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· Art/Graphics/Games
#WyndWalker
33 messages in this thread
I'd like to thank you guys for being so conscientious about PD vs. non-PD.
If only all BBS's were such. Lately, we have begun re-emphasizing the
importance of user education in the Software Theft Protection Wars. PLEASE
tell the guy who gave you Wyndwalker that he is probably helping deprive an
author of needed royalties.
Now, my next question: do you folks have any good suggestions on how we,
(EA), can best achieve this objective. How do we get this message to the
users of not just Amigas (who are, on the whole, a pretty mature bunch), but
to c64 and Apple users as well.
Our attitudes on STP have historically stemmed from the beating we have taken
from Apple II, c64 and Atari 800 pirates. How do we let them know the harm
they do?? Thanks for your input. Jeff J. – EA
As a person involved in computer retailing (I'm Manager of Customer Support
at ComputerLand in Rockville, MD), and IBM and Amiga owner, and a sysop of a
bulletin board that harbors many computer users, I have a good feel for the
attitudes of many bunches of "generic" computer users.
The teenage Apple user is your biggest concern: his parents bought him this
machine and his friend showed him all sorts of neat games. Are his parents
gonna shell out more money on this stuff? The Apple has too big of an
installed base to fix this problem. Here you need to maintain cost levels
and improve packaging, the way Infocom has. I like EA's packaging, it is
very friendly and colorful, but NOT necessary. Infocom manuals are filled
with entertaining reading and sidebars, much like Beagle Bros. utilities
which most Apple owners BUY just to have the hilarious manuals (I don't even
have an Apple, but I own 9 Beagle Bros. programs that I bought when I used an
Apple at school. I still take the manuals out to read. My favorite line:
"Cassette User's Tip of the Week: Buy a Disk Drive"). Make the buyer WANT
and NEED the manual. Make the manuals longer, with humorous and helpful
information that is good reading.
Not knowing many Commodore 64 owners, I can't categorize them as well, except
to say is that they were cheap in the first place, and correcting this
deficiency is hard if not impossible. Beyond what I recommended above, lower
pricing might help. Same with Atari.
One final note: GIVE UP COPY-PROTECTION! It doesn't work, it only makes the
user feel spited, that you don't trust him to make moral decisions, which you
don't, so he copies the program to say 'nyah!' to you. No copy-protection
says, 'Hey, you're human, and hopefully you'll see the effort put into this
product and protect our investment'. You're also making his or her life
easier by allowing an easy archival, plus then he could run the program from
the hard disk and not have to have originals lying about. Or he could format
a disk and put three or four programs and write his own menu so one disk
Hear, Hear! While I am very careful not to give copies away of commercial
software (and am as careful not to accept such, which has confused some
friends who do not feel the way I do…) I *do* get annoyed at copy
protection schemes. If they were unbreakable, I could understand their use,
but, so far as I know, not a single program has been released on the Amiga
which has copy protection which can't be broken by programs already on the
market. I don't distribute copies, but I sure as *&^%$ want to be able to
make an archive copy. I *never* use originals. –>Steve Bennett
Hear, Hear! While I am very careful not to give copies away of commercial
software (and am as careful not to accept such, which has confused some
friends who do not feel the way I do…) I *do* get annoyed at copy
protection schemes. If they were unbreakable, I could understand their use,
but, so far as I know, not a single program has been released on the Amiga
which has copy protection which can't be broken by programs already on the
market. I don't distribute copies, but I sure as *&^%$ want to be able to
make an archive copy. I *never* use originals. –>Steve Bennett
As a person involved in computer retailing (I'm Manager of Customer Support
at ComputerLand in Rockville, MD), and IBM and Amiga owner, and a sysop of a
bulletin board that harbors many computer users, I have a good feel for the
attitudes of many bunches of "generic" computer users.
The teenage Apple user is your biggest concern: his parents bought him this
machine and his friend showed him all sorts of neat games. Are his parents
gonna shell out more money on this stuff? The Apple has too big of an
installed base to fix this problem. Here you need to maintain cost levels
and improve packaging, the way Infocom has. I like EA's packaging, it is
very friendly and colorful, but NOT necessary. Infocom manuals are filled
with entertaining reading and sidebars, much like Beagle Bros. utilities
which most Apple owners BUY just to have the hilarious manuals (I don't even
have an Apple, but I own 9 Beagle Bros. programs that I bought when I used an
Apple at school. I still take the manuals out to read. My favorite line:
"Cassette User's Tip of the Week: Buy a Disk Drive"). Make the buyer WANT
and NEED the manual. Make the manuals longer, with humorous and helpful
information that is good reading.
