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From: ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Chessamster 2100 patch
Message-ID: <1991May07.103100.12997@cs.ruu.nl>
Date: 7 May 91 10:31:00 GMT
References: <1991Apr26.162946.25169@cs.ruu.nl> <3850@ux.acs.umn.edu> <1991May06.155345.17107@cs.ruu.nl> <1991May7.002909.17186@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science
Lines: 72

In <1991May7.002909.17186@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> gfm@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu (George) writes:

>In article <1991May06.155345.17107@cs.ruu.nl> ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) writes:
>>In <3850@ux.acs.umn.edu> mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) writes:
>>
>>>In article <1991Apr26.162946.25169@cs.ruu.nl> ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) writes:
>>>>Did you ever think that this might render damages to the software house
>>>>producing ChessMaster 2100? By giving a means to everyone to avoid their
>>>>protection scheme, you are actually causing a potential loss in sales,
>>>>since nobody has to have the manual to be able to play the game.
>>>
>>>>Golden raspberry award for you, for that idea.
>>>
>>>I think it's a damn good idea. While I certainly appreciate the alleged
>>>necessity of copy protection, I really hate having to keep a pile of books
>>>next to my computer to use any of my programs. I'm all for patches that
>>>remove copy protection. I just wish more things ran on my computer anyway...
>>>
>>>> -TT.
>>>
>>>--SeebS--
>>>NOT Linda Seebach
>>
>>In case you did not get the point, this comes damn close to piracy. Unless
>>you can actually prove that you purchased the game, the patch is illegal.
>>(Even then!)
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Utter bullsh*t, the patch itself is in no way illegal, and the author (I'd assume) is only making it available so that it might help people who are fed up 
>with entering words from a manual...it does get tedious...If the patch is used
>for illegal purposes, it is not the fault of the author....Although the 
>'morality' of releasing such a patch is debtable, there is no way that the 
>patch itself is illegal, For example: There are MANY commercial programs that
>strip both Disk Based Protection AND Manual based protection (For 'Archival
>Purposes' only, of course) these include: Maverick, Nib, Project D, RawCopy and others, and these have exsisted for many years, and are not illegal at all.
>

Sigh.. Utter Spectum Tauri (tm)! You still don't get the point do you? Who
do you think those 'people fed up with entering words' are? They don't have
the manual, that is why they are 'fed up'! Those who actually bought the
game did so because they valued it worthwhile, in contrast to those, who
just copied it because they could get it for free. If you play it, buy it!

Such a patch is simply not a good idea, because you never know whether the
next guy who gets it has or has not purchased the game. Even if some do,
you can bet your life on it that 80% or more of the recipients are using
pirated copies (disclaimer: 96.7% of statistics are made up :^), because
they CAN'T play it WITHOUT. Sure I am annoyed by such a protection scheme,
but unfortunately it is necessary in the case of games. (Of course, larger
applications should definitely not have it, since they are already protected
by their sheer complexity.)

On those 'protection removal packages': Do you think the software houses are
happy with them? Sure they are not illegal, but you could say that of machine
guns used in armed robberies too. POINT: The tool is not the issue, but the
purpose, and such a tool only encourages the *wrong* purpose. (Why do you
think Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise? They had the *opportunity* ;^)

Just my 2 Forints worth..

PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs
     like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself,
     sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :).

 -ThomasT.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          ____
Thomas Tavoly, Commercial Computer Science - HEAO Utrecht, NL.           / / /
"Whoever talks too much, has no time to think." - Peter Tavoly.       AMIGA /
Favourite quote: "The Mac OS is amazingly complex,               ____  / / /
 .sig v3.0e       given how little it does." - Peter da Silva    \ \ \/ / /
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>> ptavoly@praxis.cs.ruu.nl <<~~~~~~~~~  \_\_\/_/