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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!uw-beaver!cornell!dawson
- From: dawson@cs.cornell.edu (Dawson Dean)
- Subject: Re: protection == !piracy
- Message-ID: <1993Jan8.011453.1104@cs.cornell.edu>
- Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
- References: <C0GMst.3LB@news.udel.edu> <1ii4ndINNk43@skeena.ucs.ubc.ca> <1993Jan7.223316.10564@hobbes.kzoo.edu>
- Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 01:14:53 GMT
- Lines: 37
-
- In article <1993Jan7.223316.10564@hobbes.kzoo.edu> k044477@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Jamie R. McCarthy) writes:
- >sainaney@unixg.ubc.ca (Narayan R. Sainaney) writes:
- >> Now the big question: I do come across a copy of the program
- >>that has been pirated. Being a small compnay with limited finances
- >>(and lawyer support), fow far can I prosecute(sp?)
-
- >You might consider another form of punishment: publish the names of
- >known offenders in subsequent releases of the program. That is, in your
- >About box for version 1.0.1, list the people who you know gave away
- >copies of version 1.0.
-
- I really think both of these ideas go in the wrong direction and
- further aggravate the adversarial relationship between software
- developer and consumer. As somebody else said earlier, the consumer
- trusts the developer to deliver correct software, or at least deal
- with bugs in a timely and honest fashion. The developer should in
- turn treat the customer with real respect, even in the sensitive
- area of protecting against piracy. Common experience proves that
- treating the customer well is the best way to keep and gain customers
- and sell product.
-
- If they start into hassling users, companies are only going to create
- such a bad market image that they'll shoot themselves in the foot.
-
- This is a technical product, the problem is technical (copying data)
- and there are technical solutions that probably work as well as the
- imperfect court system or advertising. A good and flexible lisencing
- scheme could be such a technical solution.
-
-
-
-
- --
-
- /*******************************************************************/
- /* Dawson Dean Internet: dawson@cs.cornell.edu */
- /* Cornell Computer Science Office: (607) 255-1068 */
-