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From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protection: A marketing analysis
Message-ID: <438@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jul-87 22:12:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.438
Posted: Tue Jul 28 22:12:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Aug-87 10:49:20 EDT
References: <207@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 18
Summary: Category B2.

You forgot category B2: Will not buy a protected program, will buy
a non-protected program, or will buy a non-protected version given
a choice. Then non-copy-protection becomes a marketing decision: how
many people will by my Usercalc rather than their Nastycalc. You don't
care how people get Nastycalc: they're not going to be buying your
software anyway (how many spreadsheets can a guy use, anyway)?

Result: once a significant amount of competition occurs, protected
software will find itself at a competitive disadvantage. Unless you're
Lotus you're going to find it hard to stay protected. The IBM-PC software
market has just reached this point.

So the bottom line is... who cares what your analysis is. Copy protection
is a short-term phenomenon. It's also bad for the computer... the last thing
we want at this point is another incentive to buy an IBM-PC instead of an
Amiga.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!seismo!soma!uhnix1!sugar!peter (I said, NO PHOTOS!)