Not knowing many Commodore 64 owners, I can't categorize them as well, except
to say is that they were cheap in the first place, and correcting this
deficiency is hard if not impossible. Beyond what I recommended above, lower
pricing might help. Same with Atari.
One final note: GIVE UP COPY-PROTECTION! It doesn't work, it only makes the
user feel spited, that you don't trust him to make moral decisions, which you
don't, so he copies the program to say 'nyah!' to you. No copy-protection
says, 'Hey, you're human, and hopefully you'll see the effort put into this
product and protect our investment'. You're also making his or her life
easier by allowing an easy archival, plus then he could run the program from
the hard disk and not have to have originals lying about. Or he could format
a disk and put three or four programs and write his own menu so one disk
I am not unsympathetic with software-authors plight vis-a-vis piracy but find
copy-protection frustrating when trying to make my own back-ups. I have a
nephew with an Apple ][ that is the kind of kid EA complains about. He has a
whole box of pirate disks, but no documents, and half won't run. Is he really
harming anybody? He is not copying instead of buying–he wouldn't be buying
all those programs no matter what. A devils advocate might eargue that he
might get interested enuf in a pirate version to but the real thing! How much
do software firms lose to teenagers like this, and how much do they lose to big
firms with multiple copies of expensive programs? Software firms need to
balance this kind of "loss" (a sale that probably wouldn be made anyway)
against the ill-will that is obviously generated by copyprotection. I realize
this horse has been beat to death, but honest buyers are being penalized.
Yes, but those kids who just collect become sources for people who WOULD have
otherwise bought programs. Also, they sell the parameters for their cracks to
people like Central Point Software. Then, any idiot can buy the latest rev of
Copy II Plus and start distributing free copies of our software. Those kids do
hurt, if only indirectly.
Jeff J. – EA
You guys have got to realize one thing (at least about large corporations
pirating software,) is that we need documentation, too, in general, and
sometimes it's just cheaper buy a bunch of copies of the software. That way
we have manuals and other documentation that everybody has near them. It
makes things a lot more efficient that way. Yeah, it's true that Joe in the
next office might just take a copy of my software (not that I would actually
*GIVE* a copy to someone………) but at least Joe can run 'next door' to
get the manual if me needs it. But what if I need it in the mean time? We
lose efficiency. I'd just rather buy more copies.
Now, if you're talking games that don't even require someone with a brain,
much less a manual, I don't really know what the answer is. Do you price
your sofware a little higher to cover your losses? That, to me, seems only
more inviting to people pirating software. Do you lower, so people (there
was a 'price it' missing before the 'lower') will say "AHHH, I'll just order
the thing, but I'll use Joe's pirated copy until I get mine."? Do you make
your software a 'little' more difficult to use, just enough to the person
*NEEDS* a manual there? Yeah, he *CAN* copy one if need be, but it's a royal
P.I.T.A. to do with the off-sized manuals that seem to be the rage now
adays…
You guys have got to realize one thing (at least about large corporations
pirating software,) is that we need documentation, too, in general, and
sometimes it's just cheaper buy a bunch of copies of the software. That way
we have manuals and other documentation that everybody has near them. It
makes things a lot more efficient that way. Yeah, it's true that Joe in the
next office might just take a copy of my software (not that I would actually
*GIVE* a copy to someone………) but at least Joe can run 'next door' to
get the manual if me needs it. But what if I need it in the mean time? We
lose efficiency. I'd just rather buy more copies.
