Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Offensive Copy protection
Author: Geoff Allen Posted: 8/10/2000; 9:16:04 AM Topic: Copy protection and music software Msg #: 19630 (In response to 19617) Prev/Next: 19629 / 19631
As long as we're on the topic of the "copy protection rebellion", I'll relate a little story from a while back. The story involves my father-in-law.He bought a (Macintosh) game, whose name I don't remember. He bought it, shrinkwrapped, from one of the major mail-order houses. Every time you would quit the game, it put up a modal dialog box that said "To buy your own copy of [game], contact the publisher at ... "
My father-in-law's comment was that, although he had never pirated software in his life, this dialog box (and the underlying accusation of "you're a theif") made him want to give a copy of the program to everyone he knew. (He didn't, I think mostly because he wouldn't want to inflict that program on anyone else.)
Copy protection kept the dishonest customers honest, and annoyed the honest users. (And created a market for packages that would copy copy-protected software. :^) ) As a (paying) customer, I was glad to see it go.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:02 PM.
© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.