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From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Re: Copy Protection - a case study
Message-ID: <465@looking.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 04:14:15 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.465
Posted: Wed Dec 11 04:14:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Dec-85 04:53:52 EST
References: <3624@think.UUCP> <131300002@ima.UUCP> <882@ecsvax.UUCP> <883@ecsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 43
Summary: 

A lot of myths floating about on this issue.  It seems that most people
just have a knee jerk reaction to this sort of thing.  They see copy
protection as hurting a product's utility, and that makes it bad.
While it does hurt the utility, it's not black and white.  I know, since
we're about to release a fairly major new product and there was a big
debate about what to do:

1) Far too many people copy.  They think it's OK.  In the case of this
program, a fancy syntax-directed programming environment that's particularly
good for teaching, it seems as though we are aimed at the worst groups of
thieves:  Hobbyists, amateur programmers and educators.  Unlike Lotus,
which the typical BBS style theif has little desire for, this system is eactly
the kind of thing the typical software thief wants to play with...

2) The system has whole piles of on-line help.  At over 300K, there's more
help than manual.  We go to the effort of making the program more usable
without the manual, and it's going to resort in more theft.

3) As a programming-oriented system, copy protection would hurt it more than
other systems.  You don't have to start and stop this system all day long, but
you might want to.  Would be a pain to run from floppy.

4) At the low price, people may actually pay for it a bit more than usual.

------
The result?  A program that will probably be stolen a great deal (like much
of my other software), but at the same time a programming system in a world
where no successful programming system has been copy protected.

With trepidation, it's going out non-protected.  But if there were a clean
way to do it, such as serial numbered machines, I think we would do it in
a second.
====================

The real answer is to stop thinking of software theft as a joke.  You
know lots of people who will admit to software theft.  It will be hard, but
shun these people.  Treat them with the same stigma as you would other
criminals who have no respect for the (in this case, intellectual) property
of others.  If the customer pays the price of copy protection, the customer
should start doing things about it.

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473