Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!dcdwest!steve
From: steve@dcdwest.UUCP (Steve Meloche)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Awkward Piracy Situation
Message-ID: <287@dcdwest.UUCP>
Date: 2 Mar 88 20:23:23 GMT
Sender: root@dcdwest.UUCP
Reply-To: steve@dcdwest.UUCP (Steve Meloche)
Distribution: na
Organization: ITT Defense Communications, San Diego
Lines: 71


    Hello again!  Rather than become discouraged at the lack of responses
to my previous postings, I will forge on again with a new question:

WARNING: The following is not intended to further the argumentation about
copy protection.  It is *just* a request for information. I have pretty well
made up my mind on the subject, and you have too.  RIGHT?  Anyway. . . .

    I am a leader in our churches high school program, and really enjoy
working with the youth in the club.  One thing that became apparent to me
very early was that most of them were rabid pirates.  When the meetings
were at my house, they would bring stacks of games and programs to run on
my c64.  A good percentage of them were on unmarked disks with photocopied
docs (if any at all).  When I moved up to the Amiga, some of them did also.
("hey Dad!  You should see Steve's neat computer - can we get one too?").
Early last year, feeling like an accomplice, we requested them to PLEASE
leave the illegal software at home.  I expressed my reservations on the
subject and everything was hunky-dory.  There were no hard feelings, and
everybody seemed to understand.

    Well, of course, if it had ended there, I wouldn't be writing this
article.  One of the kids (the one with the Amiga) has been accumulating huge
stacks of nifty, EXPENSIVE software - often before it was released.  Well,
other than an occasional reminder that I didn't think it was right, I was
prepared to let it slide, but he keeps bringing the stuff over to my house to
use.  I have been pondering how to gracefully deal with the subject but the
tactics that I have tried so far haven't worked.  To my exhortations he has
made the following replies:

1.  These are just borrowed from a friend (of couse the friend is a pirate and
    he never has had to give back his "borrowed" copies).

2.  It's o.k.!  These are from an employee of the company, so it was o.k. for
    him to give me a copy (yeah, sure - And the company would just *love* to
    find out how their software is getting out, I bet!)

3.  These copies (last week it was Arkanoids, Animate-3d, and a couple of other
    games) I got from my high school, which has a licence to copy software.

4.  A friend of the family (not a computer owner) went downtown to a
    government office and did *two days* of research about the software laws
    and found out that all of MY software is legal!

    Now some people are going to say "Stop being such a wimp!  He's taking
you for a ride!  Tell the stinkin' pirate c-64 scum to take a hike - and
then give the police the names of all of his friends!" This, while it would
give me lovely feelings of righteous indignation, would not be my choice,
because he really seems to believe these excuses.

    Others will want to flame, saying that copy protection is immoral and he
wasn't stealing because he wouldn't have bought that software anyway.  Please,
the morality of the issue is not my question here.  Like I said, I have
already decided what my beliefs are on the issue.  I just want to know: can
high schools (for the performing arts, ala FAME, no less) get licences to
just copy any software for the students' use?  What, OFFICIALLY, is the law
concerning owning software that SOMEONE ELSE has copied? (A lot of his
pirated stuff came with his Amiga when he bought it used.) Am I correct in
my assumption that employees of software companies (for the most part) are
*not* allowed to just give copies of their company's latest and greatest
software to their friends (and their friends, etc., etc.)?

    Any replies to help clear this issue up for me would be greatly appre-
ciated, as I would like to avoid drastic or arrogant sounding measures. Other-
wise, he's a great kid and pretty well has his act together.  I would just
like to respond factually to these statements that I don't *think* are true.

  TIA (thanks in advance), Steven Meloche    * who still can't figure  *
    _____ _____ _____                        * out his MICROCOM modem! *
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