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From: els@pur-phy.UUCP (Eric Strobel)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: piracy = theft????
Message-ID: <1279@pur-phy.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Apr-84 15:25:39 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-phy.1279
Posted: Tue Apr  3 15:25:39 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Apr-84 03:31:29 EST
References: <1277@pur-phy.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Physics Dept.
Lines: 49


      I failed to include some thoughts in my previous article (or for
those who suffer severe UUCP-warping, in the following article!).  The
point has been made that the software authors may be forced to include
routines that limit the number of possible backup copies, but then what
do you do when Murphy's law catches up with you???  For now, why don't 
we let this be a point of discussion.
      My point is that our whole system of justice is based on the idea
that certain actions are made to be somehow unprofitable.  How then do
we make obtaining certain information unprofitable??  Keep in mind that
much information should be allowed to flow freely, no matter what some
people feel. An example of the difficulty of drawing a line on this is
the current discussion between the scientific community and the Reagan
administration on how much classifying is too much.  Using my previous
example, and assuming that the above line is drawn, how can HBO make it
unprofitable for me to pick up their transmission??  The answer is most
likely just what the pay-TV people are doing, or if not then they ought
to, put the entire decoder on a special chip.  Unless I'm a hard-core
hacker of hardware, I'm unlikely to duplicate it at all, much less for
anything like it would cost me to have them come out and install the 
stupid thing.  So I guess the point that needs discussion here is,
what sort of scheme can be used to make copying a program more expensive,
in some manner, than buying it? 
       Finally, how does some company know what fraction of its stuff
is being copied???  Does it make sense to take extreme precautions
to protect 1% of your sales, especially when a fraction of that is,
or may be, like free advertising?  After all, there will always be
mad hackers who will break any protection scheme, but there aren't all
that many of them around (Are there???).

       I suppose a secondary discussion would be: Can information be
put on the same footing as personal property such as a car??






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