Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!homxb!houxa!shah1
From: shah1@houxa.UUCP (J.SHAH)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: About Software Piracy!
Message-ID: <1962@houxa.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jan 88 15:48:48 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 55

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There have been a number of advocates of hardware copy protection schemes
on this group. May be these are SW developers who do not care
how user friendly their product is; to them protection is the only game 
in town. Protection schemes make software very unfriendly (even the
software you buy legally). Why should I be encumbered with these schemes
after paying a reasonable amount of money for acquiring your software.
Besides there will always be a way to break copy protection schemes. C-64
software vendors used dongles (Batteries Included for example) but only
to find out that some hardworking hackers produced a freely copyable version
of their heavyly protected software. I have seen hardware devices that
assist in the copying of protected software ( Snapshot, and Icepic for the 
C-64). In the IBM world there are programs (Copywrit, Copyiipc, and
Unlock) which copy 99% of the copy protected software. THe vendors of these 
IBM-PC products allow you to copy their own products. IN the AMIGA world, some
of the copying software vendors are hypocritical e.g. you can use Marauder II
to copy everybody elses product except theirs e.g. it would not copy some
of the Discovery products. 
           
Most of the software in the IBM world is not copy protected and the software
vendors are still making money. Most of the good C-64 software is copy
protected but the programs like Fasthack'em have made the protection
schemes useless. My main point is protection will be always be broken.
Copy protection never ensures software revenue protection. 

Some people have hinted that A500 users are the real culprits. That is pure
nonsense. The suggestion that the elite A1000 and A2000 community never
copied each others software is as realistic as the fact that the sole use
of Marauder II is to backup your own legal software. What this people
are saying is like ensuring the honesty and integrity of a large group
of people. With the availability of A500 the software market for AMIGA
has expanded and now vendors should be able to sell good software at a
reasonable price. Suggesting that A500 owners are pirates (and the An000 owners
are not) is like saying that all Cadillac owners obey all the traffic
regulations but the chevy owners do not. Honesty is not a function of what
you own. This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have heard on the 
net.

Do not get me wrong. I am emphatetic to software developers. Every body has a
right to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Copy protection is not the solution.
They would have to learn how to do better marketing, to provide better
product support, offer frequent upgrades, crisp documentation, and above all
sell software at c-64 software price level.

Large scale software piracy in the IBM or C64 world has not hurt the sales
of the respective vendors and so why should they worry about it. The 
solution to software piracy should
be a partnership of the software vendors and end users based on mutual
needs, trust, and general goodwill.

Shah Jahan
AT&T Bell Labs

Disclaimer: These are strictly personal opinions and are in noway endorsed
by AT&T Bell Laboratories.