Now, if you're talking games that don't even require someone with a brain,
much less a manual, I don't really know what the answer is. Do you price
your sofware a little higher to cover your losses? That, to me, seems only
more inviting to people pirating software. Do you lower, so people (there
was a 'price it' missing before the 'lower') will say "AHHH, I'll just order
the thing, but I'll use Joe's pirated copy until I get mine."? Do you make
your software a 'little' more difficult to use, just enough to the person
*NEEDS* a manual there? Yeah, he *CAN* copy one if need be, but it's a royal
P.I.T.A. to do with the off-sized manuals that seem to be the rage now
adays…
Yes, but those kids who just collect become sources for people who WOULD have
otherwise bought programs. Also, they sell the parameters for their cracks to
people like Central Point Software. Then, any idiot can buy the latest rev of
Copy II Plus and start distributing free copies of our software. Those kids do
hurt, if only indirectly.
Jeff J. – EA
I am not unsympathetic with software-authors plight vis-a-vis piracy but find
copy-protection frustrating when trying to make my own back-ups. I have a
nephew with an Apple ][ that is the kind of kid EA complains about. He has a
whole box of pirate disks, but no documents, and half won't run. Is he really
harming anybody? He is not copying instead of buying–he wouldn't be buying
all those programs no matter what. A devils advocate might eargue that he
might get interested enuf in a pirate version to but the real thing! How much
do software firms lose to teenagers like this, and how much do they lose to big
firms with multiple copies of expensive programs? Software firms need to
balance this kind of "loss" (a sale that probably wouldn be made anyway)
against the ill-will that is obviously generated by copyprotection. I realize
this horse has been beat to death, but honest buyers are being penalized.
Actually… My qualms about pirating come from the fact that I am a developer
myself, and I know that *I* wouldn't like it if one of my programs which I
intended to market was being passed around all over the place.
Unfortunately, most of the public has no such incentive. Pirating (and here
I'm not referring to mass pirating, but the daily little stuff of passing
things to friends, which probably hurts more) is not considered socially
unacceptable yet, and I am truthfully at a loss for any idea as to how to
make it so. Making it illegal has never been a good enough deterrent. The
people have to believe its a baaaad thing to do. –>Steve Bennett
You hit the nail on the head. Casual copying of software, just like taping
cassettes of albums for friends, is what REALLY hurts. Nobody who does it
seems to realize that it IS stealing. How do we let them know??
Jeff J. – EA
Not that this hasn't been touched on before, but you don't need to make it
difficult to steal your software…just impractical. Do you catch the
difference? And you need to quit pissing off the Honest majority. If these
are your goals, then I have a few suggestions. If instead, you want to make
copying impossible, your framing the problem wrong. This is just an example.
If I'm in a corproate enviroment, then copying software is a snap. BECAUSE
(with Lotus as a example) I would have access to a real manual. BUT if I'm an
individual user, NOWAY can I afford to have the documentation copied. Why do
you think that BORLAND has so little problem with piracy? Because you want or
need the Doc's, and the stuff is so damn affordable anyway. The biggest
reason I don't copy software is that I write it. The second biggest reason is
that for most things, it would be impractical anyway (moral stance aside).
God I hate CP discussions. BTW I appreciate the support that EA has given the
Amiga.
Not that this hasn't been touched on before, but you don't need to make it
difficult to steal your software…just impractical. Do you catch the
difference? And you need to quit pissing off the Honest majority. If these
are your goals, then I have a few suggestions. If instead, you want to make
copying impossible, your framing the problem wrong. This is just an example.
If I'm in a corproate enviroment, then copying software is a snap. BECAUSE
(with Lotus as a example) I would have access to a real manual. BUT if I'm an
individual user, NOWAY can I afford to have the documentation copied. Why do
you think that BORLAND has so little problem with piracy? Because you want or
need the Doc's, and the stuff is so damn affordable anyway. The biggest
reason I don't copy software is that I write it. The second biggest reason is
that for most things, it would be impractical anyway (moral stance aside).
God I hate CP discussions. BTW I appreciate the support that EA has given the
Amiga.
You hit the nail on the head. Casual copying of software, just like taping
cassettes of albums for friends, is what REALLY hurts. Nobody who does it
seems to realize that it IS stealing. How do we let them know??
Jeff J. – EA
Actually… My qualms about pirating come from the fact that I am a developer
myself, and I know that *I* wouldn't like it if one of my programs which I
intended to market was being passed around all over the place.
