#Copy protection?
Had the software not worked, I would have challenged it also. However, the
warranty was on the inside, and I didn't get a chance to read it when I got
home.
The shrinkwrap warranties and liscenses are something that has yet yo be
challenged seriously in court. Many warranties state that the software is not
warrantied to be suitable for any particular use, and not guaranteed to run on
any particular machine. So far they have gotten away with it. Time will tell
if it stands up or not.
Film developers tried the same thing, with the "If we loose it or ruin it, all
you get is a fresh roll of film", guarantee. That didn't stand up, when a
professional photographer lost all his film from a shoot. The court held that
most people didn't read the bag flaps, and that they developer couldn't really
excuse him/herself from basically all responsibility.
Fortunately as far as protection goes, things aren't as bad as they could have
been. Back in the 80's one of the major software houses decided that if you
pirated their software, that they had the right to destroy all of your data as
a method of copy protection. Unfortunately the one of the first persons to
experience that form of protection was an innocent individual who had actually
purchased the program. Evidnetly the individual was not real computer savvy,
and managed to trip the portection scheme. (Seems to me that he restored a
back-up file over the original copy, or some such thing.) In any event, the
software then trashed the data on his hard drive, and he almost lost his
business. He sued, and in the settlement the software house decided to not use
that method of copy protection anymore.
So things could be worse. We could have dongles and software threatening to
trash our drives for us. If consumers ever decide to flex their economic
muscle, there would be no dongles, or copy protection anywhere.
Actually, if we decided to flex our muscle to the extent VCR owners did, we
would own our copies of the software, as opposed to only being liscensed to use
it. Liscenses are a hold over from the mainframe days, where you essentially
rented the software.
The law provides for it, but if the consumers decided to only buy software that
became theirs, the software houses would fall in line. Some might decide to
hold out. However, if no one would buy the software at any price, then they
have a choice, fall in line or starve.
Some popular programs might dissapear, but that the same time, there are other
poeple out there waitng in the wings for their chance to make money.
I believe those who produce, and market software should get a fair return for
their efforts, at the same time, I will _NOT_ be penalized for something I
haven't done. Protection crackers, and pirates are still getting what they
want, and I'm supposed to sit here with a pile of dongles, key disks, and
mauals for look-ups.
I don't think so….
And I'm certainly not going to pay extra money for software, so I can keep
track of a dongle. (The attitude of some dongle using houses seems to be that
you bought your computer just to run their software, and nobody else is wanting
to stuff their dongle in your port.)
Which brings me to my last question/
Howe does SoftLogic survive? PageStream is not, and has not been copy
protected by any means. Yet they manage to survive, and turn a profit.
Perhaps other vendors should take a look at their operation, and learn.
-Alex 8 years on Amiga 10 years on Compu$erve