CompuServe Thread

Although I'm not representing the views of COMPUTE! Publications here, I'd like to offer a simple suggestion for copy-non protection. The disk is locked with a simple password. If you can type in the password, you can copy the disk. This password is imbedded within the user manual, and could simply be the serial number of the program. (This serial number can also be used to track down how programs are pirated.) It would seem obvious that the protection could simply be broken by writing down the password as you pass the disk along to your friend. And of course the friend can memorize this. But the real problem with piracy is not individuals breaking programs, but with a single program pyramiding outward from the first successfull illegal copy. Once a program's protection is broken, even only by an individual, this program is given to a friend, who gives it to two friends, and so on. Curiously though, it's much more difficult to copy a program's documentation. Textbooks are still effectively copy-protected simply due to the daunting task of "backing them up" on a copy machine. Only some teachers, usually within their rights, bother to copy hundreds of pages. And copy stores, capable of running off 200 copies in an hour, claim to strictly enforce copyrights. You need to sign a legal waiver to get a copyrighted document duplicated at these honest places. Anyway, given that the manual probably won't be copied along the chain of piracy, and most pirated copies of software will be completely without documentation, it's likely that most of these people will be without the password. The software won't run without the password. Even if individual users try to remember or write down the password, the chain of piracy will quickly be broken. As with chain letters, it only takes a few people to break the network. If someone loses the scrap of paper containing a long meaningless alphanumeric password (to simply discourage memorization), the piracy stops there. None of his friends and their friends, and so on, will have the password either. The beauty of this is that few people can even hold