Unfortunately, most of the public has no such incentive. Pirating (and here
I'm not referring to mass pirating, but the daily little stuff of passing
things to friends, which probably hurts more) is not considered socially
unacceptable yet, and I am truthfully at a loss for any idea as to how to
make it so. Making it illegal has never been a good enough deterrent. The
people have to believe its a baaaad thing to do. –>Steve Bennett
EA: I work for a company that marketed a very popular line of C-64 products,
while that market lasted. I think that market collapsed because people
started pirating software, as soon as they opened their machines at Christmas
time, and a neighborhood pirate came over with a copy program. I went to a
local C64 user group meeting, and many of the people there were discussing
pirating software. I even overheard people discussing pirating my company's
programs, and selling them for $5 a crack – really petty stuff.
.
I think the arguments that copy-protection wastes programming time are true.
I did alot of the work copy-protecting our IBM MIDI software, with a dongle.
It took a lot of time and software work, but the product is very effectively
protected. I don't think it can be cracked.
.
If you guys REALLY want to protect your software, then do it right. Don't
dink around with software methods, because you'll always be one step behind
the nibble copiers. I blew my Deluxe Paint disk by accidentally writing to
it, so now you want me to give you another $20 for a real, unprotected copy?
.
Get hardware dongles, and ignore all the user flack, and you'll probably lose
money and sales, but you won't get pirated. Otherwise, don't bother with
protection, educate people against piracy with a 5-cent flyer inside your
product, enhance the value of the software with a good, necessary manual,
like Infocom, and consider the pirated software a loss-leader.
We ARE starting to put items in our packages that will be needed for play, and
we will be improving our manuals to make the whole package more valuable to
users.
Dongles, on the other hand, are too expensive when we are trying to
lower the prices of game software.
Jeff J. – EA
We ARE starting to put items in our packages that will be needed for play, and
we will be improving our manuals to make the whole package more valuable to
users.
Dongles, on the other hand, are too expensive when we are trying to
lower the prices of game software.
Jeff J. – EA
I certainly can copy your product: I use Central Point's COPY II PC OPTION
BOARD and can copy anything as much as I want.
Why double the size of your code and development time to stifle pirates for a
week or two? Be honest to your audience, morality is dictated by us all and
the few bad apples [no pun intended] can be weeded out. Chris
Last I heard, the option board didn't come with a matter duplicator with
which to copy the dongle. I'm sure John's program could be cracked so as to
skip the dongle test, but the option board won't do that… – Bela
Last I heard, the option board didn't come with a matter duplicator with
which to copy the dongle. I'm sure John's program could be cracked so as to
skip the dongle test, but the option board won't do that… – Bela
I certainly can copy your product: I use Central Point's COPY II PC OPTION
BOARD and can copy anything as much as I want.
Why double the size of your code and development time to stifle pirates for a
week or two? Be honest to your audience, morality is dictated by us all and
the few bad apples [no pun intended] can be weeded out. Chris
John, and others,
I can vouch for the Piracy hurting the author. A couple of friends wrote a
program for John's company, and they are now programming great stuff, BUT not
for the consumers anymore, they are doing _custom_ programming.
What a loss to the consumer software world, they were great.
Bri
John, and others,
I can vouch for the Piracy hurting the author. A couple of friends wrote a
program for John's company, and they are now programming great stuff, BUT not
for the consumers anymore, they are doing _custom_ programming.
What a loss to the consumer software world, they were great.
Bri
You can't even protect from hardware schemes. A long time ago I designed and
built a ROM emulator for the original Atari game system. We just plugged
into the cartridge slot with a ribbon cable to a board with one chip and a
ZIF socket on it to contain an EPROM. Then everybody in the 'club' just
copyied each others ROMs to their own EPROMs and away we went. I've never
even owned an Atari! A friend of mine found one in pieces on his front lawn
and we fixed it. Then the subject came up and I said 'Gee, that'll be a
snap!' and we built it.
I'm just trying to emphasize, hardware-wize they'll build something -most of
the time it'll be CHEAP and EASY. Software-wize it's a snap. The Digital
PROfessional series has a serial number in hardware, there is a system call
to get the serial number. Most protected software uses this system call to
double check if it's running on the right machine. I simply patched the
get-serial-number system call to return a 'company-wide' standard serial
number. This only makes things easier for us internally -we produce
'copy-protected' software for the PRO, but we can use the same copy of
software on any machine. Nobody *EVER* does it with outside software
tho…….
You can't even protect from hardware schemes. A long time ago I designed and
built a ROM emulator for the original Atari game system. We just plugged
into the cartridge slot with a ribbon cable to a board with one chip and a
ZIF socket on it to contain an EPROM. Then everybody in the 'club' just
copyied each others ROMs to their own EPROMs and away we went. I've never
even owned an Atari! A friend of mine found one in pieces on his front lawn
and we fixed it. Then the subject came up and I said 'Gee, that'll be a
snap!' and we built it.
I'm just trying to emphasize, hardware-wize they'll build something -most of
the time it'll be CHEAP and EASY. Software-wize it's a snap. The Digital
PROfessional series has a serial number in hardware, there is a system call
to get the serial number. Most protected software uses this system call to
double check if it's running on the right machine. I simply patched the
get-serial-number system call to return a 'company-wide' standard serial
number. This only makes things easier for us internally -we produce
'copy-protected' software for the PRO, but we can use the same copy of
software on any machine. Nobody *EVER* does it with outside software
tho…….
dongles suck. i can't imagine why i'd want to be not only swapping disks
around as well as plugging and unpluggin things from various ports on my
machine constantly. also, dongles are pretty easy to figure out. sure,
they're probably beyond the range of the 14 year olds, but how many of those
types own amigas, anyway? i actually enjoy figuring dongles out. classic
black box problem! –Scotty
I agree, dongles suck. You realize I didn't like the idea of dongles for our
product, a MIDI music system for the IBM, called Ensemble. It was a management
decision, not mine. The program requires a MPU-401 card for MIDI, and our
dongle is a pass-through type, so it doesn't fall under the usual "what will I
do with N dongles, and N-1 ports" argument. We did have trouble with them,
much more than they were worth, I believe. The garage-shop that made them set
the whole thing in epoxy, and the first run was ruined because the goop ran
through the back of the DB-25, and filled the pins. And that was only the
beginning… Then the dongle was too heavy, and fell off the connector. Then
the contact would break, and blow a $200 card. Nasty!
I agree, dongles suck. You realize I didn't like the idea of dongles for our
product, a MIDI music system for the IBM, called Ensemble. It was a management
decision, not mine. The program requires a MPU-401 card for MIDI, and our
dongle is a pass-through type, so it doesn't fall under the usual "what will I
do with N dongles, and N-1 ports" argument. We did have trouble with them,
much more than they were worth, I believe. The garage-shop that made them set
the whole thing in epoxy, and the first run was ruined because the goop ran
through the back of the DB-25, and filled the pins. And that was only the
beginning… Then the dongle was too heavy, and fell off the connector. Then
the contact would break, and blow a $200 card. Nasty!
dongles suck. i can't imagine why i'd want to be not only swapping disks
around as well as plugging and unpluggin things from various ports on my
machine constantly. also, dongles are pretty easy to figure out. sure,
they're probably beyond the range of the 14 year olds, but how many of those
types own amigas, anyway? i actually enjoy figuring dongles out. classic
black box problem! –Scotty
EA: I work for a company that marketed a very popular line of C-64 products,
while that market lasted. I think that market collapsed because people
started pirating software, as soon as they opened their machines at Christmas
time, and a neighborhood pirate came over with a copy program. I went to a
local C64 user group meeting, and many of the people there were discussing
pirating software. I even overheard people discussing pirating my company's
programs, and selling them for $5 a crack – really petty stuff.
.
I think the arguments that copy-protection wastes programming time are true.
I did alot of the work copy-protecting our IBM MIDI software, with a dongle.
It took a lot of time and software work, but the product is very effectively
protected. I don't think it can be cracked.
.
If you guys REALLY want to protect your software, then do it right. Don't
dink around with software methods, because you'll always be one step behind
the nibble copiers. I blew my Deluxe Paint disk by accidentally writing to
it, so now you want me to give you another $20 for a real, unprotected copy?
.
Get hardware dongles, and ignore all the user flack, and you'll probably lose
money and sales, but you won't get pirated. Otherwise, don't bother with
protection, educate people against piracy with a 5-cent flyer inside your
product, enhance the value of the software with a good, necessary manual,
like Infocom, and consider the pirated software a loss-leader.