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From: azia@utzoo.UUCP (Anton J Aylward  A/S)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.micro
Subject: Re: Software Piracy
Message-ID: <3819@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-May-84 14:51:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3819
Posted: Thu May  3 14:51:17 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-May-84 14:51:17 EDT
References: <504@mprvaxa.UUCP>, <744@orca.UUCP>, <1272@pur-phy.UUCP>, <4482@amd70.UUCP> <289@aat.UUCP>, <240@masRe: Software Piracy
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 43

The Honour system seems to reflect local cultural varaitions, and
history.   In England I grew used to seeing newspapars on sale with
an OPEN money-box.  I see them here in Canada, too, but not in the
big cities.

There does seem to be 'Honour system' for SOME software.  Some companies
will send you a demo-disk.  

There is another level to the piracy issue:  the cost.

Suppose you are a university professor writing a textbook on your
subject.  You have invested somthing like 10 years in getting to know
the subject, another X years on the text and so on.  You have cross-referenced
with articles and papers.  If you screw-up, make ridiculous assertions,
or mangle a reference you get laughed at and you book fails to become
a standard reference. (Unless you take a very Fun-damn-mentalist approach
and are willing to settle for it only being sold in Texas  :-))

How much will the book sell for ?   Between $30 and $90 probably.
What are the production costs ?  A friend in the industry tells me
this can vary from about 10% to about 30% of retail for textbooks.
Distributor mark-up is around 30-40%.  Marketing costs are lower than
"popular" books.

So what does a software package that takes about the same effort to
produce cost ?   Anywhere from $100 to $1400.  How well researched
is it ?  How well cross-referenced ?  Would you stake your professional
reputation for the rest of your life on the XYZ compiler or word-processor
you wrote for the PC ?

Judge by the textbooks you see and the programmes you use.

I am very against piracy.  I work for an information supplier and
distributor;  software and support text is my livelyhood.

However, I think the marketplace is VERY unbalanced, and until people
as individuals feel that the software they buy is worth ten times
that of another product with higher costs, there will be piracy.

In the mean time, I am glad of UNIX(tm) and the network, and that
I have an employer who supplies these things.

/anton aylward