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From: kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Beating software piracy (the IBM way)
Message-ID: <1007@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Apr-84 14:17:57 EST
Article-I.D.: vax2.1007
Posted: Tue Apr 24 14:17:57 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Apr-84 08:18:16 EST
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Everett, WA
Lines: 41

There are several ways to beat software pirates or minimize the damage they
cause to profits.  Most of them have been discussed in this newsgroup.  To
summarize:

1.  Make the software cost only marginally higher than the media cost.
    Still doesn't eliminate piracy, not practical except in outrageously
    high volume software.
2.  Sell at a high price hoping to make sufficient profit in the face of
    piracy.
    Actually encourages piracy, causes fights between morality and economy.
3.  Encode software to make it uncopyable.
    Software protection schemes and software encryption are beatable given
    unrestricted access to the software and hardware.  Protection reduces
    usabinity of software.
4.  Encode software to run on specific hardware.
    Requires customization of hardware which adds expense to the hardware.
    Hardware vendors are not likely to cooperate (unless they make
    substantial income from software too.)

Better schemes

5.  Sell easily copyable software with difficult-to-copy material.
    Software documentation is harder to copy than the disks themselves.  The
    copied material is often of lower quality than the original.  Software
    which relies on external documentation is sometimes less useful.
6.  Construct an uncopyable software medium.
    ROMS are difficult for most people to physically copy.  Such a system
    must be made difficult to copy onto a copyable medium like disk.

IBM's purchase of digital audio disks is such a medium as (6).  The disks
can hold much more data than a floppy disk (or even hard disk).  This makes
copying to disk valueless.  The physical medium is difficult to copy without
a substantial investment in duplication equipment.  The medium is robust and
resistant to wear.  If IBM can successfully convince people to buy another
peripheral for their computer, they may have completely eliminated the
software piracy problem.  A good software package may do it.
-- 
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt