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From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software Development And Piracy (Spurred By FTL replies)
Message-ID: <2865@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 88 04:02:35 GMT
References: <3127@sugar.uu.net>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 25

From article <3127@sugar.uu.net>, by peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
" ...
" So what do *you* want people to do? What's your motivation here? You want
" people to buy software, license software, or steal software? These are the
" three alternatives. Option 3 is economically unjustifiable. Option 1 is
" convenient, but since you don't believe in copyrights or intellectual
" property, that's out of the question. That leaves us with Option 2: licensing
" the stuff.

I'm flattered you should ask my opinion.  I'm afraid I don't have any,
though.  I think of the question what should be done about the
copyrighting of software and piracy as a technical issue.  What would
happen to our software industry and would it be in the interest of
software users if software were not protected by copyright?  I don't
know the answers -- I don't think the answers are obvious.  I would
be interested to read some informed discussion from those of you
who know more about the software scene than I.

It could be that copyright protection for software is a good thing, and
at the same time that some reasons advanced in its favor are bogus.
I've seen some bogus reasoning -- I've pointed it out.  Your current
argument that copyright protection is a good thing because it allows a
simple transfer to serve the essential purpose of a contract without
the inconvenience of an actual contract makes sense to me.

			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu