After posting about my concerns dealing with deauthorization, I started thinking about this copy protection thing... I dare say that all of us at one point or another have either used a demo or shareware version a little longer than we should have, or have even outright pirated something. Hopefully the majority of us are the type of person for whom this is the exception rather than the rule. I'm also willing to bet that most of us probably know at least one person running an almost wholly pirated "studio". You know the type...they own all the software that you're drooling over and saving for (although they probably don't know how to use it, and if they did know how, they probably are lacking in other areas). Questions: when have you ever heard one of these pirating types to ever claim to be thwarted by some copy protection measure taken by a software company? Is there such a thing as a piece of software that hasn't been pirated successfully, whether it uses dongles, floppies, cd's, passwords, or secret handshakes? When I'm not playing with plugins, I pretend to be an academic. The academic side of me would be very interested to see any proof that software companies can produce to show that any of the various copy protection schemes work to significantly hinder serious pirating efforts. By serious, I mean that somebody who normally would pay for a program gets it and uses it without paying for it. As for the 11-year-old with 27 gigs of the latest and greatest software on his hard drive and not the slightest notion what it all is or what it all does--he shouldn't matter, because he would never have bought the stuff and used it in the first place. He does not cost you a paying customer. I think we have all heard reports of the large scope of the pirating problem, but for the most part, the companies that make the good stuff seem to do pretty well (there are exceptions, like in any other business). I seem to remember far more news articles dealing with the explosion in the numbers of millionaires and billionaires due to the software industry than articles dealing with the woes of piracy. Are the software companies really taking that big of a hit from piracy? The only people that seem to be troubled by copy protection schemes are the lawful owners of the software. I'm beginning to build a small library of music software, and I'm already having a hard time keeping track of all the key disks. Thankfully I haven't had any dongle problems yet, although I must admit that the dongles were a small part of the reason that I decided to continue upgrading my 8600 rather than spring for a new G4 right off the bat. Something that has absolutely nothing to do with the functioning (based on the intent of the program) of the software should not be such a major pain in the ass, to put it bluntly. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. I don't intent to start a big OT thread. If anybody has any thoughts (especially anybody in a position to influence the people that make dongle-decisions) feel free to send them to me personally. My 2 cents, Mike P.

> From: "Michael Package" <mpackage@e...> > Subject: OT Somewhat...Copy Protection > > Are the > software companies really taking that big of a hit from piracy? Well, this is OT, but I don't chime in often, and this is something I do know a little something about. I worked for Apple Computer for 5 years before moving on, and know a little from what developers would say. It really depends on the definition being used. SW companies use estimates to figure out how much piracy is going on with their product and how much "revenue" they are losing because of it. As you pointed out, not every pirated copy of SW would be purchased, but that isn't to say that the end-user with the pirated SW isn't deriving some benefit from the product. So, does this hurt the companies producing the product? Yes. How much? This is where it really is guess work. But SW companies do lose revenue from lost sales. When I was living in Toronto, and working for a video card company, one of my co-workers asked why I just spent hundreds of dollars on getting the Photoshop upgrade, when he could go down and purchase a CD with Photoshop, Premiere, Freehand, Windows, etc. for 25 dollars. Explaining ethics wasn't going to go far, but here again is part of the problem. People who normally wouldn't steal an item from the store, don't usually have a problem using a pirated copy of a program. But software sales are only part of the picture. Again, I worked at Apple, so part of my perspective comes from there. However, ask people why they purchased a Window computer for home, and part of the reason (not all) is that they can get software from work. It's amazing how many people I know who use MS Office, yet haven't ever purchased a copy. Does HW protection help? Yes. Does it prevent pirates from copying the program? No, but it does keep the amount of copying by "average/normal" people down to a minimum. Does having electronic manuals freely available help people using the program illegally? Probably. Unlike MS Office, there aren't tons of 3rd party books available at the bookstore, you have to get the manual to really understand how to use Logic. Sorry folks. This reply is much longer than I intended it to be, but piracy does hurt companies and smaller niche companies get hurt to a much greater degree from piracy. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming... Wayne

>From: "Wayne Brissette" <wayneb@b...> > >> From: "Michael Package" <mpackage@e...> >> Subject: OT Somewhat...Copy Protection >> >> Are the >> software companies really taking that big of a hit from piracy? > >Well, this is OT, but I don't chime in often, and this is something I do >know a little something about. I worked for Apple Computer for 5 years >before moving on, and know a little from what developers would say. > >It really depends on the definition being used. SW companies use estimates >to figure out how much piracy is going on with their product and how much >"revenue" they are losing because of it. As you pointed out, not every >pirated copy of SW would be purchased, but that isn't to say that the >end-user with the pirated SW isn't deriving some benefit from the product. >So, does this hurt the companies producing the product? Yes. How much? This >is where it really is guess work. But SW companies do lose revenue from lost >sales. > >When I was living in Toronto, and working for a video card company, one of >my co-workers asked why I just spent hundreds of dollars on getting the >Photoshop upgrade, when he could go down and purchase a CD with Photoshop, >Premiere, Freehand, Windows, etc. for 25 dollars. Explaining ethics wasn't >going to go far, but here again is part of the problem. People who normally >wouldn't steal an item from the store, don't usually have a problem using a >pirated copy of a program. But software sales are only part of the picture. >Again, I worked at Apple, so part of my perspective comes from there. >However, ask people why they purchased a Window computer for home, and part >of the reason (not all) is that they can get software from work. It's >amazing how many people I know who use MS Office, yet haven't ever purchased >a copy. > >Does HW protection help? Yes. Does it prevent pirates from copying the >program? No, but it does keep the amount of copying by "average/normal" >people down to a minimum. Does having electronic manuals freely available >help people using the program illegally? Probably. Unlike MS Office, there >aren't tons of 3rd party books available at the bookstore, you have to get >the manual to really understand how to use Logic. > >Sorry folks. This reply is much longer than I intended it to be, but piracy >does hurt companies and smaller niche companies get hurt to a much greater >degree from piracy. > >Now back to our regularly scheduled programming... > > >Wayne > > I hate this discussion only because it's OT (although I feel it's as important as any other topic on this list because Emagic needs this type of feedback from its users also) and we'll probably get yelled at by the OT police. I hate copy protection, but I understand why it's in effect. I too worked in hardware/software development for a lot of years and I'm an avid user of very expensive software in different areas of computer work. In the past I have on occasion even use pirated copies, but I've always bought a legal copy once I determined it was of value to me. Why? Well, one reason was for the support that the SW company provided. Unfortunatly, I'm finding less and less value in this area from most companies (both Apple and Adobe charge you for a tech support phone call!!). They don't make it "worth your wild" to cough up the bucks, by adding the extra value in GOOD customer support. Another issue is that the user becomes the beta tester. This means that after you purchase the software you find out that it DOESN'T WORK AS PROMISED, and you must wait for bug fixes. Since most SW companies don't allow you to return the software once opened, you're stuck with a very expensive "CD paperweight" until things are worked out. Sometimes the software does work but just does something "unexpected" or causes you to work in a way that's not conducive to your arrangement. SW companies like to produce "demo" versions for you to try, but since you can't REALLY use a demo, I find them useless. What I think would be a better compromise, is to issue a free "30 day" version of the software for download. After 30 days the software dies. There are many companies using this method. This gives the user a chance to FULLY USE the program and determine if it works as expected before buying. Then the pinch of "copy protection" isn't so bad. Also having a full manual in PDF for free downloading and viewing helps to eliminate the unexpect "gottchas" and lets the user know upfront how the program is intended to be used. Piracy is double sided, and I think in some ways SW companies ALSO engage in piracy when they expect us to be beta testers WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE, or take a "let's just get it to market to beat our competition, and fix it in an upgrade later" position. When we give the credit card number or write the check to Emagic (or any other SW company) in EVEN EXCHANGE for a fully functional piece of software, we are saying that their values are equal, in both our eyes. Thus I consider it STEALING when I pay my money and things don't work as promised. True you can say, "we can test it on every system" but in some part of my heart, I feel you should test it a lot more than you might be...before requesting my dollar...or at least let me know that it's not really doing everything your marketing department is claiming in your ads or spec sheets. If you don't...then it's "money piracy" and your customer is losing. Thus in all fairness, I'll agree to pay for the program (even with copy protection if I HAVE too), but first you should let me try out a free FULLY function version for 30 days, to check for bugs and incompatabilities with my system. Oh, and btw, please keep the customer support incentive coming. That's your biggest "anti-piracy" protection period! Subala