🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <810@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> glenn@rightbrain.com writes:
>
>Users don't like restrictive copy protection schemes, vendors don't
>like piracy.
>
>All in all, piracy is winning hands down, and the users are suffering
>for it, whether they know it or not.  Prices for software are still
>high because of piracy.
>
>It might inconvenience you to not be able to copy and use software
>on several machines, or at home. It's also inconvenient for you to
>photocopy a book and bind it so you can have a copy at home and at work.
>If you could make an identical copy of a book as easily as you can make
>an identical copy of a piece of software, books would probably cost
>$500 too.

Copy protection doesn't work either.  No copy protection exists or
will exist that stops piracy.  New copy protection schemes just feed
the fire and inconvenience users more.

>Adobe Systems, AutoDesk, Aldus, and others are starting to team up and
>offer Anti-Piracy programs that basically reward you for turning in
>someone for software piracy.  I see this as the fairest system of all,
>because it penalizes the people who are causing the problem, rather
>than having the baggage of a general system penalizing everybody.

Besides fair pricing, this is the best copy protection scheme.
However, even with increased efforts by the SPA and independant
publishers, there is absolutely no fear of being caught in the
community at large.  Piracy still runs unchecked in most of the
corporate world.  Few companies equate piracy with theft and apply the
same punishments to employees for both.

>Software piracy is a violation of copyright, which carries (I think) a
>$50,000 penalty plus the possibility of jail sentences.  When people
>start to pay fines and do time for software piracy, and honest people
>who turn them in are rewarded for it, I think you'll finally see
>software piracy drop off, and software prices will drop with it.  Maybe
>not, but it seems like a fair approach to me.

Doing time for piracy is quite harsh, and I can see better uses for
both the tax dollars allocated for the penal and corrective systems
and the convicted.  Education of companies in an effort to get piracy
in the same category as theft in their polices is prabably the best
offence agaist piracy.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time."