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From: LBAFRIN%clemson.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.arpa
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Profiteering from Shareware/Freeware?
Message-ID: <1247@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 10-Jun-86 16:23:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1247
Posted: Tue Jun 10 16:23:02 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jun-86 04:23:14 EDT
Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA
Lines: 37

I bring the community's attention to the advertisement in the lower left-hand
corner of page 372 of the June issue of "PC World" magazine, in which a
company calling itself Soft/Plus Research (operating out of a P.O. box in 
California) is selling (?) for $6 *each* such popular shareware/freeware as
PC-Write, PC-File III, QModem, PC-Calc, DeskMates, and various and sundry PC
games.  "All orders please include $3 shipping & handling."  They accept
Visa and MasterCard and even have a toll-free order line.  They also advertise
such quantity deals as 6 programs for $34.95 and 10 programs for $49.95.

Any comments as to the legality/ethicality of this venture?  It's been my
understanding ever since the early days of PC-Talk that one may freely
distribute copies of a freeware/shareware program as long as one doesn't
commercially profit from it.  (Yes, I'm aware of the technical differences
between freeware and shareware, but let's look at the broad picture here.)
With these guys operating at $6 a crack, with an extra $3 S&H to boot, is there
anyone who doubts their pure profit motive?  Soft/Plus Research does not
seem to be in the same league as groups like the Capitol PC Users' Group
and the PC-Blue library, whose *software* is truly free (although there
is a modest S&H charge to offset distribution costs).

Maybe Soft/Plus Research has "understandings" with the authors of the software
it is selling.  But I doubt it.  Is there anyone out there in NetLand who knows
more of the story behind these boys and their operation?


                                        -- Larry Afrin
                                           Dept. of Computer Science
                                           Clemson University

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