Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Soap Software, Stolen Software, Sojourn
Message-ID: <1762@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Mar 88 02:33:49 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Lines: 37
Approved: taylor@hplabs

I originally wrote: 

> ...no such studies were felt to be necessary - it was accepted without
> data that copy protection was necessary, even with the full knowledge
> that our games were being cracked within days of their release.

to which Julian Gomez replied:

> Having thought about this for a few days, I must admit that I am
> still baffled.  At the risk of starting a "discussion", can you
> explain the reasoning behind that conclusion?

Well, having thought about this for a few years, I'm just as baffled
as you are :-)  The reasoning, such as it was, was simply that we knew
that illegal copies of our games were being distributed.  It therefore
seemed sensible to some (particularly those who were more money-conscious
than anything else) to copy-protect, to hold down the number of illegal
copies made, thus resulting in increased sales among those who would other-
wise have just obtained an illegal copy.  While this made superficial sense,
I maintained then, and still maintain, that there would be no substantial
difference in sales if the products were copy-protected or not.  Those who
wanted to buy the game would, those who wouldn't wouldn't, and that was 
that.  My position has long been that the number of additional sales
generated by copy-protection, if it exists at all, is infinitesmal
compared to the drawbacks of copy-protection, both from the developers'
and customers' standpoints.

The data I was hoping to see would be that which would provide substanti-
ation, either for their assertion that copy-protection increased revenue,
or my assertion that it would not.  I've never seen such data, at least
not in any form that seemed to be actually researched and investigated.
The circumstantial evidence goes both ways - there are companies which
have reported increases in revenue when copy-protection was dropped, as
well as companies which claim decreased revenue.  What I want to see is
objective evidence, either one way or the other.

Michael J. Farren