990Jul17.121815.11752@sco.COM>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 23

In article <1990Jul17.121815.11752@sco.COM> jim@iggy.UUCP (Jim Sullivan) writes:
>But software has been sold like this for years, with cottage industries to
>break the copy protection schemes.  While I don't like it, it is reality.

Not any more, it's not.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a PC application that
is copy-protected any more, other than games.  I hope SCO and ISC don't
consider Unix to be a game, but you never know.

>We have caught people installing our software on multiple machines, in
>multiple sites because they called for support and gave the same
>serialization code for the different sites/machines.

I see no reason why all of the anti-piracy goals that people have been
talking about wouldn't be served equally well by providing each customer a
card with the serial number that they could read over the phone if they
make a support call, without forcing them to type in the number when they
load the software.  A site with 100 machines would have 100 cards, but need
only one copy of the disks.

-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl
Marlon Brando and Doris Day were born on the same day.