Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:11696 comp.misc:1781
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cos!smith
From: smith@COS.COM (Steve Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Copy protection and the consumer
Message-ID: <871@cos.COM>
Date: 27 Jan 88 23:39:17 GMT
References: <4663@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <3823@husc6.harvard.edu> <1319@looking.UUCP> <1108@hyper.UUCP>
Reply-To: smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith)
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 51

In article <1108@hyper.UUCP> harley@hyper.UUCP (Harley Grantham) writes:

>I thought copy-protection was going out of style.  Particularly as
>companies write more expensive software for businesses.

The main reason that I see for eliminating copy protection is that it
simply doesn't work and it's a pain in the tail for everybody concerned.

>Businesses do
>not (according to the article I read several months ago in Infoworld)
>pirate software because it is too easy to get caught.


I wonder.  Is it that businesses worry about getting caught, or is it
that it is easier to win a lawsuit against an individual?

Simple test.  Go to a PC in use in a business setting.  Call up Lotus
1-2-3 (this is to make sure it's there).  Ask the owner/normal user of
the PC for the manual.  I have done this at a number of companies, and I
have *never* gotten a real Lotus manual.  I *assume* Lotus prints one.
Reactions?

"What manual?" (the most common)
"Joe borrowed it" (not according to Joe)
"It's in the library" (nope.  Anyway, the company has 200 PCs)
"I bought this manual myself"  (at Walden's)
"I never use Lotus"  (it's still on the machine)
"The VP keeps them all under lock and key" (strange enough to maybe be true)


>  Individuals do
>not represent a significant part of the market for such expensive
>programs.  Game makers still have the problem, as individuals are their
>primary market.


Games seem to sell very well for awhile, and then decline.  The
manufacturers would like to blame this on pirating.  It's easier on the
ego than to admit that people just got bored with it.

>-- 
>Harley H. Grantham, ihnp4!umn-cs!hyper!harley,  Network Systems Corporation
>  

As to anything reported in the trade press, remember that they do
*nothing* in the way of investigative journalism.  If Infoworld had
wanted to know about the possibility of exchanging arms for hostages
with Iran, they would have asked Oliver North (:-).
-- 
 -- Steve           (smith@cos.com)           (uunet!cos!smith)
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."