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From: braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Software (and other kinds of) copying
Message-ID: <3471@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 22 Jan 88 18:37:29 GMT
References: <8055@g.ms.uky.edu> <174@piring.cwi.nl> <1861@optilink.UUCP>
Reply-To: braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (braner)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 25

In article <1861@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>
>Wrong.  The stuff that gets pirated include word processors, spreadsheets,
>data base managers -- that's why there's a major industry producing books
>about the more popular software products that replicate the content of the
>manuals -- frequently with no other additions.

- that proves the original point: if the software is out there people can
make money on selling documentation.  And who will pay the programmers'
rent?  The company that plans to sell the books!  Or perhaps the company
that plans to sell the hardware!  Apple corp. is giving Hypercard away
(almost) even though it must have taken a staggering amount of work to
create.  Why?  To enhance the Mac's usefulness image ---> more HW sales.
Other options: a tax on blank disks could provide funds for public SW
writing efforts (a la Berkeley, MIT).

The overnight reductions of SW prices by 50% or even 75%, a common
occurence in the industry when competition hits, proves that some
high-priced SW _is_ overpriced and over-enriching the publishers.  Most of
the retail price of SW goes to the retailer, distributer, advertisers,
etc.---NOT the authors.  Since computers are so good at copying, leaving
the distribution to the users would save most of the resources and therefore
would make us all (_on_the_average_) better off.

- Moshe Braner